Spain, Morocco, and Portugal TIPS Needed!

Tip #1: Begin by being honest with yourself. How many full days do you really have in Europe, not counting your arrival and departure days? Is it really 15, or some smaller number? Tip #2: Your current plan seems wildly unrealistic/unwise to me, for the following reasons: 1. You're traveling across vast places that are far apart. I hope you're planning to fly everywhere, because any other way of getting from your starting point to all the others surely would not make for an enjoyable trip in the time you have.
2. Even if you can fly between these places, you will be zooming right past some of the greatest places in the region. Tip #3: Slow down, you'll have a much, much better trip. Remember, every time you pick up and move a significant distance (and everyplace you list is a long way from every other) you lose most of a day - and you just don't have very many days to throw away to begin with. Tip #4: On a trip so short, there's no reason whatsoever to include Valencia (not a bad place, but not worth it given your short time) or Rabat (nothing to see there, and would seem like an empty waste compared to Fes). Tip#5: You're short on time. Don't waste it on a ferry. If you're going to Morocco (and I'm not sure you will), you should definitely fly. It's cheaper and way faster, and you skip all the hassles where ferry passengers are hassled by touts and hustlers in a grotesque, fake "bordertown" experience. Tip #6: I hope you like heat. This region is going to be brutally hot in the summer. Morocco includes a big hunk of the Sahara Desert, remember that. I have some (what I think are) more realistic itineraries you should consider...these all assume your ticket can not be changed... (continued...)

OK, here are a couple of ideas. Assuming you now have to fly in to Barcelona and out of Lisbon (which is a good routing)... Plan A: I would suggest you skip Morocco entirely on this trip. I love Morocco and its great, but you don't have enough time to do it justice along with hitting a good number of the highlights of Spain & Portugal. Assuming you're amenable to this, I'd suggest something like this: Day 1-2: In and around Barcelona Day 3-5: Fly or fast train to Madrid, 2 days in Madrid. Day 6-7: Segovia/Avila/Toledo Day 8-9: Granada Day 10: Sevilla Day 11-13: Fly to Lisbon. Plan B: If you simply must include Morocco, here's something that could work - but you would essentially be skipping almost all of Spain (Barcelona is not really Spain, as they will tell you when you get there - and its a long way from the rest of Spain): Day 1-2: In and around Barcelona Day 3-5: Fly to Fes (yes, fly - there are crazy cheap flights) Day 6: Train from Fes to Marrakech (if you're in Morocco, it's worth going, certainly 100x better than rabat; the train is a long day but is otherwise easy and surprisingly good). Day 7-8: Marrakech Day 9-10: Fly to Sevilla or Madrid Day 11-13: Fly to Lisbon
This is do-able but would be tight, and depends on being able to sync up with flights, which do not go every day. Plan B is crazy, but you're 20 years old and that's when you do crazy things. Plan A would be a much better trip - I'd suggest Plan A and save Morocco for another trip when you have some time. Your trip is very, very short. Hope that helps, and good luck.

My first trip to Europe was in 1978, and I covered those 3 countries in 10 days, so it doesn't seem unrealistic. We flew into Lisbon, spent 2 days there, then took a train to Madrid, 2 days there, then buses to Granada and Seville and Algeciras, then a ferry to Morocco, where we stayed in Fez, Marrakesh and Casablanca, flying home from Casablanca.

With all due respect, I've got to strongly disagree with Robert. "3 countries, 10 days". Look at a map, note the locations and count the days. Hmmm. Good luck.

It's very aggressive, but could be workable with a few tweaks. You also need to be honest about travel methods and times. Start with traveling itself. While Spain has a good rail system for where it goes, it is severelly limiting on where it goes and how. And there is almost no connection between Spain and Portugal save an overnight train between Madrid-Lisbon. So you'll need to know how you will get from place to place each time. I do recommend cutting Valencia because of your time. There is an overnight train from Barcelona-Granada, or there are cheap flights. You'll need at least 1 full day in Granada to see la Alhambra and will need to pre-book your tickets. From there you can hit Morocco either by ferry or flight. But you'll need at least 3 days to make that work, idealy 5. You'll need to figure out how to go from Sevilla to Lisbon. There are busses, very long trip. Or fly. I don't think it makes sense to train up to Madrid only to go on to Lisbon, unless you want to see Madrid. If you cut Valencia and figure out efficient travel methods, you can certainly do the rest with about 3 days each.

Thank you all for the advice. I started thinking about my trip last year to Italy and the Mediterranean. I think the best time I had was when we spent a week in Rome. So now I'm thinking something like this would be more enjoyable and feasible: Barcelona 4 days Marrakech 3 days Lisbon 3 days
City of Choice 3 days Obviously with this schedule, it would make more sense to fly. And we would now be traveling much less and spending the time in the places we are visiting. Thoughts?

Kris I have been following this thread. Have you reviewed this itinerary: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/spain/itin_spainport.htm ?
Your latest This itinerary makes a lot more sense to me than your first, although I think you could modify the above link's itinerary. I would cut back to 3 days in Barcelona and use the extra day either in Lisbon or in your other "to be named later" city. Using Lisbon as a base you can take the train to Sintra for an excellent day, and/or check out Nazare, Batalha, and Coimbra. We just got back from 2 weeks just in Portugal and it was fabulous. Having been to Barcelona 3 times I just can't see 4 days there...

I agree that 4 days in Barcelona is a lot for the average tourist UNLESS you are either very into architecture or just want to hang out on the beach. But the city itself can be covered in 3 days for sure. It's also a great place for young people with a vibrant nightlife - so that may be worth the longer stay too.

Agree that your revised plan looks much more reasonable. Also agree that you could cut down Barcelona by a day and spend it better elsewhere. The obvious "other city" is Madrid. It's one of the great cities of Europe, on a par with Paris, Rome or London - it's just not very well known by Americans (same is true of Spain generally - when many Americans think Spain, their first images are actually of Mexico, of all places). Madrid's great, and has good day-trip options nearby. easily worth 2-3 days. Another important consideration: the low-cost airlines that (I assume) you will be using do NOT fly all their routes every day - be sure your plan accounts for their schedules. For example, as crazy as this sounds, you can probably use Morocco as an efficient (if unexpected) "bridge" to connect two cities in Iberia - for example, fly Barcelona > Marrakech (or Fes) > Madrid (this allows you to avoid back-tracking). This can work out great, but you need to time connections carefully, as the flight you need to connect efficiently may only go 2 times a week. As is often the case, getting from Spain to Lisbon may prove more challenging than you might expect. Again, discount airlines are your friends here (look for flights on the day you need). Good luck!

Exactly what David said, but you might also want to explore making Africa the Spain/Portugal bridge just from the airlines that serve Marakech. Also it might work out that Morocco, for transportation, needs to be Fez, which is also great. Madrid might just be that extra city due to air hubs - - or somebody might hub ouf to Barcelona, requiring a modication there. You probably won't make it on code share, open jaw. If you're down to a couple of one-ways, use skyscanner as well as kayak to hive it out. The main thing is not to settle on a new city until you nail down the possible transportation. And, it might even go away due to flight frequency.

Yup, agree with Ed (agreeing with me). The key to pulling this off will be to do all the research necessary to fit the cheap flights' schedules into your plans. When I last investigated them, I did not find many (any?) workable flights between Lisbon and anywhere in Morocco, but it's been a few years and things change. When I did this trip, there were more options between Spanish cities (primarily Barcelona and Madrid, but a couple others, too) and cities in Morocco (primarily Marrakech and Fes, but a couple others). If you can manage to go Madrid > Marrakech (or Fes) then > Lisbon that would be perfect (because, there are other decent options to get from Barcelona to Madrid, and getting to Lisbon from most of Spain is always harder than expected). If you only have time for one city in Morocco (and I think that's probably true), either Fes or Marrakech would be a good choice - they're different, but both are great. They're also well connected to each other by rail, but that train takes a whole day. I think you're on the right track here - just need to figure out the connections. Lots of moving pieces in the puzzle (but that's what makes travel planning fun...).

Thanks guys. Again, really appreciate the input. We've settled on: Barcelona Marrakech (Can be switched with Sevilla) Sevilla
Lisbon Now as I was checking out skyscanner.com, I saw the different dates flights between the cities. My new question: Is it better to book this stuff now (if it's remotely cheap) or would it be better to try to do it over there (via airport, travel agent, etc.)

Book flights on low-cost carriers as soon as you can (I'd get right on this immediately, your trip is coming up fast, and the "low fares" are not available as the date approaches). There is no advantage to waiting, and costs for low-cost carriers only go up as the date of the flight comes closer. It may be expensive or (more likely) just plain not possible to book low-cost flights via an agent or at the airport - their model is very much web-based. Be sure to read all the details about extra fees for bags and other little gotchas on their website - if you miss a little detail, your low cost flight can get expensive quickly (that's their business model - cheap flights, and expensive little surprises).