Spain Travel

At what time of the year would that be? And what interests you in Spain?

Without any additional info, between late September and late May, I would suggest Granada or, larger, Sevilla: both vibrant, historical cities with plenty to see in and around them.
In summer, it is trickier due to the hot climate, as all of central and southern Spain can get too hot for comfort, and northern Spain sights are more scattered.

In any case, with only one home base and 4 weekends you will only see a part of Spain, but that's OK!

This question was asked a couple of weeks ago by someone, so look at the answers given for that question. Unless you have an EU passport, you can’t work in Spain on a tourist visa.

As has already been pointed out, more information would be useful in order to give you better advice. Any major city will offer what you are requiring.

@Jennifer, I suspect Sam means "remote working" and "remote schooling" during that month, hence the reason he needs a good wifi connection, right Sam?. In that case, he can do that with a regular 90-day tourist VISA, no problem :)

@Sam, as mentioned by others, you need to be far more open on preferences, expectations, potential interests... etc. if you want to obtain any meaningful response. So, if you haven't done so, you need to do some legwork first 😋

To get you started in my patch: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/spain/infox-planning-your-visit-to-barcelona-and-catalonia

Enjoy!

Madrid is a great city and certainly central with a lot of rail and air connections as well as rental car options.

Thank you all. Will be landing in mid-august and possibly stay til mid to late September. Yes working remotely from Spain and landing in Madrid. What neighborhood are good and safe evening strolls and parks to play

remote working may still fall in 'working'. Bloggers are considered 'working' by some companies.

But, I would say somewhere like Seville would be great. Flat for short legs, parks, easy access to other cities and towns, and right outside the city is a water park. However, April is pretty busy with Easter and Faria celebrations (good and maybe not so good) and any time after that temperatures can sore and be hot until October/November.

Hi Samsthoma,

just wanted to throw out a dark horse: Logroño.

It is small, 135,000 people. But is if very family friendly. The old town is a pedestrian zone, there are many parks and squares where the kids can play and run. You don't say the age and level of Spanish but you may even be able to sign the kids up for a local day camp, at the Casa De Ciencia.

If you are there in August/September, it will not be as hot as down south, but you can get passes to the local swimming pool. They have some great water slides and a splash area that kids really enjoy. (The voice of experience, I have spent many summer days there with mine)

Pamplona, Vitoria, Burgos, Soria and Bilbao are all less than 150 kms away and easily reached by bus. Pluse in La Rioja, some of the local sites like Santo Domingo, or San Millan (a UNESCO) site are served by bus from Logroño. San Sebastian and Zaragoza are less then 200 kms.

If mommy and daddy like wine, you can also tour some wineries.

Just a suggestion,

To dlinstrom's list of places accessible from Logrono I would add the very atmospheric, hilltop, medieval town of Laguardia.

thank you, we were thinking of Madrid for a week or two and possibly head to coastal town. is it still super hot in south Spain in aug/sept? I heard water is cold at the beaches in north Spain beaches.

Madrid is very, very hot in August and Andalucía is worse. It is typically more bearable towards Valencia and Barcelona, but still hot.
As for water temperature in northern Spain: it depends on the wind but overall it is typically not that cold in the Basque Country and Cantabria (21C is typical). It gets colder further west.

thank you all for the great insight, so for august/September time frame best to be in north west areas, any particular towns you recommend to be near water?

I'm not a super-big fan of San Sebastian because it is just so full of tourists--made quite obvious because it's not that large a place to begin with. But it has a truly magnificent beach and is well-located for side-trips (including by public transportation) to places like Bilbao (more interesting to me than SS, but not right on the coast), Hondarribia, Zumaia/Getaria/Zarautz and Lekeitio. The Basque Country is also a major foodie destination.

With a rental car you could take a weekend trip to the lovely Picos de Europa area from San Sebastian.

I vastly prefer Barcelona (and I suspect there's more stuff to do there for children, in addition to the beaches), but if it happens to be humid while you're there, the weather won't feel as comfortable as in San Sebastian. On the other hand. you can have a great deal of overcast weather in SS. When I was there in mid-June 2016, there were very few people actually in the water, and they were wearing wetsuits. I'm sure the water's warmer as the summer goes on, but it's a placed I'd go more to avoid the often-miserable summer heat in much of the rest of Spain rather than specifically to go to the beach. Caveat: I am totally not a beach person anyway.

If the trip for this year? If so, I trust you're watching the news from Spain. The country is seeing increasing cases of COVID-19--more in some areas than others--and has a history of restrictions that vary by region.

What I liked about Madrid is that it wakes up at night. I couldn’t believe how loud this city gets on a Sat night. Families stroll along the pedestrian zones with their children eating ice cream cones. I recommend Rick Steves guidebook on the places that you’re going to and follow his advice on areas to stroll. That’s what I did.

Mea Culpa Bill,

I know that I committed two forum sins. First I went outside of the box (Madrid, Sevilla, Granada, Barcelona and Donostia). Second, and graver still, I tried to give a reasonable suggestion to question the OP posed.

Given that the OP only gave a few and somewhat vague detail, “one month” “young family” “slow travel” “central point to go places on the wknd” and “parks etc for weekday hangout”, I think Logroño meets those needs. I call that offering a possible solution, if you want to call it diversity, then so be it.

I did not include, but could have that:

-Logroño's weather is cooler than most of the places south of it in August.
-Logroño is less expensive than many other Spanish cities.
-Logroño has a low crime rate.
-Logroño is home to a work by Michelangelo

thank you all for the suggestions. what I gather from the thread is that Madrid might not be ideal for Aug/sept time frame due to heat and also SW Spain? best recommendation is to stay NW like Barcelona?