It is our first visit to Spain, and we want to cover most of the country in ten days. We were trying to outline this plan. Please let me know if we should skip the Canary Islands (Tenerife) or elsewhere. We are a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) and we like nature and sightseeing. Less of city explorers hence kept Madrid to a very minimum.
Day1: Reach Madrid
Day 2: Madrid - Toledo - Seville (Drive)
Day 3: Seville - Ronda - Marbella (Drive)
Day 4: Marbella - Malaga - Nerja (Drive)
Day 5: Nerja - Granada (drive) and fly out to Tenerife from Granda (night)
Day 6: Tenerife
Day 7: Tenerife and fly out to Barcelona
Day 8: Barcelona
Day 9: Barcelona - Costa Brava
Day 10: Barcelona - Madrid (fly) and flight to NYC
we want to cover most of the country in ten days.
You can't.
This isn't a good idea. You're going to spend so much time driving, attempting to park your car, parking car, getting back to your car, flying within Spain, getting the airport, getting back to the airport during this 10 days, you're not leaving yourself anytime to do anything. You're also mostly going to cities when you said you don't like cities.
If you like nature and the beach, do something like:
Fly into Madrid, connect to Santander or Oviedo/Asturias, rent a car, see the Picos de Europa, see the Altamira cave, get a flight to Valencia or Alicante or Malaga, stay there the rest of the trip on the beach, high speed train back to Madrid to fly out. Boom.
Your proposed itinerary is just terrible. Exhausting and time wasteful.
Trying to do too much in too little time.
Slow down. Enjoy life.
Madrid and Sevilla in 10 days would be fine.
I would take the train to/from Sevilla. Rent the car in Sevilla to tour the surrounding countryside.
You need a minimum of three nights in Madrid to appreciate it. Since you don’t like cities go to Toledo on arrival day and sleep there for two nights instead of one. Arrival day is about settling in not sight-seeing. Rent a car on day three when you drive to Seville.
Seville deserves two nights if not more. When you hurry to see it all you must be organized and it’s even harder with a car because it takes time to park, etc.
Why Costa del Sol in Nov? When you visit a place during the rainy season you want to be indoors not outdoors. Pack raincoats with hoods.
Granada also needs two nights. This itinerary is such a whirlwind your kids will not be able absorb it. I know this from experience because it sounds like my trip to Andalucia where I wanted to see it all in a short time. I missed a lot and so will you. My sister who travelled with me still has no idea what city she was in when visiting the Sacromonte district (Granada), etc. Vacations should be educational and when you speed through at a record pace you don’t get to savor the cuisine, its culture and chat with the locals. These experiences are the reason we return. Unless this is a “been there, done that, bought the T-shirt” vacation you will accomplish that with this itinerary. You will have very little to say about each place visited other than "yes, I went there".
Good luck.
Way too much time spent getting to and from places and not enough time seeing the places.
Others have stated the obvious, this is a VERY, VERY poor itinerary,
You are not staying anywhere long enough to see much.
Example, you plan to Drive from Madrid to Toledo then to Seville on Day 2.
Previously, you had arrived in Madrid, probably after a long flight, not going to see much in an afternoon. It is about a one hour drive to Toledo, if you are lucky, then you have to find parking (good luck with that, there is little in the city). Then to see the city you need at least 4-5 hours. That is a minimum. Then you would need four hours just to drive to Cordoba, then probably another three to Seville.
Consider narrowing your plan for ten days to three places. I recommend Madrid, Toledo and Seville, with a possible day stop in Cordoba on your way to Seville.
Here is an example of what some visitors did.
Thanks all for your feedback. A little overly critical :D. But we as a family do a lot of driving (e.g. covered New Zealand in 9 days) and take no time to rest :D We just want to make most of the little time we get off from work (which is very little, unfortunately). Yet wish to see the world.
I wanted to get an understanding if Canary was doable, but we decided to skip that and gain 2 days more in Southern Spain.