travel advice between spain and portugal
 

My husband and I will visit friends in Ronda, Spain in Oct. and then we'd like to travel throughout Portugal. Can we drive our rental
from Ronda to a destination south of Lisbon? Are the drop-off fees outrageous? Flights are limited out of Malaga and there's not a train. Is there a bus option?
Thanks for any suggestions!

I can't help directly, but I would be very surprised if there isn't a bus between Malaga and a town in the south of Portugal. We took a bus from Porto to Salamanca. However we couldn't book beforehand - just turned up on the day. The same went for buses in Spain. I was concerned because we were travelling in Holy Week, but they put on extra buses at busy times.

Yes, the drop-off fees can be outrageous unless you happen to be able to work out a deal with an agency that has a car that needs to be returned to Portugal. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

There is bus service from Sevilla to Faro where you can pick up a car to tour Portugal.

Google the three words
Bus Malaga Faro - plenty of results.

Then do the same with the three words
Bus Malaga Spain

you get more results, like www.busstation.net where you can select Spain, etc.

I've taken a Eurolines bus Sevilla to Lisbon: operated by Viajes Juliá & originating in Malaga; it only operates about 4-days weekly, maybe less in Sep or Oct.

You should be able to drop off your rental in Sevilla or Huelva and bus to Faro or Albufeira where you can pick up another rental car. Renfe terminates in Huelva: there is no rail service west from Huelva.

Bus Companies are Damas SA (Spanish) or Eva-Bus (Portuguese)

The bus companies for Sevilla to the Algarve are www.damas-sa.es and www.eva-bus.com. They operate together so the same schedule appears on both websites. Note that Sevilla in Portuguese is "Sevilha".