Passport Photos/Driver's License

Renew the license ASAP. The IDP is meaningless without a valid drivers license. If the rental is in his name, you will not get a car. And yes, you should get an IDP as well.

What Sam said. Get the driver's license renewed asap. The IDP is not a license and is not valid without a current drevers license.

Thanks, I'll send him tomorrow to get his license renewed. Not a prayer of a chance he'll get a new card before we leave. Do you suppose the car rental place will accept the expired license with the renewal receipt? Stuff like this doesn't typically happen to us. We are rule followers and planners. He wanted the real id, or it'd be done. Living in MN and with the travel he does, the real ID was important to him.

Can he expedite it or just get a regular drivers license quicker? You are guessing whether the rental agent will notice the expiration date or recognize the validity of a receipt for a temporary license. You could be riding buses and trains on this trip after all.

No option to expedite and wouldn’t trust the process, anyway. I think I’m just going to get an IDP for myself as back up. If I have to drive, our biggest problem will be getting out of Sevilla and into Granada doing both the driving and navigating, not ideal, but I will make it work. I’m going to call Autoeurope tomorrow and see if I can change the name of the driver at the counter if I need to.

Or could you put the rental under your name and have him as an authorized driver ? We do this because my Chase Reserve card has better insurance coverage than his cards; sometimes do it in my name if there's a good AAA discount. I get a IDP every trip, haven't driven further than moving the car in the hotel lot. The rental company might inspect the authorized driver's ID less (ok, or might not.)
Regarding the glasses -- on my first trip DH had a full beard on his passport and shaved it off before we traveled; only one border inspector commented but laughed.

Jules,

How much time is there before your trip?

Edited to add...
If your DH won’t get his new DL before your trip, and you don’t feel comfortable driving, then just plan to take the ALSA bus from Sevilla to Granada.

My mom and I took two ALSA buses (Córdoba to Granada, and Granada to Sevilla) The buses are comfortable and convenient.

@Laura, good idea on the names @Priscilla, 10 days

@priscilla, I have us staying in grazelema for two nights. If nothing works out, I suppose we could bus to Arcos and then Ronda and I’m sure at this time of year they would have vacancies.

Do you suppose the car rental place will accept the expired license with the renewal receipt?

No hope. And even if they do, it will not be valid as such, so if you are stopped by the police you will, as far as the law is concerned, be driving without a licence.

And you need to get the IDP with the new licence. The IDP is a certification that the licence is valid. It is only valid for that licence, and is, AFAIK, valid for one year or until the licence expires, whichever comes first. An IDP with the old licence details on it will not be valid on your dates in Spain.

I assume your husband wants his driver's license to serve as the real ID so he doesn't have to carry a passport when he travels domestically. Unfortunately, getting a real ID license can be a real hassle. Might I suggest he get a passport card instead? It is the size of a driver's license and serves as a real ID. Assuming he can renew his license faster if it doesn't meet the real ID requirements (as I think one of your posts implied), he might get that license before he goes.

@Paul, MN has just recently completed the administrative work necessary for REAL ID. It has nothing to do with my husband whose only problem is that his birthday (drivers' license renewal day) is just a few weeks after the start of issuance of REAL ID in Minnesota.

Well, just about everyone I talked to said that it was pretty unlikely that his DL will fly in Spain. So I changed the name on the rental to me and I will be acquiring a IDP tomorrow. Not thrilled about driving in the mountains, but hey, I've driven in the Rockies so wish me luck. Oh, and does prescription sunglasses count as an extra set of glasses. . .

Jules, take comfort. The roads are good, well-graded two-lane highways and easy to drive, with frequent pull-outs to admire the views. That will give you a little time to reset/check the navigation and relax, if you've tensed up. The worst that happened to me was getting antsy behind a slow-moving vehicle once or twice, over several days of driving. Do note the speed limits at curves. My experience in other countries (including the Rockies) is that I can comfortably take those curves significantly faster that the posted speed, not so in Spain. If it says 40 km per hour, then 35 is good, 40 is fast and 45 is verging on unsafe. The only places I wished I'd had GPS were getting out of Sevilla and into Granada, where I had exact directions that were no use because they were tearing up a couple of main roads and it was one detour after another. Much of the road to Granada is a multi-lane limited access highway.

In Arcos, there is a large parking lot at the bottom of the town. From there you can take the shuttle minibus or walk up the hill (it's not a long walk, but a little steep). Ronda is pretty big, so you'll want to use GPS to find your hotel and maybe parking lot (there's an underground one in the center that some hotels give a discount for). Some of the streets in Ronda are narrow, but the town's mainly very level.

The only places I had problems were when I dared to drive into some of the white villages. Some are easy to get into, park and walk around. Others are a challenge with steep, narrow streets and sharp blind corners. There's no reason to go into them, though, so if it looks daunting, skip it and turn back to the main road. You won't get lost in them, they are that small.

Thank you so very much Chani, for your kind words of encouragement. Also for the many times you provided suggestions as I've planned for this trip. I think it reinforces that as much as one tries to plan, flexibility is so important as many things can happen that impact a trip. Your comments reminded me that I was the one who did the driving through through Independence Pass in Colorado when my husband became ill. And in some ways it is less "scary" to be the driver than to be the passenger.