After reading Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist, I’ve always felt the desire to travel to Spain and Morocco. Recently, we found a great deal online and booked our trip to Madrid right away. Everyone usually asks me how we plan these trips without any tour packages. We don’t use big companies or buy packages that offer hotels, round trips and tours for one big price. We want to be able to control more of the trip and be free to do what we want rather than follow a big group. Another reason is because these companies usually take you to touristy places. We prefer to go to places more authentic and take the roads less traveled. In this post, I’m gonna go over the steps to plan a detailed itinerary by planning for our trip to Spain and Morocco.
TIP: Book from mid week to mid week. Tickets are cheaper during midweek and getting to and back from your destination will be a bit less hectic than flying on a weekend. I do this because it allows me to work up until I leave and work the day after I get back from vacation.
The first thing you need to do is look at the map and see where you want to spend your time. (Check out my geography blog post if you’re not great with maps!) If you have a short trip, you might want to stick to one major city. The other option is to venture out and explore a neighboring country or other major cities. We are flying into Madrid for this trip and we have 6-7 days to plan for in our itinerary.
Here are our options:
- Spent all our time in Madrid only
- Divide our time between Madrid and Barcelona
- Explore Madrid and go to Portugal
- Explore Madrid and go to Morocco
You all know which one we choose. #4! Madrid and Morocco! The other three are also great options, but since Morocco was high on our list, we choose this option.
The next thing to do is to divide your itinerary based on how long you want to stay in one city. You do this based on how much activities or attractions there are to see. This part takes some serious research!
We wanted to spend as much time as possible in Morocco. Therefore, we decided to travel south towards Seville as soon as we land in Madrid. We have two days in Seville (on our way to and from Morocco), three days in Morocco and one day in Madrid. Next, you must check the distance between the cities for traveling via train, bus, car or flight (or even boat!). If it takes you three hours to get from one city to the next, you’ll need to take that into consideration when making your itinerary.
So, when should you make that long trip between two cities?
It’s important to strategically plan your travel time between two cities to avoid loosing precious time exploring! I would recommend you travel between 11AM and 3PM, which is the common check out time and check in time. This way, you can travel to the next city and check in right away. If you’re the type of person who makes the most of your trip, you can also fit in an early morning activity that day!
Our flight lands in the morning and typically, we won’t get to check into a hotel until the afternoon. So, instead of spending time carrying around our luggage and attempting to site see, we are going to use that time to travel more south, towards Morocco.
With me so far?
Good! Once you’ve figured out which days you are spending in which city, the next step is to book your hotel stays or Airbnb homes! I pick this based on reviews and ratings on google and any other travel sites. For Airbnb, I try to pick super-hosts and interact with them at least once before booking their place. If you don’t speak the language of the country, it’s important to find a host that speaks English!
I just booked our stays in Spain and Morocco (2 months before the trip) and I was late! I should have booked 3-4 months prior to the trip, because a lot of the places were already booked out!
What’s next?
The next major step is to book the transportation between the two cities. You already know which cities you are visiting and have an idea of the distance between these places. So now it’s time to choose how you want to travel! No matter which method of transportation you choose, try to stick closest to the time frame mentioned above.
TIP: For most of Europe, using trains to get around will be the most ideal. In most parts of Asia, it is more efficient to fly from one place to another. You want to look at the time it takes and the cost and choose what is better for you.
Here are our options:
1. Train: Madrid>Seville>Tarifa Takes less time, More convenient, bathroom access, more space, can take unlimited luggage. But costs a lot more $$.
2. Bus: Madrid>Seville>Tarifa Takes double the time vs train, no bathroom access, less leg room yet much cheaper.
3. Flight: From Madrid > Morocco: 4x the price. Less time for travel, however will miss the view and scenery.
4. Car: From Madrid > Seville >Tarifa: Double the time compared to train (same route as bus). Need to rent a car, get insurance, get international driving license. Have the freedom of stopping whenever, more flexible. Much cheaper but less safe.
What did we choose? Because my parents are coming on this trip with us and because we are doing this train trip right after our 9 hour flight, we choose to take the train.
How to book?
Each country as a different train system. Fortunately, booking train in Europe is very simple in that there are several websites to book through.
In Italy, we choose to book with Italiarail. For this trip in Spain, we choose Renfe. For the first train ride, give yourself plenty of time to learn how the system works, where the stations are and how to board it. The rides from there on will be much easier and you don’t have to get there as early once you know how things work.
Now that we have our cities, hotel/airbnb stays and transportation planned out, that concludes the first step of planning the itinerary! Stay tuned as I plan out the fine details of our Spain-Morocco trip with How To Make An Itinerary Part 2! Until then, if you have any questions, post below!
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