Am planning our first trip to Spain for next October and would like professional help. Anyone had great experiences with travel agents focusing on Spain and/or Spanish tour guides (walking tours, etc.)? Also, best Spain travel book recommendations (we have Fodor's already). THANKS!

I'm familiar with Iberian Traveler (http://iberiantraveler.com), which offers small group tours and custom packages to Spain and Portugal. There is also Petrabax (http://petrabax.com/main/index.asp).

There are also a few local guides in Spain that I can recommend. Madrid and Beyond (http://www.madridandbeyond.com/) and Made for Spain (http://www.madeforspain.com/).

It will all depend on what you want to see and do.

Have you checked locally to see what's available?

And have you checked out Maribel’s Guides (http://maribelsguides.com). She offers several recommendations.

Thank you SO much! Didn't even know where to start besides Madrid and Barcelona. So many choices in Spain, it's not as obvious as first time Italy, which we just finished.

Suggest you contact the guide I used. See my post "A Great Privte Guide". She's very knowledgable and was really helpful in setting up my trip.

we used Madrid and Beyond 2 years ago and they did a very good job (www.madridandbeyond.com). We were a family of 4 and they found us really exceptional hotels where they were able to put together 2 bedroom suites for us -I wouldn't have been able to do it myself. Also did car/train reservations, restaurant recomendatons and reservations, and did recommend private guides although we didn't use them. All in all a very good experience.

Thanks so much!

I haven't used them but Maribel has recommended an agency called Totally Spain www.totallyspain.com
She uses them and I remember other poster ( maybe Ger) that used them with very good results.