Travelling between cities in Spain

If you don't want to drive or take the bus, you are left with trains and planes. You can look at train schedules and travel times at www.renfe.com. You might find budget flights between those cities. Try looking at www.skyscanner.com or www.whichbudget.com to see who flies from where to where, and what the approximate costs might be.

Shelly, Using the AVE high speed train between Barcelona and Madrid is absolutely the best and most efficient method. I did that trip recently and it's a very pleasant ride at 300 kmH. Travel by train is also the method I'd suggest from Madrid to Sevilla. There are direct trains with a travel time of about 2H:35M. I believe Sevilla Santa Justa is the main station in the city, but Sevilla San Bernardo has better links to the Metro so easier to get into the city centre. In the same situation, I'd use Santa Justa and just take a Cab to the hotel. Happy travels!

Barcelona is rather far from Madrid and Seville approximately 5 1/2 hours to Seville by the high speed trains. It might actually be cheaper to fly, using one of the discount airlines. When I went, I flew open-jaw to Barcelona, then home from Madrid. I studied the train schedules and crunched the numbers, and it was actually cheapest for me to buy a 3 day Spain rail pass. (That was due to the long and pricy high-speed trip from Barcelona to Seville, which was only a few dollars less than the 3 day pass.) As I recall, there is also a way to take a night train from Barcelona.

If you decide your route soon, you can probably find bargain train fares. I booked the high speed train from Barcelona to Madrid in early July for a mid-August trip and paid about a quarter of the regular, walk-up price. No pass would beat that.

The Promo fares on the AVe (fast trains are very good. Barcelona to Madrid is 2.5 hours and the Promomfares are as low as 33€, although 47€ is more common. Madrid to Seville is even less. To see the Promo fares, go to Renfe.com and work through a pretend purchase. (don't just check "fares and schedules" as that may not show all the discount fares. Look at a date about two months from now as a test, to see how it works. They check your actual dates in October to see if they are available. If they are, go ahead and buy but remember these are non-refundable to you need to have a firm itinerary worked out. Some US credit cards will not be accepted by Renfe. Registering the card with Verified by Visa will increase your chance of success. That worked for me. Edit: I just checked and Renfe does not offer the Promo fares as far out as they used to. Looking in September I could not find any less than €80. But for Aug. 27 and 28, the €40 fare is available on many trains from Barcelona to Madrid. On Aug. 26, no Promo fare that low appears. So for October, start looking early, but wait to purchase until the full array of fares appears. Practice with the website so you know what that looks like.

If you have not registered your credit card with Verified by Visa, they will let you do it during the purchase process. I was told that the Promo fares started about forty days out from the date of travel, but I was able to book one a week or two before that point.