bosgal

Hello everyone - I am still trying to figure out our itinerary for a trip that we will be making on short notice from 3/29-4/15 (if I can still find reasonable hotels and airfares). This is our first trip to Spain and I think we will try to explore Madrid and the southern region for this trip, after reading all the wonderful information here, the big ones - Madrid(side trip to Segovia, Toledo, El Escorial), Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba, maybe Ronda.

Is there a way to fly out from the south on an international flight back to the US(Boston), without having to retrace back to Madrid by car or train? I suspect that the plane would still do a stopover in Madrid but at least we're already at the airport? I tried playing around with the diffferent cities and I think it might only be Sevilla - is there any other city we can get a flight out from. I wasn't successful with Malaga.

THANK YOU!

Aramis

You will have to likely have to connect through Madrid, or maybe Barcelona. They are the only two Spanish airports served directly by US airlines. However, you may be able to fly back through another European airport Malaga - London/Frankfurt - Boston, for example.

I take it you want to fly directly into Madrid and then back from somewhere in Andalucia. The airport possibilities are Malaga, Sevilla, Granada, Jerez, and Gibraltar. Malaga would have been my first suggestion. I find it hard to understand how you can't locate a flight from there, so I did a little searching. I think your issue is that you are trying to find a direct flight to Madrid while accepting a connecting flight back. That imposes a pretty strict choke on possibilities. If you are willing to connect on both flights, this gets very simple.

Go to KLM.com and select multi city trip Boston to Madrid outgoing and Malaga to Boston return, for the dates you indicate.

You will find an outgoing flight through Amsterdam, with the return flight through Paris, for $848. I would book that price YESTERDAY, if I were you.

You can also book a similar trip on Delta or Air France (KLM's partners) for about $888 connecting through Paris, both ways.

I believe that KLM will actually allow you a stopover in Amsterdam, too, if that interests you. You could check that out on Air France, for Paris.

Good luck.

greg

If you don't want to do layover on the way back, there are two other possibilities.

1. On landing in Madrid, travel immediately to Andalucia. Do Madrid last. If your arrival in Madrid is like 9:25am, then traveling immediately is a good use of time until you can check-in.

2. Do layover first to get to Granada, Sevilla, etc. Ground travel back to Madrid and fly home from them. From Boston, there is an Iberia connection that gets you in Sevilla 10am.

bosgal

Hi Aramis - THANK YOU! I hope you read this, yes, I think you got exactly what I was trying to do, and regarding Malaga, I think I tried to plug in Malaga to Boston and it said there were no flights(I did this via kayak). What do you mean by "accepting a connecting flight back"?

I was about to ask this on the forum as well but since you seem to be pretty active on post this about Spain, do the train and bus prices fluctuate according to demand, or is it a fixed price? The primary reason we were thinking of renting a car to go from one town to the next is because we are a family of three, when I priced the car for the duration of days we will be traceling, it's coming out cheaper than the price for tickets for the three of us on even just one leg of the trip(example Madrid to Granada)

Thanks!

bosgal

Thank you greg, I will check that out too!

Gardyloo

We just flew in and out of Gibraltar last week, and could have (had we wanted to) connected through Heathrow to/from Boston very easily, with minimal connection times.

Gibraltar's new airport is very nice and efficient, and a day on the Rock can be very enjoyable.

Trip report with links to pictures of SW Andalusia here: http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ary-2012.cfm?1

SloJan2

Another option is to drive over to Faro and hop a TAP flight to Lisbon. There are some extremely affordable fares from Lisbon to Boston going on now. Don't be afraid of SATA. They are excellent.

Ackislander

I like the greg's idea of doing Madrid last.

If you connect through another UK/European airport on the way home, you will have to leave your Spanish city v-e-r-y early in order to make a Boston plane that will leave between 1100 and 1400 local time. Like 0500.

If you do Madrid last, you can fly or train to other destinations in Spain and begin your trip in a more relaxing place.

Aramis

bosgal;

What I meant was that I thought you might have had difficulty in your search because you were trying to find a return flight combination that was non-stop (direct) to Madrid, and then a return from Malaga. Or maybe you were trying to book them separately rather than using the "multi-city" option? Either way, it sounds as if you have figured it out.

Spain's trains are priced much like discount airlines - the prices are generally cheaper the farther in advance you book. I believe that a certain number of seats are allotted prices and once they are booked, you have to move up in the price category. With it being less than one month before you plan to travel, you are probably seeing some of the higher prices.

A lot of the places you plan to visit are served very well by train. Ronda is the big exception. Granada does not have the high speed service that serves Seville, Cordoba, and Malaga, but it is reachable by train. Andalucia, the Sierra de Ronda, and the Sierra de Nevada, offer some spectacular scenery that is best seen by car. You could very easily travel to Seville by train (day trip to Cordoba by train), then rent a car when leaving and touring, Ronda, the white towns, the Costa Del Sol, Granada, and then Malaga, where you could return the car and then fly, or train, back to Madrid, for example. Drop charges are not significant in Spain, especially if you use a regional car rental company. I used Aurigacrown last time and there was no charge between any of their Andalucia locations. I eventually planned a trip that was circular from Granada. We picked up the car downtown and then returned it at the airport - a great convenience.

Taking the train directly to Seville on arrival, as others have suggested, could make sense as it allows you to fly in and out of Madrid. I don't think that will be any cheaper than the flights I located, and it does mean there is some backtracking, but there would be no stopover on the return flight and that might make up for the time spent driving or training back to Madrid.

Some people like to rest as soon as possible after a transatlantic flight (spend your first days in Madrid), some like to soldier on the final destination via train, plane or car. It looks like you have options to do either one, depending on your preferences.

Do post specific questions tagged with Spain. there are lots of people with even more experience than I have in Spain who dole out great advice.