Renting a Car in Seville

I assume you’ll be returning the vehicle to Spain to avoid the large drop off charge if returning it in Portugal.

Check the flight schedules to see if flying into Jerez de la Frontera would work for you. The airport is small, has the major rental car companies, and is only 19 miles from Cádiz. Sevilla is about 73 miles from Cádiz. We flew through Madrid to get to Jerez. The drive from either airport is easy.

Today I'm Debbie Downer.

1. There are no direct flights to Sevilla from the US. The airport is too small for jets large enough to make the transatlantic flight. You'll have to connect somewhere in Europe.
2. Driving when you haven't had a good night's sleep is physically about the same as driving under the influence. Jetlag can only make it worse. It's at least 1.5 hours drive from the airport to Cadiz.
3. It's 700 km and a minimum of 7.5 hours straight driving from Cadiz to Porto. That 7.5 hrs is the google maps estimate. In my experience and that of friends, in Portugal you need to add 25% and often up to 50% to GPS/google estimates whenever you are off the toll roads.
4. The drop-off fee for a different country is several hundred dollars at least.
5. If you rent in Spain, you can't get a toll reader for Portugal. I'm not sure you can pay at all the toll stations in Portugal (I had a toll reader). Stopping to pay will make the trip longer. Avoiding toll roads will make your trip even longer.
6. You will need GPS. That will add to the cost of the car - or you'll need to bring a GPS device from home, or use your phone with a data plan to access Waze (Google maps is less reliable in my experience).

OTOH Ryanair seems to have flights from Sevilla to Porto.

Indeed the Ryanair flights from Seville to Porto are daily through end October and Thursday to Monday afterwards undtil daily flights resume in April.
It is by far the best option to get from Seville to Porto.

If you did get a rental car in Spain and drive it to Portugal you can use Google maps or similar. There’s no reason to rent a GPS.

For tolls, once you’ve picked up the rental car you can register it with Portugal tolls and the tolls will be charged to the credit card you enter when you register the vehicle. Since the registration is valid for 30 days, you need to cancel it when you either turn the car in, or leave Portugal for the last time. Most tolls are electronically collected, but there are some roads where you need to pick up a paper ticket. The link has all the information you need.

I found the Google time estimates for driving between locations to be fairly accurate if driving on the highways. Driving on the back roads will take significantly longer since you’re constantly slowing down every time you enter a small town.

Using Jerez de la Frontera as pickup location and Porto as drop off location, the one way drop fee was $868 dollars. Definitely something to think about.

Thank you all. This is very helpful. I didn't think about the extra charge to drop it off in Portugal instead of Spain and now that I know there's a daily flight in April I'll do that instead. Bummer to miss the views of the drive but that will be for another trip when I'm not meeting a deadline to start a Backroads tour of the Camino de Santiago!! You all have been very helpful. I love this group!

Last September the best, most economical flights from NC were to Malaga. Drive time to Cadiz is about 2.5 hours and Malaga is a lovely, relaxing city. So, unless you specifically plan to visit Seville, you might check out flying into Malaga.

I couldn’t find any direct flights from Jerez to Porto, so maybe fly into Jerez if it would work, rent a car there for getting to Cadiz since it’s closer, then dropping it off at Sevilla for the flight to Porto.

Not sure where your back roads tours goes, but hopefully it will take you to Castro de Santa Trega by A Guarda. Coming from Tui, the coastal Portuguese Camino goes right through that town and continues along the coast to Baiona.

Have a nice trip.

jaimeelsabio we are doing the southern portion of the Camino hike Porto up to Santiago de Compostela. I hope we get to see what you mentioned. If not, bummer, I'll have to go back (and I'll make a note!).