Dream itinerary?

I have not been to the whole northwest section so I will leave that out. I’d like to go, but can’t recommend any specifics.

Given that, I’d focus on my favorite area - Andalucia, but also a bit of Madrid and Catalonia.

Time of year - late spring to early summer, maybe mid May into June. July and August is very hot, June might be as well but I prefer warm/hot weather and pretty spring flowers.

So. 30 nights.
Fly into Madrid. 3 nights.
Toledo and/or Segovia. 3 nights. Base in one and day trip or do a one night.

Seville. 5 nights.
Go see some hill towns, maybe sleep in Ronda or a smaller town. Or consider Cadiz. 3 nights
To a beach. Find an area that’s a little less touristy. 2 nights, explore the inland from thr beach too.
4 nights in Granada. Day trip into the mountains for hiking or add days and stay there if you really like hiking.
You have 10 nights left. Barcelona and a seaside town north of it. Or Valencia, where I have not been.

Just off the top of my head, as a place to start dreaming

I’m going to follow this post because we are planning on visiting Spain for 3 weeks in September. I have an idea of where we want to go but I just started my research.

Mid April to Mid May or Mid Sept to Mid October; provides best opportunity for wonderful weather and fewer tourist.
Adopt the mentality of "Slow Down You Move Too Fast, You Got To Make the Moment Last".
Immediately adapt to Spanish culture of eating times and adopt the "siesta".
Late evenings are the beginning of the next day.
Siesta rests your muscles and mind.
Purchase an open jaw airfare to minimize backtracking.
Maximize searching for festivals occurring during the time of your journey. Festivals are a wonderful experience.
Start in Andalucia, end in Barcelona; you will be following the arrival of late Spring. Reverse if you are traveling in Spet/Oct.
https://english.elpais.com
Use the above link as a commencement point for additional research and continue to seek expat web sites for detailed info.
Stay a minimum of three days at each location and in an apartment. An apartment provides great value in terms of offering a kitchen (nice for starting the day with your one breakfast/coffee/tea and for taking breaks from always eating out), more space to spread out within, typically has a host invested in helping provide some local knowledge and a clothes washer. Terraces are nice, but having a bedroom facing away from the street offers a quieter environment. Our travel style has evolved to wear we stay a minimum of three days and always in apartments.
Do NOT be a luggage mule. Strive to use only one carry on and a personal bag. The issue of luggage burden comes when you are traveling from destination to destination, especially in a country where cobblestones is a common material for walking paths. Accept the following: you will need to wash clothes, you can purchase whatever you need in Spain, shopping can be fun and bringing home purchased clothes makes for a wonderful reminder of your travels. We carry a maximum of seven days of clothes, bring some attire we are willing to release and seek second hand shops to buy "new" (to us) clothes.
OK, destinations.....................I have already addressed our minimum three night preference which greatly helps peel back the layers of enjoying the journey beyond just visiting the known sites. However, I appreciate the expertise and experiences other forum posters will suggest for destinations and recommend nights to stay. So I am going to pass on suggestions of destinations while offering additional counsel. When was the last time you traveled with your partner for 30 days without a break? Be okay with allowing some "me/sanity time" independent of each other. Going from destination to destination does add travel stress (and expense) so we suggest a maximum of five different locations over 30 days. Keep in mind several normally recommended destinations (Barcelona, Madrid and Seville) serve as excellent bases to conduct day trips.

How wonderful to be able to spend 30 days in Spain! Here’s how we spent three weeks. If we had more time, we would have started in Barcelona and spent a week in that area, also. We went in October and had great weather.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/1st-time-to-spain-trip-report

Spain is a very large country with a great variety of sights (scattered all over) and architecture. Thirty days isn't as long as it sounds and isn't sufficient to get a decent look at the entire country. So you have three choices:

• Move as fast as you can, just briefly checking out each city. (You still won't have time to cover the entire country; you'll probably have to skip a large chunk of the north, and there's no hope for Extremadura or the Balearic Islands.) You'll probably leave at least Barcelona, Madrid and Seville wishing you had spent more time there. You're likely to decide you need to return to a lot of the same places, which isn't really very efficient.

• Move at a more measured pace but focus only on the major destinations, ignoring the interesting side-trips nearby. This will give you better coverage of the cities you do visit, and you'll spend less time sitting on trains and buses. But you'll be leaving scattered gaps all over the place as you hop over areas with points of interest you don't have time for.

• Accept that you will need at least two trips for decent coverage of Spain's highlights (it took me 4-1/2 months, and I skipped a lot of smaller places I wanted to see as well as the Balearic Islands). Design a 30-day trip that makes geographic/meteorological sense. Time the trip to match the part of the country you choose for the trip.

I opted for the third option for my most recent trip to Spain and have no regrets. I know that tends to be an approach people don't arrive at until they're retired, but it has the advantage of allowing you to pick a really good time of year, weather-wise, for the trip. April to mid-May is good for Andalucia--which can fill a month with no problem, or you could move faster through Andalucia and hit Madrid (which could still be cool, especially at night) at the end. Summer arrives very early in places like Seville. During the second half of May this year, Seville hit 90F or higher on nine days; there were some days in the mid to upper 80s even in the first half of May. Spring isn't a particularly good time for north central and northwestern Spain, but Barcelona should be OK.

High summer is the best time for northern Spain from the Pyrenees to Galicia. It's punishingly hot at that time of year in Andalucia, and Madrid can also be miserable. Barcelona has a more moderate climate but can get humid at times, making 85-degree summer days unpleasant.

If I had 30 days and didn't expect to be able to return to Spain soon, my priorities would be Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Toledo and Barcelona. Folks interested in art or nightlife should definitely add Madrid.

The next level, for me, would include Girona, Segovia, a day in the white villages of Andalucia, the Basque Country, Galicia, Burgos and Leon. But that adds some widely-spread-out areas and still leaves out a lot of interesting places like Zaragoza, Malaga and the Pyrenees.

Thanks for all the replies. We are going for three weeks in September-October. I've got our itinerary planned (for the most part). I'm just curious as to how the veteran travelers would spend a month. Do you have one or two favorite places that you like so much that would spend most the of the month there?

Well given 30 days I would do something like this. Fly into Madrid and head to Galicia for 6-7 nights. Then take 5-6 days along the Cantabria-Asturias coastline with a loop into the Picos. Next a deep dive into Basque country for 8-10 nites. Next head through the Pyrenees for 6-8 nights. Then Oops i think i just hit my 30 day limit... gotta figure out a way to Barcelona and home. Thanks for the daydream. This would work in the fall, or summer too wet in spring.

In the past I said that if you’ve never been to Spain and will only go there one time, you need to visit Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Sevilla, Córdoba, and Granada. Now, I’d add Barcelona, Burgos, and Santiago de Compostela to the list. I’ll also add that I no longer try to see so many disparate locations on a single trip, rather, I’ll spend three weeks in one area, e.g., Andalucía or the north coast. By spending more time in a smaller area we can see more sights that are less frequented by tourists. We tend to travel in April/May or September/October for our longer trips.

My dream itinerary may not be so typical as the usual "Best of Spain" itineraries, it strings together some of my favourite places, with my personal interests in history and gastronomy. With 30 nights, I'd start on September 21st in Barcelona to enjoy La Mercè (annual city festival) and continue traveling into October, loop back around and finish in Barcelona:

Start September 21st
Barcelona (4 nights) - La Mercè festival
|
Peñíscola (2 nights) - explore Costa del Azahar
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Valencia (3 nights)
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Cuenca (2 nights) - hike in Serrania de Cuenca National Park
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Cordoba (2 nights)
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Sevilla (4 nights) - rent car
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Mérida (2 nights)
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Cáceres‎ (3 nights) - explore Extremadura
|
Salamanca (2 nights)
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Madrid (3 nights) - drop off car
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Zaragoza (3 nights)
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Barcelona (end)

There are many, many cities and towns in Spain that I like a lot, but the only place I'd want to spend as long as 3 weeks would be Barcelona, and I'd be doing at least a few day-trips. I enjoy wandering around neighborhoods, but not at the expense of a first visit to other interesting spots. That's the hang-up I have with plunking myself down in one city for a really long time.--the opportunity cost. I've stayed as long as 14 nights in London, but it is a huge city with lots of opportunities for indulging special interests of mine (including English-language theatre, which isn't much on offer on the continent).

Such interesting responses! I'm not familiar with many of the places mentioned, which is what I was hoping for when I posed the question. Trip one has yet to happen, and I'm already getting ideas for a return trip. :-)

The minimum number of nights I would spend in each place are:
Barcelona – three nights if arriving in the morning if arriving later make it four. Do take a day trip to Figueres and tour the Dali Theatre-Museum. Take a direct train to San Sebastian…
San Sebastian – two nights. Take a direct bus to Bilbao…
Bilbao – two nights. Take a direct train to Segovia…
Segovia – two nights. Take a direct train to Madrid…
Madrid – four nights and take a day trip to Toledo (old town). Take a direct train to Granada…
Granada – two nights. Take a direct train to Sevilla…
Sevilla – two nights. Take a direct train to Cordoba…
Cordoba – two nights. Rent a car and drive to Ronda…
Ronda – two nights. Drive to Arcos de la Frontera…
Arcos de la Frontera – two nights. Drive to Tarifa…
Tarifa – two nights. Drive to Nerja…
Nerja – two nights. Drive to Malaga airport and fly home.
You can also do this in the reverse order. If you’re interested in this itinerary buy the latest edition of Rick Steves Spain guidebook. The 18th edition will be available in the fall’22.

1 week in Galicia, 1 week in Basque Country, 1 week in Granada and 1 week in/near Madrid.