We will be traveling to Barcelona and Madrid in June. We have 5 days in Barcelona and 7 days in Madrid. With my current itinerary, I only need 3 days in Barcelona. I thought abt driving to France one day but none of the towns that we can drive to look overly interesting to us. I keep hearing how inexpensive it is to fly on ryan air, vueling, and easy jet. Can someone recomennd an itinerary for a full day or a possible overnight by train or plane that is less than 2 hours travel time and inexpensive to travel to? Rome would be first choice but we are certainly open to other places. I am traveling with my husband and 2 kids, ages 12 and 17.

Forget the flights:
2 hrs is the minimum time you need to go from your hotel to the airport, to check in your luggage and to proceed to the departure gate.

By train, you may go to Salses castle, Perpignan, Tarragona, Lerida or Zaragoza

Sitges is cool.

Tarragona. It's a Roman port city with Roman excavations an hour south of Barcelona. The Camp Tarragona train station is on the route between Barcelona and Madrid.

Zaragoza is also on the train line between Barcelona and Madrid. Definitely enough to keep you busy there for 24 hours.

You can visit Girona. We spent 2 nights there in 2010, and loved it. You could rent a car in Barcelona and drive to Gironde, about 1 hour away, I think. Or take a train from Barcelona to Girona.

Mean to say "drive to Girona".

Tarragona or Girona. Use public transportation for either.

I'm stunned that you think you will only need 3 days for Barcelona.
But your trip, your call!

Head north to Figures, to visit the amazing Dali Museum. Not far north in Barcelona , in France, Collioure is pretty waterfront town. It has an artistic history, a castle, good restaurants. We enjoyed staying there and would happily return.

As Kja suggests, I would also used the extra time to explore fabulous and diverse Barcelona. Some tips for "day-trips" to parts of town which are often overlooked.

All the Olympic sports arenas, museums, theaters, the greens, the Castle on top and the great views of the city and the sea on Montjuic: https://www.telefericdemontjuic.cat/...-montjuic.html

The Olympic swimming pool is open to the public in June, The Guardian calls it the "world's best swimming pool": https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2...ntjuic-piscina

Gracia, just on top of central Passeig de Gracia, is like a village within the city: https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide....ia-barrio.html
http://suitelife.com/blog/moving-to-...-do-in-gracia/

I think it would be more productive to use the 2 extra days you think you have to do things closer to Barcelona by train. Budget flights are very reasonable, but I don't think that really makes sense in your case.

If you really want to drive somewhere (I can't imagine how much trouble that will be if you are staying in the middle of Barcelona), you can drive to Valencia, Spain in about 3.5 hrs. I wouldn't do that for a day trip, obviously.

By train, I presume you are already going to Montserrat? I think you should be spending more time in Barcelona, also, but if your 3 days don't include Montserrat, that would be a good one.

YOu can get to Zaragoza Spain by train in only 1.5 hrs by AVE.

We just had a week in Barcelona and that was not enough time.

We did go to Montserrat and it was nice to see the scenery, visit the monastery and hear the Boys' Choir. I would have preferred to add in a bit of hiking to make it even more worthwhile, but that didn't work out. If you like to hike, that would be a great day trip, and easy to do on your own by train.

From Barcelona you can go to Tibidabo ot Motserrat...

Take a train from Barcelona South to a small town called Sitges. We did thins years ago when we were there & Iswore if I ever went back to Spain I would go there. Arty town on beach. Charming areas.