Oh Spain (and France briefly)…what a wonderful 6 weeks we have had! Leaving is bittersweet. We love it here so much and we have made so many wonderful memories but at the same time, we are very excited to see what the rest of our trip brings us.
One thing that this leg of our trip has reminded us is just how big the world is. We could spend the whole year traveling around Spain and have a very interesting, exciting, and fun year of adventure.
Over 3000 km, 30+hrs of driving, 7 stops, 43 days, and a billion memories made. Here’s what our Tour of Spain looked like:
In some ways I feel like 6 weeks and the area we covered gave us a really good sense of what Spain is like. In other ways, we feel like we barely scratched the surface. Everything varies over such short distances – architecture, food, terrain, customs, history, etc. Even though we did a very big loop around Spain, we missed many places that I would like to visit on a future trip. Top of the list is Valencia, which we had planned to visit but had had a little SNAFU with our plans. We’d also like to travel across the north of Spain from San Sebastian west to Galicia, maybe one day hiking a portion of the Camino de Santiago.
Some of the kids favorite things in their own words:
Iain – ‘I really liked the hikes and the beach. I liked everything.’
Riley – ‘Swimming in the river, the hikes, well…everything about Spain except the time I banged my thumb in the door’.
Ronan – ‘My favorite part was the beach and that we found basketball hoops in most places we went to. My least favorite part was the car drives.’
Some things we learned on this trip:
- Take things slower and stay in each place for at least 1 week, ideally 2 weeks. Anything shorter seems rushed and there is so much to unpack and re-pack with a family of 5.
- Airbnb is a great option for this type of trip. So nice to be able to see ratings from other people that have stayed in each place and also to connect with local hosts and support their businesses. We stayed in 7 airbnb’s on this trip and they’ve all been incredible. It is also nice, and essential when trying to stick to a low budget, to have a kitchen to prepare meals.
- Plan to stay in Basque country longer than you think. We will return.
- Not many people in Spain speak English. I was surprised at how few people we came across that could communicate in even basic English. Google Translate was our friend.
- Roads in Spain are great and easy to navigate. However, we didn’t factor the tolls in our budget. They were quite steep around Barcelona and then again as we traveled across southern France.
- For 3 euros, you can buy a baguette, cheese, and a liter of wine. It is very easy to overdo the calories here. I will spend the next 6 weeks working off the excess!
- Check your rental car for a spare tire. It is a major safety concern if you get a flat somewhere remote and you have no spare tire available.
- Siesta is real. Plan your day around everything being closed from 2 to 5 pm. Even after 6 weeks here, 2 to 5 pm is the only time we’re really up and ready to go. It has been difficult for us to adjust.
- Make sure you prepare for Sunday. Almost everything is closed on Sundays including grocery stores. We got caught out on a couple of Sundays not having any food in the house.
- There are steep drop offs everywhere in this country that are not adequately protected for small children who have little focus.
- People do not pick up their dog poo! We don’t understand why but dogs just poo freely and so many people don’t pick it up. We spent most of our time walking around looking at the ground.
- It can get really really hot and humid in Northern Spain. We did not expect the temperatures or the humidity.
- Sangria is very refreshing on a hot day 😊
- Check with locals on where to get Paella. There’s varying quality and freshness, especially in the more touristy areas.
- Wikiloc is an amazing App to find hiking trails near wherever you are.
- Irnex Parkme is a great app to find parking lots with availability.
