Tour versus on our own

Since you have your hotels booked, why not just look at tours that are being offered in those cities. Do a good orientation walking tour on your first day so you know your way around and if they offer any themed tours, go on those too. See what museums you want to visit. Rick must list some tours in his book. If not, check on Fodors or Trip Advisor for some more suggestions.

Unless you enjoy being on a fixed tour in a bus full of people, not sure that paying extra money for a Globus or Trafalgar tour sounds like a good use of your money. You could book a private tour for each of those cities instead and still save money compared to one of those week long bus tours.

Sorry to be unhelpful, but no one can answer that question but you. Some people like planning, some don't. Some people love free time and seeing what they want, others enjoy being pleasantly surprised by something they hadn't expected they would enjoy on a tour. Some people love tours and learning from experts, some self guided and self-study outtings. For some people tours seem to cost more, others find you get better value and more sights for your money on a tour. I have done both tours and self-guided trips and enjoy them for different reasons. If you have done self guided trips and enjoyed them, try a tour and see if you like them as well.

There is a RS "Best of Barcelona and Madrid" tour itinerary listed in "our tours" in the Spain & Portugal section. Why not use that as your guide?

As mentioned above try the hotel. First i would do a walking tour or bike tour to familiarise yourself in the cities then select which tours cater to your needs. Your hotels will have all the information you need and staff are normally very knowledgeable.

If you have done those other places on your own then you pretty much know what it will entail. Barcelona and Madrid will not be very different in terms of logistics. Possibly easier, if you connected many smaller towns in those countries, vs. staying in the biggest cities in Spain.

Personally, I think these cities would be quite easy to do on your own - easy to get around, plenty of popular sights to choose from, easy transportation between them, and a fair amount of English spoken. I always travel on my own but I see the value of a tour for places that are harder to get to or more challenging to get around/find out about. For example, I am considering the Bulgaria tour because there is less tourist infrastructure and information available so it would be easier and better for me to let people who really know the area plan it. Barcelona and Madrid are not in this category so I wouldn't want a tour (too much structure and being herded around).

Thank you, Ms, Jo, Ray, Blue439, jayhumps, and Mira. We will continue with our plans to do this trip on our own. We will save the tour for Eastern Europe next year.

My husband and I travel on our own, but we make frequent use of companies that offer small-group tours for day trips and special tours that interest us.

We used Spanish Trails in both Madrid and Barcelona in October 2017 and highly recommend them.

www.spanishtrails.com

That’s a personal choice. Only you know what would be best for your situation and comfort level. Other than on 2 occasions when we took tours due to logistics, my wife and I prefer to go on our own. There are pros and cons to each, but we prefer to do what we want, when we want, and stay as long as we want.