Arles-Barcelona: Train or car?

Don't forget the large extra fee you will pay for renting a car in one country and returning in another. If you really want to drive part of the way, pick up your car in Arles and drop it in Perpignan. Take the train from there. I did that exact route in reverse and it was easy.

One-way or round trip? If you're thinking about renting a car in France and dropping it off in Spain, you'll want to factor in the punishing "drop off" fee that you would be hit with. I think it would make the train suddenly a lot more appealing. Ignore the above if you're planning to return to Arles.

You've waited way too long to get the lowest discount fare, but if you book right now at either voyages-sncf.com (in French) or tgv-europe.com, you won't have to pay full fare. You can get a fare of €116.20/person for Arles-Nimes-Figueres Vilafant-Barcelona Sants, departing at 09:02 and arriving at 14:06. You'll have more choices for departure times and routes for Perpignan-Barcelona Sants (and a lower fare): 1. Perpignan-Barcelona Sants direct train, departing at 08:57 and arriving at 11:48. 2. Perpignan-Figueres Vilafant-Barcelona Sants, departing at 12:16 and arriving at 14:46.
3. Perpignan-Port Bou-Barcelona Sants, departing at 17:11 and arriving at 21:09. 4. Pepignan-Figueres Vilafant-Barcelona Sants, departing at 19:16 and arriving at 21:45. To keep the tgv-europe site in English and to avoid being bumped to the US Rail Europe site, first choose Great Britain as your country of residence. Then to avoid being bumped to the UK Rail Europe site, say that you want to stick with tgv-europe.com. Choose France as your ticket retrieval country. Unclick the "Direct trains" box on the home page or you won't be shown the entire route with all the connections.

By car: All the way to Barcelona the rental will be about three hundred and seventy five bucks (for a manual). Going only as far as Perpignan, about seventy-five for the same car. Tolls will run a bit less than fifty and are almost all in France. Gas on a small car will cost fifty bucks for the long run and about thirty for the short one. Using the freeways, it's under four hours to Barcelona, under two to Perpignan. If you bucolic yourself, driving time climbs to five hours to Perpignan with the best stops being in Aigues-Mortes and Sete (assuming you've already seen, or don't want to see, Nimes and Pont du Gard). The really good scenery is in coastl Spain, but you've probably given up on that idea due to cost and time. Yell, if you want that scoop. By train: I'm on dangerous ground from lack of knowledge and super-limited experience, but I think there's one train that will go the whole way in five hours or so. Other departure times might involve a twelve-hour trip or something like that. Trains to Barcelona from Perpignan are rather frequent and take a bit less than three hours. I have no idea how to figure train costs.

Your best train route is Arles-Nimes-Figueres Vilafant-Barcelona Sants, departing at 09:02 and arriving at 14:06. The standard 2nd class fare is €90.70. Booked well in advance, you can get a discount fare as low as €52.10. There are some booking tricks you need to know to get a discount fare. If you're interested in the details, tell us your travel date. Train service from Perpignan to Barcelona actually is quite limited. There is a direct Talgo train that departs at 08:57. Your other choices are Perpignan-Figueres Vilafant-Barcelona Sants, departing at either 12:16 or 19:16.

Thanks to all for your responses. Car rental seems like an expensive proposition, especially with gas and the international drop-off penalty. We've been looking for train tickets from either Perpignan, Avignon, or Montpellier to Barcelona on RailEurope.com, but for some reason the site doesn't list an itinerary. Any idea where we should look? We're traveling on Sunday, June 24.

Don't look at RailEurope. They are expensive and don't show all the options. Try sncf.com. That is the French rail site. They have an English option.