day trip possible for both ronda and gibraltar??

We did Gibraltar as a daytrip while sleeping IN Ronda, and it took all day to do less than everything in Gibraltar. In particular, the excellent roads to Gibraltar were slowed down my hordes of tractor trailers (and no 6-lane per direction Interstates like Los Angles to pass the trucks.

This is very personal, but Gibraltar was a bit of a let-down. The angry, tired apes, the heat, the touristy atmosphere, just didn't add up to anything like a "Rick Steves experience." An evening in Ronda with a pricey dinner with a cliffside view was much more rewarding.

You need to do a lot more car research for Spain, it seems, separate from this specific excursion. And to evaluate which of your itinerary points are better with a car, and which are better without. I don't know if you see the connection, but we did an enroute stop at Arcos on the way from Seville to Ronda. That was a good 1-2 hours stop. Gibraltar is not a 1-2 hour stop. There's immigration, there are lines, and there are distances to walk.

You are traveling with 7 kids? They will probably LOVE the Rock of Gibraltar starting with the cable car up and then exploring all the way down to the bottom (or taking the cable car back down). Watch out for the Barbary macaques. If you haven't seen RS in Gibraltar, watch that snippet especially the part in which he is on the rock. The macaques mean business. Any more questions, feel free to PM me.

It is common that a car rented in one city and returned to another city, all in the same country (in this case Spain) have little or no surcharge for this, compared to returning to the same city. If you rent in one country and return in another (say, Spain to Portugal), there is a surcharge, which can be hundreds of euros.

Gibraltar for me is a bit meh. It has it's interesting parts but equally it has a strange, incestuous vibe about it (I know some ex Gibraltarian police officers and my feelings aren't entirely unjustified). There is no doubt that the children will enjoy the Barbary macaques however whilst reasonably tame they are still wild animals and need to be treated with caution.

I would vote hands down on every occasion to skip Gibraltar and spend more time in Ronda however I acknowledge that for many kids it holds little interest. My eldest, 13 now, loves the place but he's very interested in history and loves old towns. My youngest, 11, is the complete opposite, he finds it incredibly boring (unless he's having churros and chocolate) and would pick Gibraltar over Ronda every time.

Ronda can be seen in a morning if all you want to do is whizz around and take in a brief glimpse. The wow factor can definitely be achieved in this timeframe which will enable you to continue on to Gibraltar, ascend the rock and be done. Your only stumbling block will be the lines of traffic trying to cross into Gibraltar. We've always parked on the Spanish side and crossed the border on foot.

It's not quite clear how the days map out here, how many total nights in Granada? What is your next stop after that? I think doing both Ronda and Gibraltar in one day as a day trip is too much. Look at the driving times on rome2rio. Granada to Ronda to Gibraltar is four hours one way. My wife and I visited Gibraltar on our honeymoon cruise in 1999, and made it a point to visit there again when we were in Ronda as part of our 2005 Spain trip. I find Gibraltar to be a very unique and worthwhile stop. You need to park on the Spain side and walk across the border to be most efficient. Be careful what kind of ticket you buy for the sights on the rock though, it takes time to visit the sights on the rock and you don't want to pay for more than you will visit. Ronda is also a great stop. Bear in mind as a day trip from Granada even that is five hours of driving round trip.

THANK YOU so much everyone for your great insights! We are going to modify our plans - it seems this plan will have us driving all day with very little actual visiting. I'm glad I double checked here before setting our plans in stone!

Even just going to Ronda is a very long day trip. Enjoy.

Vftravels - When I lived in Spain in the late 1970s, you couldn’t get to Gibraltar from Spain; you had to go to Morocco then take a ferry. At that time Spain and the UK were at odds and the Spanish closed the border.

Now you know that you would not usually have to return the car(s) to Granada, you probably want to plan a more linear route, not a roundtrip.