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6 weeks road trip Spain and Portugal

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1. 6 weeks road trip Spain and Portugal
   1. Subscriber Content
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2. Introduction
3. Research and Preparation
   1. Flights
   2. Car Hire
   3. Accommodation
   4. Money
   5. Travel Insurance
   6. Mobile Phone
   7. Navigation
   8. Parking
   9. Packing
   10. When to go
4. Itinerary
   1. Subscriber Content
5. Costs
   1. Spain Costs(euros)
   2. Portugal Costs(euros)
   3. Total costs Spain and Portugal(euros)
6. Spain
   1. Barcelona, Sept 29th – Oct 1st
   2. Cadaques, Oct 1st – 3rd
   3. Begur, Oct 3rd – 4th
   4. Peniscola, Oct 4th – 5th
   5. Benicassim, Oct 5th – 7th
   6. Valencia
   7. Altea, Oct 7th – 8th
   8. El Castell de Guadalest
   9. Mojacar, Oct 8th – 9th
   10. Aguadulce, Oct 9th – 10th
   11. Frigiliana
   12. Malaga, Oct 10th – 11th
   13. Ronda
   14. Seville, Oct 11th – 14th
   15. Granada, Oct 14th – 16th
   16. Alora – Caminito del Ray, Oct 16th – 17th
7. Portugal
   1. The Algarve
      1. Tavira, Oct 17th – 19th
      2. Carvoeiro, Oct 19th – 21st
         1. Alte
         2. Silves
      3. Luz, Oct 21st – 23rd
      4. Evora, Oct 23rd – 24th
      5. Lisbon, Oct 24th – 26th
      6. Sintra
         1. Palace of Pena
      7. Azenhas do Mar, Oct 26th – 28th
      8. Obidos, Oct 28th – 29th
      9. Aviera, Oct 29th – 30th
      10. Porto, Oct 30th – Nov 2nd
      11. Viana do Costello, Nov 2nd – 3rd
      12. Saojo, Nov 3rd – 5th
      13. Duoro Valley, Oct 5th – 6th
      14. Saint Martin del Castanar, Nov 6th – 7th
      15. Salamanca
      16. Madrid, Nov 7th – 10th
      17. Toledo, Nov 10th – 11th
      18. Zaragoza Nov 11th – 12th
      19. Montserrat
      20. Back to Barcelona Nov 12th – 14th
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Introduction

Travelling has always been a passion since I got the bug in my early 20’s. As many young New Zealanders did I embarked on my OE ( overseas experience) through Asia, Europe and Africa in the 1980’s. Check out my travel blog for past travels.

http://www.travellingretirees.com

With our children we had some great family holidays mainly in Australia, NZ and the amazing islands in the South Pacific.

Since the children left home my wife( Helle) and I have pursued our love of discovering other places with trips to Cuba, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Nuie.

On retiring in 2024 our goal is to travel to rediscover old destinations and discover new ones for around 3 months each year. Turkey is our first destination along with France , Spain and Portugal.

Our type of travel is to organise everything ourselves. We don’t like “tours”. We like to hire cars and bikes to give us flexibility to get off the beaten track.

We love exploring some bigger cities but our preference is to find smaller towns or villages – enjoy their history, architecture, culture and food.

We are not “resort” people. We are not interested in finding beaches and lounging for hours with hundreds of others. We enjoy staying in the older more historic places and love to just wander and soak up everyday life.

Being retired we do enjoy our comforts. We no longer want too many overnight bus trips or substandard accommodation. Our preferred accommodation are apartments which are more homely and where we can cook and prepare our own meals. If we stay in hotels we don t like big chain 5 star hotels – more 2 – 3 star and boutique in nature.

Our style of travel is to stay 2 or 3 nights in most locations- a bit longer in the bigger cities. We generally find this gives us plenty of time to explore and get a good feel for a place – plus recharge the batteries.

Research and Preparation

I love researching new countries and places to visit. It’s great fun reading about different destinations and other travellers’ experiences.

Today, with the internet, it is so easy to find all sorts of different views on where you want to head. I like to read other travel blogs or talk to friends who have recently visited to get a number of independent viewpoints.

Once you have a good feel of where you want to go jump on http://www.skyscanner.com (for flights comparisons) and then Booking.com and airbnb for accommodation options. If you are looking to hire a car we use Carflexi or Booking.com. These sites all search and compare the available options and costs.

Flights

We usually lock in international flights 3 – 6 months before we go. The main reason is that we then have specific arrival and departure dates to then start planning where within each county we want to go. I love that part and building up to the anticipation of departure date!

Our trip to Spain and Portugal was part of a 3 1/2 month trip – starting in Turkey, then heading to France to cycle the Loire Valley, then Bordeaux to Sete. We finished with a 6 weeks road trip through Spain and Portugal.

We use skyscanner.com to search for the best flight options and then will book with the airline on line directly.

Car Hire

For our road trip in Spain and Portugal, we hired a car through booking.com.

Normally we search and book via carflexi.com but we got a particularly good deal using booking.com. The company we hired through was Record Go. We picked up in Barcelona at their office near the Sants train station in Carrer del Rossello. We booked about a year in advance with a free cancellation option. The price was exceptional as it was a “Black Friday” offer. Total amount including cover protection was $NZ2290(1220 euro) plus an additional cross border cost into Portugal 200 euros – therefore total for car hire 1420 euros. We had unlimited mileage and our excess was 1100 euros which we would have got back through our travel insurance if we had an accident(which we didn’t have fortunately!) We rented from October 1st – November 13th – ie 44 days @ 32.30 euros per day. We had a manual Peugeot 2008 which had 57,000 kms on the clock.

Accommodation

With Booking.com and airbnb most of the accommodation has the ability to book and cancel before a certain date. You pay a bit more but it is best to choose this option as you never know what might happen and your plans may change. If you cancel before a certain date (usually a week or so before the actual booking) then you can cancel without any penalty.

I always look at the reviews for each place we book. Not always absolutely accurate as everyone has different tastes and standards. The more reviews the better!

Money

We use a Wises travel money card, also called a currency card. It is a type of a card which allows you to keep multiple currencies, and use the card while travelling the world with no hidden fees to worry about. You can hold up to 40+ currencies in your travel money card, and convert them at the mid-market rate with the free Wise app.

Unlike travelling with cash, you don’t even need to have the money converted beforehand — simply use the travel money card in stores, coffee shops, online or withdraw from ATMs, and it will convert the amount automatically for a low fee.

Travel Insurance

An absolute must – just make sure you have it and read the fine print. I normally take out insurance with our bank and ensure you can actually get hold of someone if things go wrong! If hiring a car make sure the insurance covers the excess.

Mobile Phone

We purchased a data only e sim(Airalo) for our travels. This allows you to connect to local networks as soon as you arrive to your destination. We purchased 50GB for 90 days to Europe for $US100. Unless you download a lot of stuff this is ample capacity.

Airalo have lots of different plans and options to suit individual needs.

Navigation

We used Google maps everywhere we went. Google maps is so much more than navigation. We found it very useful if you need to use public transport at all – put in the address where you want to go, click direction and then the icon that looks like a train. It gives you real time options for trains and buses and how to get there. Also if you want a supermarket just put in supermarket and all the options then come up on the map and it even tells you if they are open or closed! Great if you travel on a Sunday in France as most supermarkets are closed so its very useful to find one that is open near by.

Parking

Parking can be an absolute nightmare in many of the larger towns. Normally you will want to stay in the old part of town and parking just doesn’t exist.

We discovered a website http://www.parkimeter.com. If you download this app and put your address where you are staying it will give you all the available car park buildings in the area, how far away they are from your accommodation and the cost. It was an absolute game changer when we discovered it. Also ask your host where you are staying for the best parking option. However they often just give you the nearest rathet than other nearby options which may be considerably cheaper! We didn’t mind an extra 5 – 10 minute walk to save a reasonable amount of money – especially if you plan to park the car for 3 days!

Packing

Travel light! Everybody will tell you this. You can always buy stuff on the way. For 3 1/2 months my wife and I had 25 kilos in total.

If just makes life so much easier with less luggage, although having a car does allow for more if you cannot go without the extra pair of shoes!

As our Spain and Portugal road trip was after 1 month in Turkey and 1 month cycling in France we travelled light. We had our own panniers from NZ. These consisted of 2 side pannier bags for the rear carrier and a bag that attached to the top which was also a small backpack. We purchased a large soft bag which was able to fit the side panniers( one check on bag for the airlines) and then we used the two other bags as our backpacks and carry on luggage.

When to go

Avoid the crowds and heat of summer – so go in the shoulder season before or after summer. We started at the very end of September – mainly through October and the first 2 weeks in November. The conditions were perfect for what we wanted to do although the last 2 weeks it started to get dark quite early and bit chilly sometimes.

Itinerary

Subscribe for just US$2.95 and unlock the epic “6 weeks road trip Spain and Portugal”. You will get our full itinerary, where we stayed, costs and sights and places you must see!