There’s just something romantic about the idea of a road trip. From watching American classics like Thelma and Louise, to reading books like On the Road by Jack Kerouac, the inspiration is everywhere.

But, believe it or not, I have never actually been on a road trip in America. Although I would love to step back in time on Route 66, road trips in America are often very long and very expensive.

Traveling in Spain

In Spain, on the other hand, you’ve got a variety of cities and landscapes all within a relatively small country. The entire country is slightly smaller than Texas, after all.

When I travel in Spain, I usually try to travel close to where I live. I typically start in my province, and then try to visit each adjacent province. For example: I live in Vitoria-Gasteiz, ALAVA, Basque Country, so my adjacent provinces are VISCAYA and GUIPUZCOA in the Basque Country, NAVARRA and LA RIOJA, and BURGOS of Castilla y Leon.

These trips are usually achievable in one day. But what if you have a long weekend, or are looking to pull yourself out of a Summer Slump? Welcome to the world of Spanish Road Trips.

Planning a Spanish Road Trip

The first thing you need to do is figure out how much time you have for the trip. My first year in Spain, a few friends and I decided to visit a few key places in Andalusia. Andalusia is a big Community, and we only had a 4 day weekend (over Halloween and All Saints Day), so we decided on 3 days.

Everyone wanted to visit Gibraltar and Ronda, so those were the key destinations. When we looked at the map, we saw that Cadiz and Tarifa were on the way.  Marbella was a little bit out of the way between Gibraltar and Ronda, but not much, so we added it. Another girl had heard of a cool pueblo called Setenil de las bodegas, and since it wasn’t that far from Ronda, we added that too. This ended up being our route:

When planning a road trip, it’s a really good idea to plan as much as the route as you can in advance. We were able to use this plan to decide that we would drive the 2.5 hours from Huelva to Cadiz and stay there the first night.

We had a great time in Cadiz, but maybe a little too great. Some of the girls “overslept,” and we got a late start the next day, so we made the sad decision to cut out Tarifa and go straight to Gibraltar, which took about an hour and a half.

From Gibraltar, we drove about an hour and 20 minutes to Marbella, where we spent the night. I don’t have any good pictures from Marbella, because it was raining the whole time we were there, but I did get to touch the Mediterranean Sea for the first time.

Next stop: Ronda. It was also about an hour and 20 minutes from Marbella to Ronda. This was my favorite destination of the trip.

Ronda has statue dedicated to Orson Welles, with the inscription that translates to “A man is not from where he was born, but where he chooses to die.”

Our last stop on the way home was Setenil de las Bodegas, just 30 minutes from Ronda. It’s hard to beat the cliffs and the Roman bridge in Ronda, but Setenil has the quirky charm of not being built ON a cliff, like Ronda, but UNDER one.

We had a drink here and then drove 2.5 hours back to Huelva.

Road Trip Stats

I don’t have any exact calculations from this trip, because back then I didn’t think about money as often. I would estimate that the whole trip cost about 200-300 euros. Listed below are some of the expenses your should try to anticipate while planning your trip.

• We visited 5 of our 6 planned locations.
• Over 3 days, the average drive time was 3 hours and 15 minutes per day, avoiding toll roads.
• The cost of the car rental and gasoline was divided between 5 people.
• We slept in 2 hostels for 1 night each.
• Breakfasts were included in all of our stays, so we paid for 2 meals a day, or 10 meals total.

What are some of your favorite road trip routes?