Seville to Granada or Seville/White Hill Towns Daytrip
 

I realize that the general consensus seems to be that we should take a train from Sevilla to Granada and that we should skip the white hill towns since we only have 10 days for Madrid, Seville, and Granada. However, we really would like to see some of the smaller towns. We could rent a car to drive from Seville to Granada and do a detour to the towns on the way, or we could just rent a car and do a day trip from Seville. Which option makes the most sense? If we do take the train from Seville to Granada, is the route scenic?

I'd go with driving from Sevilla to Ronda and then onto Granada. If you spend one night in Ronda, then you would be able to visit a few of the other white towns around Ronda on a day trip after checking into your hotel. The Parador would be a good option as it has parking.

http://www.turismoderonda.es/excursi...xcursiones.htm
http://www.parador.es/en/parador-de-ronda

I suggest you take the train from Seville to Antequera, rent a car. Spend the night in Iznajar (or another town but I'm familiar with Iznajar and can recommend it) and then continue on by train to Granada next day. Iznajar is not far from Antequera, which is also a nice place, and it'd be an easy thing to do. I spent a week in Iznajar several years ago and loved it.

Sorry...I didn't make my question completely clear. We wouldn't have time to spend the night on the way in Ronda or any of the other towns, unfortunately, unless we cut our already-short time in Seville. We would have to do the drive in one day. If we had more time, spending a night in one of these places would have made our decision easy.

Then maybe it would be more practical to just take the train straight through to Granada and save the smaller places for a leisurely visit another time. Usually simpler is better, at least I think so.