Continued thread: 15 day itinerary - suggestions/feedback please

You can do the trip with a combination of train and rental car. The white hill towns are one of the highlights of Andalusia, why leave them out. Just do Arcos and Jerez de la Frontera. You can actually take a bus from Seville to Arcos so driving a rental car is not the only way to go. Taking the train from Seville to Jerez is an hour. Both towns will be good day trips from Seville. So add the days you were planning to do overnights in those hill towns to Seville and do day trips from Seville to these towns. In Madrid, instead of going to Segovia , go to Toledo instead.

Without a car I would not want to day-trip from Seville to Arcos. I think you'd have to travel by way of Jerez, making the trip about 2-1/2 hours each way.

Segovia is doable as a day-trip from Madrid.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes - I also have been thinking that the White Hill Towns will be a different experience and not to be missed - so I will keep those. I have now decided the I will remove half a day from Barcelona and adding that to Seville. If I really feel I need to see Barcelona more - I will do a future trip in a few years with some northern Spain (and maybe southern France).

I checked with my friend with similar interests of outdoor photography (and kids who do not dig indoor museums) - and he had done a very similar itinerary to mine. I think a lot of people here have found my itinerary very aggressive - but that is because they have little a different type of interests than me (they want to do a lot of interiors of museums).

Also the way I showed my detailed itinerary gave people a lot of stress. So I will show my new itinerary slightly different here (with the changes I have made):

Barcelona - 2.5 days / 3 nights (relaxed pace - not everything needs to be seen)
Seville - 2 full days / 3 nights
Cordoba - 1 full day / 1 night
White Hill Towns wandering - almost 2 full days / 2 nights
Granada: 1.5 days / 2 nights
Toledo: 1.5 days / 2 nights
Madrid: almost 3 full days

Note: these do not including the days I travel to/from Spain.

If I had done Cordoba as day trip from Seville and Toledo as a day trip from Madrid - my itinerary excluding travel times would have appeared:

Barcelona - 2.5 days
Seville - 3 full days
White Hill Towns wandering - almost 2 full days / 2 nights
Granada: 1.5 days / 2 nights
Madrid: 4.5 full days
Total Travel between towns: around 1.5 days (15 total days minus days at destinations above)

With an average of around 3 days in major cities and around 2 days each in smaller destination (Granada/White Hill towns) this looks a manageable itinerary I think. Think of splitting Cordoba, Toledo, Arcos & Ronda as separate destinations may actually be more relaxing than day trips - even if it involves a bit of packing/unpacking as it is one way travel (no backtracking). Day trips will have at least some backtracking.

To acraven's question:
For transportation: I plan to do direct train between Barcelona and Seville - which takes 5 hour 40 minutes - plus say couple hours to go to/from hotels.
I am picking up a rental car after I am done with Seville and using it till before Madrid. i.e. one week of rental car - other 8 days it is not needed (Barcelona, Seville & Madrid).
I may want to figure out slightly outside the city center hotels in Granada & Toledo. Currently I have booked in city centers for both the places - they have sent me instructions for parking at public garages.

We did a similar trip. You will really like having a car for the hill towns. It gives you much greater flexibility. Beyond Arcos and Ronda, you might consider Zahara, Sentil, and Grazelema. We picked up the car at Santa Justa station in Sevilla and returned to the train station in Granada. We did not miss having a car in Granada in Toledo. I feel it would have been an expensive hindrance.

Thanks Jules!