Two College Students in Spain for the first time! Help!
 

Hey everyone!
My best friend and I are traveling to spain for two weeks this summer. We are college students with a very limited budget and are looking to see the very best of Spain without breaking the bank. We are very interested in Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla, and Ibiza. I am open to ANY suggestions! Heres what im looking for- good hostels, cheap but yummy restraunts, fun nightlife, train and metro prices and schedules, also, we went to rent bikes but the bike tours can be pricey, does anyone have a homemade bike tour that we could do on our own. Any advice is greatly appreciated! :) We are also interested in traveling to Greece, what is the best way to do that (we might be extending our stay)

Get a guidebook. I wouldn't try to travel cheaply without one. I use Frommers, Fodors or Rick Steves (or all of them), but there are others that cater to budget concerns.

Lonely Planet?
Rough Guide?

Well Barcelona is a great place to hang out on the cheap - IMO - some of the Gaudi sites are free - but reading your post I don't see anything mentioned about what you want to SEE! but there is also a beach scene and we recently saw bike rental places up by the big park. But getting a guide book should help with the hostel picks, and there are tapas tapas everywhere. If you really want to go cheap, I'm not sure Ibiza or Greece should be in the plan - i'm thinking getting there will not be cheap and there is plenty to do in Barcelona, Madrid and Sevilla for two weeks. In Barcleona you can buy a "book" of metro tickets for less than 1E a ride. Be careful on the metro, alot of tricky pick-pockets. Don't know much about the night life but IMO the Spainards enjoy their late nites!

I spent 2 weeks in spain a while back but we most travelled by car, but you can cover most of the country by train. We started in madrid and when to seville then down the coast, where we hit several cities/towns (including Malaga, Granada,cordoba before ending up in Barcelona. The nightlife was definitely plentiful and very late. We didnt do any of the islands but your 2 weeks will go by fast.

14 days and at least four locations...that is a lot of travelling. That costs money...have you thought about cutting that down to say one major location and incorporating another?
Going in summer to somewhere like Ibiza will also not be cheap. It is the party town of Spain and is usually full.
For cheap accommodation look here
http://www.hostels.com/

All you really need is a guidebook, but I second the suggestion to cut out Ibiza--there are beaches in Barcelona and near Sevilla.

With a limited budget and two weeks, I say cut out Greece. You also didn't mention going to Granada which is (as I've read) a college town and has the #1 tourist attraction in Spain, Alhambra! It's a MUST DO!

Hello!

I have plenty of suggestions for how to save money in Spain. First off, I strongly agree that you should cut out a visit to Ibiza. You can rent bikes here through a company called Bicing, which is all over the place- be sure to bring your student ids because you will get a discount. I would suggest getting a T10 pass for the metro- only 7.45 euros and good for 10 rides, which you can use to get to the beaches on the mainland :) However, steer clear of eating/ drinking at at any place near the beach and also going to the big dance clubs along the beach because everything is extremely overpriced! In Barcelona, the Gracia neighborhood is a good place to find a lot of young, college-aged people and you can relax for free in one of the big plazas where the people love to hang out at night- I suggest the Plaza del Sol and you can also eat/ drink relatively cheaply in this neighborhood. Also, most likely you will visit Las Ramblas when you come to Barcelona- another place where you should wander a few minutes away from the crowded, touristy areas in order to find much more modestly priced places.

If you still want to travel to Greece, I would suggest looking for flights from Spain on ryanair.com or vueling.com.

Hope you have an awesome trip!

Jenna

Lifestyle Barcelona