I travelled through Spain in the summer of 2025, as I toured the Iberian Peninsula.
You can read more about my adventures in the blog series “Siestas and Sunsets: Iberian Adventures (Part 1)“. I loved my time in Spain so much that I am going back to do all the things I never got to do during that trip. Part 2 of the adventure is happening this summer (2026)!
Language
As always, I had endeavoured to learn some of the language before my trip, and had some basic Spanish. I would always recommend at least knowing how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in the language of the country you are in. Even if speaking to someone whose English is very good, a little effort goes a long way.
Also, I found on this trip that the spoken English varied greatly, especially as you travel inland. For example, I was especially glad of my broken Spanish when getting an Uber in Salamanca! So if you don’t know the language too well, be sure to have Google translate to hand.
Driving
I really enjoyed driving through Spain, it’s a huge wide open country covered in mountains and valleys and has great driving. The most challenging drive while I was there was the coastal road from Barcelona to Sitges. The views were absolutely breath-taking, but so were the hairpins!
I didn’t do a lot of city driving, as I opted to park and ride in the big cities like Madrid and Barcelona. But the traffic always seemed very well managed, certainly not in the realms of cities like London or Birmingham.
As with other European countries, you’ll need to have your car kitted out with safety triangle, hi viz, spare bulbs, paperwork etc. And you’ll need to have either a UK marked numberplate or bumper sticker.
Public transport
As with many European countries (with the exception of the UK of course) public transport in Spain is fabulous. There are awesome park and ride facilities in places like Madrid and Barcelona with trains into the heart of the city. I would absolutely recommend using them, I found them to be safe, convenient and easy to use. The details of the ones I used will be added into the relevant days blog posts.
I also used Uber while I was in Spain, while staying in Salamanca, which is a smaller city inland. However, I didn’t have any trouble at all getting picked up, and the driver was really lovely.
Timezone
A word of caution, if travelling from Portugal to Spain (or vice versa) remember that there is a time zone change. This almost caught me out, and I nearly missed the deadline for entering my overnight camping!
Posts about Spain
The posts relating to my days in Spain are linked below. As you will see, I started off in Northern Spain. I then made my way down through Portugal, and then back into Southern Spain via Gibraltar. After making a detour into central Spain, I finally headed northward along the eastern coast, through Valencia and Barcelona.
