Lisbon to Sevilla round trip

United does have a non stop to Madrid from Dulles, but I believe it is seasonal. We flew it in September.

We always rent a car because we visit many out of the way locations difficult to get to in a timely manner, if at all, using public transportation. When getting quotes, I found it was much cheaper to rent in Spain than Portugal. Driving in Spain is easy and no different than in the states. The roads are well marked between cities and unless you’re in an extremely rural road, the roads are well maintained. Driving in cities is a pain so we try to avoid that if possible.

For our most recent trip we rented through Costco, the rental company was Enterprise, and we picked up and dropped off in Madrid. Costco doesn’t offer rentals in Portugal.

To minimize having to look for your hotel and parking when entering a city or town, save them to a navigation app (I use Google maps) so you can drive right to them. I always look up parking lots beforehand, especially the free ones, for anyplace I intend to visit. With a rental car, we look for hotels that have parking available. Due to the number of pedestrian only zones in many cities and towns, we choose hotels that may be on the edge of town, easy to get to, but close to the historic center. In Spain we try to stay at Paradors because we like them, many are in historic buildings, and they have parking. In many the parking is free.

If you have further questions about driving or driving in a specific area feel free to contact me.

Hi jaimeelsabio,
Thanks for the response!

Yeah I think the non stops to Madrid are seasonal. Definitely none in March.
Glad to hear driving is not a challenge. Typically we like to stay in the heart of the city. But I guess that would be hard if you are driving. Thanks for the parador suggestion, that might work.