Spain Road Trip to Extremadura and Andalucía.

Valencia has been suggested as an excellent representative of Spanish Heritage and Culture and an alternative to the over touristed Balcelona by a recently home again native son on current post on RS.

I like that you have 2 nights in most places. For the places you list, there will be few tourists until you get to Sevilla.

Toledo is only an hour’s drive from the airport. For me that’s close enough to drive to after a flight. Others will disagree. By going straight to Toledo you could combine the Madrid days to the end of the trip. I’d definitely pick up the car at the airport.

From Toledo to Trujillo or Guadalupe you could make short stops in Talavera de la Reina and at
Templo Los Mármoles.

I’ll assume you’re heading to Guadalupe to visit the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe. Since there are few must see sights in Trujillo, consider spending those two nights in Guadalupe and stop for a couple hours in Trujillo on the way to Cáceres. From Guadalupe to Cáceres is just over a 1.5 hours drive and Trujillo is between them.

If you like castles, near Zafra are Castle Nogales and Castillo de Feria.

Between Zafra and Sevilla is Museo Del Jamón, Monesterio, so maybe visit the ham museum en route to Sevilla. By seeing it en route to Sevilla you wouldn’t need to make a special trip. Zafra to Sevilla is only about a 1.5 hours drive.

Sentenil de las Bodegas is closer to Ronda than Arcos, so day trip to it from Ronda,

I’d leave Valencia for another trip as it is an outlier and over a 6 hours drive from Malaga.

For lodging, consider joining the Paradors’ Amigos program and staying at them. There are Paradors in all the cities you’re going to. We like Paradors and enjoy the free drink upon check in at each one, as well as the special Amigos rates or Golden Days (over 55) rates. If you travel to Spain frequently you can earn enough points for free stays.

All of the destinations look wonderful, but I would hate to move every two days. If you like that kind of pace, ignore me.
I don't see how you could fit in a day trip to Cordoba in addition to your list for Sevilla with only two nights though.

Hopefully some useful tips.........

1. Obtain International Drivers Permit from your local AAA office. Required by Spanish law, around $25 to obtain and useless until you really need it.
   1. Plot your trip using https://www.viamichelin.com/web/Routes to determine drive times between destinations.
   2. Consider daily drive times and the time you want to be arriving at your next destination. Do the math and make sure you are happy with the amount of time you will have to explore in each of your destinations.
   3. Do a great job of identifying where you can park the car at each destination and route to get to parking.
   4. Small hatch back cars are great to rent for ease of driving and scooting around in narrow lanes of traffic.
   5. Bring a single black bed sheet to use for draping over any items left in the vehicle. Ideally you never leave items in the car, but while visiting villages you may decide to pull over and explore. Out to sight means out of mind for potential thieves.
   6. Double check when sun sets during the dates of your stay and plan accordingly. Driving at night seeking your lodging adds another element of stress (albeit GPS has somewhat diminished this aspect; until you make a wrong way turn onto a one way street and the local police desire a discussion.........then your IDP really is valuable ;))

We have rented cars for long term stays and did enjoy the charm of driving along less traveled paths. And then we came to a point where leaving the driving to others helped elevate our journey enjoyment. Totally understand the desire to gain additional element of "control" so offer this counsel:

A) Do measure total amount of time you anticipate driving in perspective to amount of time available to enjoy each destination
B) Me thinks there is blend of renting cars and taking public transport will enhance your experiences.
C) 19 nights and 9 destinations indicates too much "see there" time and not enough "be there" enjoyment.

Enjoy!

I like it. It looks like a good plan.

Kathleen,

I agree with you. Sevilla was our point of entry from Portugal in our first trip to Spain. We had the opportunity to have a tour with Consuelo (Connie) recommended by RS and she was excellent, beyond our expectations. Every time we talk about Spain Sevilla is always the city we talk about it. Our tour to the Pueblos Blancos was amazing and we experienced the Corpus Christi celebration in Zahara de la Sierra. My wife love Ronda and she wants to return back for a few days to experience the beauty of the town in details.

jaimeelsabio

Thank you so much for your suggestion which we will take in consideration to finalize our trip schedule. Definitely, we will look into renting the car at the airport and straight to Toledo and give more time in Madrid before returning back. I agree with you leaving Valencia for another trip. We will change Ronda for at least two nights and visit Sentinel from Ronda. We will look into the “Paradores Amigos” program and join in. We always like local hotels with character which add the additional experience to our Europe trips. Thanks again for your time and suggestions.

valadelphia

Actually, we are thinking of spending a few more days on some of the towns. The schedule I posted initially is a tentative draft that will change to incorporate some of the suggestions posted. Initially we had Cordoba for two days and this will be the final option. We will return our rental car at Malaga on the last day and use the train to go Cordoba. From Cordoba we will use the train to Madrid before returning home. Thanks for your suggestions.

Steven,

Thanks for your detailed suggestions which I have been thinking very seriously specially when my wife refuse to drive in Europe. I had the experience of having the IDP through AAA when we went to Greece. It is true what you said, “useless until you need it”. I have been thinking of using local transportation to some of places to let somebody else do the driving for us and to take a break. Our big challenge will be to have all the parking information upfront before we arrive to each town in specific to the Pueblos Blancos.

Chris,

We are still working to finalize the trip schedule. We will incorporate some of the posted suggestions and a good chance that we will add more days to the trip.

I do not understand a two night stay with a day trip. Your full day then is from the place you are staying. Why not stay in the place you are going on the day trip. You are already also returning to Ronda because a pervious trip was too short, which proves the point.

Here’s a link to the Paradors website. No idea why I didn’t include it previously. It’s a government run hotel chain with many of the hotels being in historic buildings. We accumulated enough points on last year’s trip that on our upcoming trip two nights are free.

If you’re a Costco member look into renting the vehicle through it since a second driver is free. The companies is seems to work with are Enterprise, Budget, and Alamo. Also, after reserving a vehicle, check back periodically to see if the rate has gone down. For our upcoming trip, I’ve re reserved the vehicle a few times, each time saving money. Right now, a compact SUV 21 day rental is 513€, excluding insurance.

Finally, last year we used Google maps for navigation and our rental car (a Seat Arona) only had USB C ports so our USB 2 cables were useless.

If you add any time to Caceres, another place we enjoyed in addition to Monfrague (which was absolutely stunning), was the Roman bridge at Alcantara, where we also did a beautiful hike. The juxtaposition of the bridge and the modern dam behind it was interesting. This is the area I dream about returning after that trip!
A closer place that was interesting for a birder was Los Barruecos. You get to see the huge storks up close, among rock formations.
We visited Merida from Caceres as well, so that is one place you might consolidate (depending on how you adjust the Trujillo/Guadalupe visits).

Jaimeelsabio,

Thanks for the link and the Costco car rental info. I am a Costco member and I will take advantage of their car rental service.

Valadelphia,

Thanks for your suggestion. I read about that Roman bridge and by your suggestion it looks like a great add on to our road trip. Thanks again.

Nick,

I appreciate your suggestions which make sense by saving driving time and spending more time in other places. Thanks for your suggestions.

Just some suggestions.....
I would stay two nights in Cordoba, that means just one full day and if you use your one full day of Sevilla to visit Cordoba, why stay in Sevilla? Or, if you jst want a day there, stay in Seville and enjoy Seville and then take a full day trip to Cordoba by high speed train from Malaga.
Setenil de las bodegas is beautiful but very small, you don't need a whole day there
https://slowtravelitalyspain.blogspot.com/2018/10/day-35-ronda-and-setenil-de-las-bodegas.html
Malaga is a great city, I would forget Frigiliana (it's nice, but you've already seen a lot of pueblos blancos) and spend more time there
https://slowtravelitalyspain.blogspot.com/2019/01/malaga-in-march-trip-report.html
About stopping on the way between overnights to visit places, I spent several weeks travelling around Andalucia in autumn 2018 and never had any problems, but in any country leaving your luggage in a parked car in a touristy place is not ideal. Make sure you keep all essential documents and medicines with you.

Tinac,

We appreciate your suggestions. We are changing our initial and tentative schedule to spend 2 nights in Cordoba after spending 3 nights in Malaga. We will turn in the rental car in Malaga and take train to Cordoba. From Cordoba we take the train to Madrid. Also, we will visit some of the Pablo’s Blancos in our way to some of the towns that we will spend 2 or more nights. This was suggested in previous posts and it make sense. We are aware of taking serious precautions of not leaving anything in the car exposed to anybody view.

Thanks again for your time and suggestions.