Spain & Portugal 3 week itinerary help

Ideally I would add 2 more nights to Seville, an amazing city with many important historical and cultural sights. Seville is also a beautiful city with gorgeous architecture, pretty plazas, fountains and parks. It’s perfect for aimless wandering and discovering interesting nooks and crannies.

IMO you don’t have enough time in Barcelona either, another great city with so much to see and do.

Personally, I would delete Ronda from your itinerary and add those nights to Seville and Barcelona, including the extra night you haven’t allocated to a destination yet.

I would also eliminate tangier. With your current itinerary, you are spending too much time traveling from place to place and not enough time seeing and experiencing the wonderful sights and places you are visiting.

You say you like to hike, but this doesn't look like primarily a hiking vacation. You're mostly visiting cities, and except for Lisbon and Madrid, you barely have enough time in each destination to do more than cover the highlights.

To give you meaningful suggestions on how to improve your itinerary, it would help to know what you want to see and do in each place you are visiting. For instance, you have a long way to travel to get to Barcelona, and you'll only have one full day there, plus part of a second day. What do you hope to see there? Honestly, there is so much more to see and do in Barcelona than you will even begin to get a feeling for in the time you have. So unless there's something important to you, I'd skip Barcelona on this trip.

Personally, I'd skip Ronda, Tarifa, and Barcelona, which gives you five extra nights. I'd add two of those in Córdoba, two more in Seville, and one more in Granada. But that kind of advice doesn't really matter if you have a good idea of why you are going to those other places, and they're important to you.

Any itinerary is doable, but whether or not it is really enjoyable is the question.
I always try to plan a trip that encompasses more than is reasonable, and then I return and perhaps try to edit.

So I have driven all around, hitchhiked, taken the train, and even cruised in Spain, and I must say I felt a tiny bit dizzy reading your run-around schedule, mainly because you are dashing from one part of the country to another country and then around again. None of it is really wrong, especially if you have the energy, the enthusiasm, and the budget to accomplish all of your preferred stops. Yet you will be quite busy and on the move, and may find all the touring a bit draining or tiring. Do you think this is your one and only trip to Spain and Portugal?

Also, because you are relying on public transportation, you will need to be a bit more rigorous in sticking to a time schedule. I no longer enjoy self-handling my luggage too much when I travel, especially (sadly) when one has to be extra cautious about pickpockets and bag thieves these days, so you will need to pack so you can manage everything easily. I also like to dress up for some special dinners, and go dancing in the evening, and so I have to include that aspect of clothing as well.

Well, Easter 2026 is April 5th (a huge and wonderful celebration in many parts of Spain), and the Sevilla feria begins April 21st, so you will more or less miss those fantastic celebrations, although they can be very crowded and busy.

I will say what I always say--do you really know what you want to see and do in each of these places, and why you have placed them on your itinerary? Are you going to Morocco just to say you put foot there? Are you going to Barcelona just because you think it should be included? If you ever cruise out of Barcelona in the future, it would be much easier to see at that point in life.

Sintra is just wonderful-- I could spend days there enjoying all the palaces and castles. As a matter of fact, when I travel in Europe, castles are always a priority on my agenda, whether I am just visiting them or staying overnight (see the Paradores of Spain and the Pousadas de Portugal.) . But, many are on the outskirts of the great cities, and will require a car. I sometimes decide what hotels I want to book, and create an itinerary around those destinations.

I am not a hiker, but some parts of Spain are fabulous for hikers, and of course the most famous walk is to go to Santiago de Campostela on a pilgrimage. Here is a resource from Spain: https://www.spain.info/en/hiking/

Enjoy all the planning, and ¡Buen viaje!

Thank you for the replies so far. I realize this is definitely not a hiking trip. If that was the goal, I'd stay home and go to another National Park (also tons of fun). We have traveled with many other Rick Steves' guidebook itinerary ideas and feel the books always do a great job and we always enjoy ourselves. Unfortunately there isn't a Rick Steves' Best of Spain and Portugal in 3 weeks itinerary, so we are having to adapt our own from both the Spain book and the Portugal book. I've been mostly going on the recommendations from these books. But of course, there's plenty of room to tweek things based on interest. And since we haven't been to either country, we don't totally know what we'll prefer. There's a very good chance we will not be back to Spain or Portugal (so much to see out there!) so we want to see the highlights. We've included Tangier to step foot in North Africa but also because we think it'll be culturally interesting.

I appreciate all the input, keep it coming!

Also, we realize we have to be up early and walk, and walk and walk when we go to Europe (not a super relaxing vacation). We'd be open to renting a car, but there's an extra fee for picking it up in one place and leaving it in another. Not sure it's worth it in this case. We tend to travel with a carry-on only, even for 3 weeks.

My wife and I (aged 50s/60s) did a 3 week trip to Portugal and Spain (mainly Andalucia) in Aug/Sep 2023, overlapping many of the cities you mention. Our trip reports might be useful reference:

• Portugal: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-portugal-aug-sep-porto-coimbra-lisbon-then-to-spain
• Spain: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-spain-aug-sep-seville-ronda-granada-cordoba-madrid