4 weeks in Spain

Algeria is Almería,I believe?

I've been to almost all the places you're going several times and would think you'll want more time in Madrid and Barcelona especially. For my taste, I'd drop Peniscola and Murcia. I think those 4 nights would be way better in the bigger cities with so much to see. You also might consider adding 1 day to Seville, 1 to Madrid and 2 to Barcelona, depending on what your priorities are.

Either way you decide, don't worry too much. You're going to have a wonderful time anywhere in Spain!!

Your list above shows 24 nights. On 11 of those days, almost half, you'll be moving between locations -- packing, checking out, driving, checking in, unpacking. That will eat up a lot of your time and energy, though you'll also enjoy a lot of scenery between destinations. I don't recall your previous threads but I expect you got input like this already from other posters. You'll have to decide whether it's worth trying to change reservations and plans now or just go ahead as planned. At this point it may be easier to just go ahead, or wait to decide some things until you're on the ground and can see how the trip is going. This is one reason it's usually worth paying a little more for reservations that can be cancelled without penalty.

The time you arrive at a location is, to me, a determining factor as to whether you have the correct amount of time and that’s difficult to predict. For me, a couple hours in Murcia city was sufficient. We didn’t spend any nights there. In Almería we enjoyed its Alcázar. Two nights seems fine. You could use another night in Zaragoza while cutting one from both Valencia and Malaga.

I do like that you will have a car so you can stop and see things en route if you want. Also, that you seem to kept daily driving time to 3 hours or less. How I would travel around Span isn’t the same as others would. At this point I’d stop second guessing the itinerary and go with what you have. There must be reasons you chose the places you chose for the amount of time you did.

On our 25 days Spain trip last year we stayed in 11 different locations, so not much different than you. The main differences were we pretty much stayed in all small towns and took lots of day trips to even smaller villages, gorges, valleys, etc., and we stayed in a smaller area of the country.

To me this seems like a Frankenstein of two different itineraries, one focused on the big blockbuster cities where a train is better suited and one focused on smaller towns where a car is better suited, both are logistically opposed to each other. Have you considered just bypassing the big cities and only focus on smaller towns/cities? That way your car does not become a liability? You could do something like this:

fly in
Barcelona (3 nights)
|
Zaragoza (2 nights)
|
Toledo (2 nights)
|
Cáceres‎ (3 nights)
|
Cádiz (2 nights)
|
Córdoba (2 nights)
|
Granada (3 nights)
|
Cartagena (2 nights)
|
Peñíscola (2 nights)
|
Tarragona (2 nights)
|
Barcelona (1 night)
fly out

Remember give yourself plenty of time to make each drive in case you want to stop and explore along the way, honestly the best reason to have a car. You don't want your holiday to end up like the Dakar Rally lol!

Personally it's a lot of moving around for my taste, I can't imagine spending less than three nights in a single location, but perhaps that's normal for Americans on holiday.

I strongly agree with editing this itinerary and slowing things down.

Also, driving the large loop would be inefficient on time and more expensive than taking trains for most of it. Driving in Europe is expensive (and can be stressful!). Gas, tolls—the parking alone for days you won't even be using the car—it adds up fast!

I think you don’t realize that 2 nights realistically gives you one full day, and perhaps 1/2 day when you arrive for a total of 1.5 days in that location. Not enough for many of your destinations. I really don’t like your itinerary; I don’t mean to be rude. But you have 12 destinations, and the majority of them are 1 and 2 night stays.

I would spend a minimum of 4 nights in Seville, 4 nights in Madrid, and 4 or 5 nights in Barcelona.
I would also include 1 or 2 nights in Cordoba. We love Malaga; it’s a wonderful city and will give you some coastal ambience.

Perhaps delete Peniscola, Zaragoza, Murcia and Almeria.

I don't like a series of 2-night stops and try hard not to stay anywhere for less than 4 nights. However, there are places that really don't require more than 2 nights if you aren't taking side trips, and I suspect you won't feel rushed in Almeria, Murcia and Peniscola. (I haven't been to any of those cities, and that's because my research didn't turn up strong reasons to go.)

This doesn't look like a first trip to Spain--is it a revisit? I cannot imagine allotting 3 nights to Malaga and Valencia (though both are attractive cities and worth visiting) and only 2 nights to Barcelona, Madrid and Seville--three cities calling for a minimum of 4 nights in my view. I also note the omission of Toledo and Cordoba--among Spain's top destinations.

I don't understand why you're planning to travel by car to this list of cities. I don't know about Peniscola--the car might be helpful to get there (though there must surely be buses), but otherwise the car simply serves to get you from Valencia to Granada without having to travel through Madrid (the usual rail routing) and from Malaga to Cadiz without going through Cordoba. All your other travel legs are duplicating rail lines, nearly all of them with trains running at speeds much, much faster than you can drive. Just one example: There are many trains every day making the trip between Seville and Madrid in about 2-1/2 hours. ViaMichelin.com estimates the driving time for the fastest route at 5 hr. 19 min., and that includes no stops (you'll need a meal, won't you--whereas you can eat on the train if you want to), navigational errors, traffic delays, etc.

Parking is going to be a big irritation and a very significant cost. You'd have a less tiring trip (and probably a cheaper one) if you only used a car where you didn't have fabulous trains as an option.

Your proposed itinerary provides maximum opportunity to create memories, for better or worse, of travel. To create the maximum opportunity to create wonderful travel memories I suggest the following:
"Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the moment last...."
Having driven throughout Spain I suggest using https://www.viamichelin.com to plot your proposed travel to gain an understanding of how much time you will spend getting from point to point. Be sure and add fueling time, parking searches, lost in transit time (GPS sucks for small narrow streets) and consider the stress all these events create. I am speaking from experience.

Hi from Wisconsin,

Decades ago Mrs. Scott, who ran a B&B in Ramelton in far Northern Ireland, refused to let us move on after spending only one night with her. She was old and spittle would slide out the side of her mouth as she ate or talked. She put her foot down and said that the soporific air of NI needed to be savored. We stayed on second night and a third, we had the best time of that trip. We met Tommy, the young doctor, Paul the Pharmacist, and David who owned the restaurant. Paul kept encouraging us to vote in the local election, saying, "surely we can find a name you could use."

The point is slow down, you won't regret it. Think of two nights as this: you arrive in the afternoon, check in, find a place to eat and do a quick walk around and go to bed, Then the only full day you have you tour like crazy, passing places of interest because you don't have time to tarry. Then the next morning you eat breakfast and get up and head for the train/road/flight. That is what is called a two day stay, some people count it as three(!).

Three nights in a place will give you more energy to do what you want. You will feel more comfortable eating that gelato or sipping a cup of coffee. Oh, and in Spain...the WINE and a siesta so yo can eat supper at 8PM like a local.

I see you don't have Cordoba in your list. Well, it is a great location, small enough to make it feel like your second home by the third day. I don't know what you cut, everyone is different. Here is a thought. You arrive i Barcelona. Spend two night there. Get your jetlag partially under control, it will come back and hit about day 8, be ready for that day, you and your traveling companions will be ornery. Then at the end of your trip spend a couple days in...Barcelona. It is amazing how much you will enjoy your second 'trip' to a city.

Madrid is a big city with a very large old center. So many different neighborhoods, each unique. 2 days, definitely not enough.

I think you miss the north of Spain. You cant't do it all in one trip. It is very different than the more arid south.

wayneiNWI

More time in Barcelona, Seville and Madrid. Also do a day trip to Segovia.

In 2 weeks in march 2022, I spent 4 nights in Seville, 2 nights in Granada, 2 in Cordoba- that included a trip to Almodovar del Rio, 5 in Madrid- that included a day trip to Toledo. With more time I could have gone to:

Nerja and seen the ancient structures that might suspiciously resemble some structures or tombs at Mycenae in Greece,

Caves in northern Spain, if they are open to visitors, that have ancient drawings of hands or animals on the walls,

Possibly Magala,

Segovia, Ávila, and/or another town(s) in the Madrid area.

Possibly another place I don't know of that has an appealing museum or well preserved castle.

I guess if you don't like museums and if you don't care to see a lot of popular monuments, 2 nights in each of Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville can work. I could have occupied myself with an extra day in Seville and 1 to 2 or more extra days in Madrid.

If it were my trip and I had 4 weeks, maybe I would plan:
Seville - 5 nights
granada - 2 nights
Cordoba 2
Nerja 1 night or day trip
Barcelona??? Up to 5 nights
Toledo 1 night
Madrid - up to 7 nights including up to 2 day trips not including toledo as a day trip
3 nights in Malaga?
And/or possibly another location you listed.

Consider limiting the number of places you stay to 7 to 10 and writing a detailed day-by-day itinerary listing the museums and castles and sights you plan to see on each day.

We would be interested in a report on how your trip works out.

I would skip Peñíscola; you could stop there for lunch between Tarragona & Valencia and that would be enough time.
Those two nights could be spend in Barcelona.

Then, I would skip Murcia & Almeria; I would spend 2 nights in Cartagena instead, or perhaps just spend the night at Parador de Lorca to break the drive.
You save another 2 nights (or 3): they could be spend in Seville.

Seville is where I would return the car. It is useless in Seville, and taking the train to Madrid is faster. Then, I would spend 3 nights in Madrid and take the train to Barcelona, skipping Zaragoza.

So, in a nutshell:

• Tarragona 2n
• Valencia 3n
• Cartagena 2n
• Granada 2n
• Malaga 3n
• Cadiz 1n
• Seville 4n
• Madrid 3n
• Barcelona 4n

wayner, great travel story...

I agree with everyone here... Fewer places, longer stays make the trip fun.

We took the family to Costa Rica for six weeks once for Spanish immersion classes. Every day we traveled to the city center via bus from our hosts' home.

On the daily bus ride, I struck up a friendship with a guy and we stumbled through conversations with each other every day.

Our kids were 6, 8, and 10. Our daughter - the eight year-old - slipped getting on the bus at the downtown stop early in the trip and skinned her shin pretty badly. The gent who helped people board patched her up, and every day after that had push-up popsicles for our three kids.

And on a slow ferry boat jopurney we met a chap from the Canadian embassy whose job was to help Costa Rica implement an address system for their mail. We wound up enjoying an evening with his family at their home and learning more about Costa Rica -- and about Canada.

As Rick Steves suggests, you can't see everything, so expect you'll return. And if you don't return, you will have experienced a lot more of the country anyway.