Spain train travel

It sounds like you are covering a lot of territory!

Have you considered flying to Granada rather than train or driving? There are regular buses between Seville and Granada that are more convenient than train.

Granada to Cordoba.

You can wait to buy that until you get there.

Madrid to Toledo roundtrip you can wait to buy; that is only 30 minutes each way

same thing Madrid to Segovia wait til you get there. Just familiarize yourself with the schedule.

This travel is over 14 days. I listed the transportation in order of the trip. In brief, its Madrid airport to Sevilla, then thru the white villages over a couple days, Granada, Cordoba, Toledo, Madrid. We aren't spending much time in Madrid on this trip.

We are not taking a train from Sevilla to Granada. We are picking up a car in Sevilla driving through Arcos and Ronda and a couple other white villages before returning the car in Granada. From Granada, the rest of the trip is train travel.

We are flying in and out of Madrid. Our choices for airports from where we live are basically Barcelona and Madrid.

I think you'll find that round-trip tickets are about half the cost of two one-way tickets, so for Toledo and Segovia, I'd recommend going with your best guess on return time and buying the RT. I believe you do need to specify a return time to take advantage of the RT pricing, at least on those routes, but there are others on the forum who've spent more time on Spanish trains than I have. I hope they will comment.

For Toledo especially, there's so much to see that I'd plan a rather late return to Madrid. Rick warns in his book that the later trains back to Madrid sometmes sell out, so that's a second reason for buying a round-trip ticket. The fare will not increase as you get closer to your travel date, so you don't need to rush to buy the Toledo ticket.

If you check Segovia fares for today vs. for future dates on Renfe.com, you'll be able to see the modest price penalty you'll pay for not buying in advance. Otherwise, I don't think there's a need to buy that ticket early.

The ticket-buying experience at Atocha can be quite...interesting. Allow plenty of time. You'll first need to figure out which vending machine or staffed counter to use for your particular destination. There can be an extremely long wait at the long-distance-ticket counters, but I don't think that's where tickets to Toledo and Segovia are sold.

For the Granada-Cordoba trip, fares will increase as others buy all the available promo-priced tickets, so you may save money by buying earlier. Test different dates on the Renfe website to see whether it's enough money to worry about. I see that two of today's trains are sold out, so that's another thing to consider.

1. Go to the Renfe ticket agent at the airport to buy your tickets. They will give you tickets on the next available train to Sevilla, considering the time you need to get to Atocha and board. They will also give you cercanias tickets for the train to Atocha - free with the AVE tickets.
2. I had more trouble finding the road out of Sevilla than into Granada. Use GPS I didn't
3. I don't see any promo fares on Renfe, so it doesn't seem necessary, especially in November.
4. There's a small savings on the Toledo tickets if you buy R/T. The one-way fare is €12.90, the R/T fare is €10.30 each way. It's a good idea to buy in advance because the tickets sometimes sell out. You would have to commit to a time for the return. I planned to take a 3 pm train on a Friday in February from Toledo and the train was sold out when I got to the station about 15-20 minutes before departure. I was able to buy a ticket on the next train and spent an hour admiring the station, which is very pretty. Do your best to avoid buying tickets at Atocha. You could easily miss a train while waiting in line. Also, when you buy your tickets from Atocha to Toledo, allow at least 30 minutes transfer time. You'll have to traverse a good bit of this big train station from the Cordoba train platform to the Toledo trains. Some people have noted that they found the station confusing as well.
5. The price for a single one-way is €24.40. The price for one-way on a R/T ticket is €19.50. So you'd save nearly €20 on R/T for a couple.

Surly? The only problem I've had with the website is that it doesn't accept many US credit cards. I use Paypal and haven't had any problems.

BTW you can buy train tickets for your trips at any train station.

Thanks!
* How long should I plan for the train trip from the airport to Atocha and then to clear any security and get to the appropriate platform at Atocha for the Sevilla train? and accounting for any confusion due to my very beginning level of Spanish
*It would appear that through Autoeurope my best rental option is Europcar picking up at "Sevilla Rail Station Avda. De Kansas City S/n" Google maps shows this location somewhat close to Santa Justa. Is this a different train station? We will drop this car at the Granada train station which according to my hotel is easier than going to a location that is more city center and thus confusing.

Ok, so I purchased the train tickets for Granada to Cordoba and for Cordoba to Madrid. Cordoba to Madrid I purchased from Trainline and Granada to Cordoba on LOCO2, because for whatever reason the only tickets trainline was finding was for trips taking 5.5 hours (rather than 3 hours)?! I used a VISA with no problem. I was pleased with the prices I got tho, there was only one option with budget pricing for both trips. Nice that they somewhat coincided with the times I wanted.

How long should I plan for the train trip from the airport to Atocha and then to clear any security and get to the appropriate platform at Atocha for the Sevilla train? The ticket agent at Barajas will sell you tickets for the appropriate train. From the cercanias (suburban train) exit, it's a beeline to the Sevilla train. Just follow the signs. Most of the AVE trains leave from the same point and the security scan is at the entrance to the waiting area for all of those trains. Have your Sevilla tickets out to show to the security agent. Once you are in the waiting area, you will find information on the platform for your train.