travel in Spain
 

Hello
My family of five will be travelling to Spain in late June. I am looking for advice for how to travel between cities .... Madrid to Granada to Seville and finally to Barcelona. I am not keen on renting a car. Is it best to book a train and if so, buy a pass
Thanks

For train travel in Spain see: https://www.seat61.com/Spain-trains.htm - but you would be looking at some long rides. Maybe check for cheap flights as well - skyscanner.com.

You can look for transportation options on rome2rio.com

You will not want to rent a car for the places you are visiting. A car will be stressful and a nuisance trying to find parking and driving through the very narrow streets. The best and easiest mode of transportation is either the train or a bus. We did a similar trip last September, and traveled by train and bus. We did not purchase a rail pass.

We took the train from Madrid to Cordoba. I see you don't have Cordoba on your list. If you can fit it in, I highly recommend Cordoba. The Mezquita is amazing! We stayed there 2 nights and it was one of our favorite cities. We then took the ALSA bus from Cordoba to Granada. I assume you can also take the ALSA bus from Madrid to Granada. The problem with taking the train to Granada is that the high speed tracks to Granada have not been completed. At least they weren't as of last fall. This means you will take a train from Madrid to Antequera; then you get off the train and take a bus to Granada. I believe the bus is right there waiting for passengers. I know people on this forum have done that and they said it wasn't a problem. We chose to take the ALSA bus to Granada because we didn't have to make any changes; the bus was less expensive than the train; and the bus is very nice. It is modern, clean, and has air-conditioning. Not all of the buses have toilets, however. It depends on the bus and the length of the train ride. Our bus did not have a bathroom but it was not a problem. We used facilities at our hotel just before we left, or at the bus station.

We went to Malaga after Granada, and took the bus again. Then we took the train to Seville. Since you are going to Seville from Granada, I recommend the bus again. I assume you can take the train from Seville to Barcelona. Or perhaps fly.

I made our bus reservations directly with ALSA, and I booked our train reservations with Loco2. I didn't try Renfe because many people were having problems with Renfe at the time. I think the online site was not accepting their credit cards.
Hope this helps.

Here's our trip to Barcelona, Granada, Seville, Cordoba, Toledo and Madrid in 2015 (we also visited Ronda, which we did not particularly care for). Lots of photos and ideas. Trains are a great way to travel (we did fly from Barcelona to Granada).

https://travelswithmaitaitom.com/spain-2015/

((H))

Public transport is pretty well organised in Spain and you see a lot of the country.
I wouldn't drive in the cities

Yes trains are great unless you want to go Barcelona to Seville all at once - then a 6 hour or so ride may be too long for some. But for all the places you mention trains are great. A Spanish Railpass would only be viable if you wanted to wait until in a certain city before booking trains out - have some flexibility rather than putting train rides in stone weeks ahead of time to get discounted tickets -the cheapest way to go vs a pass usually unless taking zillions of train trips. www.renfe.com- book your own tickets - including nice discounts if early enough to get those limited in number tickets which are I believe non-changeable from a specific train. www.seat61.com has loads of advice on doing that; general info trains BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

As others have noted train or bus is recommended from Madrid to the Andalusian cities. The discounted train fares for June have not be released yet. We are heading to the same region in June too, and I am keeping an eye on the Renfe website. However as Karen noted it is easier to book your tickets with Loco2 when they are available. You could fly from Seville to Barcelona with Veuling. We flew with them in 2016, and did not have any problems.

Traveling in Spain
 

The best place to check on train routes and ticket costs is at Renfe, the official website the the Spanish Rail Road. You can purchase your tickets online after regestering. Payment can be made using PayPal, but we've found tha VISA cards work fine. If you're from the States or Canada, you can buy your tickets online at https://petrabax.com, the official website in North America. For shorter trips, you can use the bus - ALSA or PESA usually cover everything you need. Forget the rail pass, just purchase the tickets you need for the dates you want to travel. June dates should be available.

Nadak,
You can also set up a booking alert with Loco2 online. They will notify you by email when your train tickets go on sale.

renfe
 

is very easy to buy in the station. But if you want buy on line try the Renfe website

but buying at station day of travel or few before means full-fare tickets usually - save a lot on long-distance trains by booking at Renfe (or Loco2, etc_ well in advance but then you are pegged to a certain train at a certain time and no changes.

And with only 3 train rides yes forget all about any railpasses.