Potential Spain/Portugal Trip for relative newcomer

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StuartB

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I am a newcomer to the motorhome experience, we got our MH last May. I am retired, but my wife is still working(her choice, one of those lucky people who love their job).
I have a window of 4 to 5 weeks in April that I would like to travel to Spain and Portugal in, but it would have to be without my wife. As stated, I am new to motorhoming, so far lots of short trips around England and one quick 2 week trip to the south of France last summer. Although I have driven lots on the continent, so am not worried about that side of this trip.
However, I am a bit wary about managing a first trip of this nature on my own without any previous motorhoming experience like this.
My idea for the trip currently is

Ferry to Spain - any tips would appreciated, including somewhere to stay when I arrive
Travel to Santiago de Compostela - any ideas of routes or places to stay/see on route?
Then go south through Portugal, hopefully visiting Porto/Lisbon and any other recommendations.
Then head back into Spain to see some of central Spain, so far only identified Valladolid. Again route and place recommendations would be appreciated.
Heading eventually to the Pyrenees, where again it would be great if people could recommend places to visit.
Then come home via France (this bit would be fairly quick, a matter of a few days).

I would really appreciate any tips for things like apps or guides for finding sites/places to stay the night, or anything that you think would be useful to finally tip me over into buying the Ferry tickets to go.
 
Have you joined Acsi? It could save you money at that time of year.

Santander to Santiago - lots of places on the N. Spain Coast (try the campiso at Luarca)_ and I would go inland a bit to see some of the Picos De Europa. The Roman walls in Lugo are "should see". Then Cambados (for the sea-food), and Cangas before you enter Portugal.

Orbitur run a chain of campsites in Portugal and they have sites at Viana do Castello and Caminha. Anywhere along the coast - Aguiro and Figuera de Foz are good.

On your way back from Lisbon try Evora, Estremoz and Elvas.

In Spain, Merida, Caceres, Avila and Segovia, Valladolid and Burgos will take you to San Sebastian.

You will have already realised that this is a lot to do and you will be exhausted. But as it's your first trip in Iberia it may be worth putting the miles in to get an overview -with a view to revisiting these places in future years.

When we started travelling we moved on nearly every day for a week and then stopped for 3 days. You might want to have a longer stop of about 5 days in the middle of your trip - to relax a bit!

We hope you have a great trip and are blessed with good weather.
 
Download Park4night...you will get all the overnight places on there...
Your proposed route is quite doable....I cannot see any problems you might encounter...there is enough information in the Fun archives to give you all you need....Spain and Portugal are wonderful during spring..😀👍🇪🇦
 
the search engine on here is amazing just putting spain will bring up thousands of answers try to be more specific to what your looking for

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StuartB said:
I am a newcomer to the motorhome experience, we got our MH last May. I am retired, but my wife is still working(her choice, one of those lucky people who love their job).
I have a window of 4 to 5 weeks in April that I would like to travel to Spain and Portugal in, but it would have to be without my wife. As stated, I am new to motorhoming, so far lots of short trips around England and one quick 2 week trip to the south of France last summer. Although I have driven lots on the continent, so am not worried about that side of this trip.
However, I am a bit wary about managing a first trip of this nature on my own without any previous motorhoming experience like this.
My idea for the trip currently is

Ferry to Spain - any tips would appreciated, including somewhere to stay when I arrive
Travel to Santiago de Compostela - any ideas of routes or places to stay/see on route?
Then go south through Portugal, hopefully visiting Porto/Lisbon and any other recommendations.
Then head back into Spain to see some of central Spain, so far only identified Valladolid. Again route and place recommendations would be appreciated.
Heading eventually to the Pyrenees, where again it would be great if people could recommend places to visit.
Then come home via France (this bit would be fairly quick, a matter of a few days).

I would really appreciate any tips for things like apps or guides for finding sites/places to stay the night, or anything that you think would be useful to finally tip me over into buying the Ferry tickets to go.
Click to expand...


Spain, at that time of year is beautiful. Coming from Portugal I'd then follow (not on the motorway) the route of the Via de la Plata.

That would take you through Sevilla (worth a few days), then into the dehesa of Extremadura (wonderful flowers) to Merida, Caceres and Salamanca. It's then a bit of a swerve to get to the Pyrenees, but there are good roads to do it on.
 
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I think you might have a problem getting a ferry to Spain in April they tend to get booked up early so you may have to treat yourself to a nice drive through France & save a few hundred quid in the process.

We use Camper Contact for a lot of our stops, if you use Park4Night check the places very carefully we have been caught out a few times with places unsuitable for anything other than a small camper.

There are links to a lot of my trips in my signature we have been to a lot of places I think you would like.
 
StuartB said:
I am a newcomer to the motorhome experience, we got our MH last May. I am retired, but my wife is still working(her choice, one of those lucky people who love their job).
I have a window of 4 to 5 weeks in April that I would like to travel to Spain and Portugal in, but it would have to be without my wife. As stated, I am new to motorhoming, so far lots of short trips around England and one quick 2 week trip to the south of France last summer. Although I have driven lots on the continent, so am not worried about that side of this trip.
However, I am a bit wary about managing a first trip of this nature on my own without any previous motorhoming experience like this.
My idea for the trip currently is

Ferry to Spain - any tips would appreciated, including somewhere to stay when I arrive
Travel to Santiago de Compostela - any ideas of routes or places to stay/see on route?
Then go south through Portugal, hopefully visiting Porto/Lisbon and any other recommendations.
Then head back into Spain to see some of central Spain, so far only identified Valladolid. Again route and place recommendations would be appreciated.
Heading eventually to the Pyrenees, where again it would be great if people could recommend places to visit.
Then come home via France (this bit would be fairly quick, a matter of a few days).

I would really appreciate any tips for things like apps or guides for finding sites/places to stay the night, or anything that you think would be useful to finally tip me over into buying the Ferry tickets to go.
Click to expand...
Remember to carry adequate gas for your trip
As U.K. gas cylinders cannot be exchanged anywhere in Europe
Or consider a refillable system where you can top up at LPG / GPL stations abroad
 
Does ACSI do a rate for single travelers? I thought it was couples BUT I haven’t used it for several years.

Plenty of free parking I think.
 
Rapido925M said:
Does ACSI do a rate for single travelers? I thought it was couples BUT I haven’t used it for several years.

Plenty of free parking I think.
Click to expand...
A set price for a pitch no discount for singles.

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We are doing a similar trip in March/April. All great Tips above here. There is also this thread which helped us immensely.

Sites in Portugal​


Safe travels 👍
 
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I am ten days in to a solo trip to Spain right now for identical reasons. I did a similar trip about ten years ago in a T5 camper but am now self contained and able to utilise aires and wild park if necessary and if allowed.
A couple of points.

1)Get the necessary gas adapter for your gas set up

2)There are an exceptionally large number of vans and motorhomes about in Portugal and Spain at the moment. (Because firstly of the wind down in Covid restrictions in Northern Europe everyone who can is grabbing the opportunity and heading south while they can, and secondly Morocco is still closed for motorhomes so that business has been displaced to Spain) This high volume is likely to persist through this year I would expect, even after Morocco opens?

3) Because of 2) getting into campsites can be tricky. If you want to spend at least some time on campsites then book it now. I would as it’s your first trip. Most of them have fairly generous cancellation clauses, should you change your mind/itinerary.

4)The southern and south eastern coasts of Spain and I believe in Portugal, are restricting wild camping, because it has been abused and having a bunch of motorhomes and campervans cluttering up the sea front is not a good look for the local tourist industry. So just relying on parking on sea front promenades or waste ground near to the coasts, although it is possible, might be more stressful than you want, in which case book a site.

5) As to routes I went Tunnel/Aire in Evreux/Aire in Roullet Saint Estephe/Aire in centre of Pamplona/Campsite in Navajos/ and then campsite in Mazarron. So I stopped four times between leaving the UK and my destination. I was trying to get south ASAP to avoid the miserable and cold nights. It’s now about 19C at 15:00 and still cold 9/10 C at night. But by April you’ll be warmer. Remember its generally a bit more stressful handling the driving and the navigation on your own.

6) You may prefer to meander down avoiding toll routes. I didn’t as I wanted to get south fast. If you do use toll roads then I recommend the Emovis tags, you can get one for France and another for Spain and Portugal, it allows you to wiz right through the toll gates without stopping and fiddling with cards or cash.
 
Lenny HB said:
I think you might have a problem getting a ferry to Spain in April they tend to get booked up early so you may have to treat yourself to a nice drive through France & save a few hundred quid in the process.

We use Camper Contact for a lot of our stops, if you use Park4Night check the places very carefully we have been caught out a few times with places unsuitable for anything other than a small camper.

There are links to a lot of my trips in my signature we have been to a lot of places I think you would like.
Click to expand...
I am on the verge of cancelling ours.

And I can offer my discount to anyone who books it
 
spikehcm681 said:
Have you joined Acsi? It could save you money at that time of year.

Santander to Santiago - lots of places on the N. Spain Coast (try the campiso at Luarca)_ and I would go inland a bit to see some of the Picos De Europa. The Roman walls in Lugo are "should see". Then Cambados (for the sea-food), and Cangas before you enter Portugal.

Orbitur run a chain of campsites in Portugal and they have sites at Viana do Castello and Caminha. Anywhere along the coast - Aguiro and Figuera de Foz are good.

On your way back from Lisbon try Evora, Estremoz and Elvas.

In Spain, Merida, Caceres, Avila and Segovia, Valladolid and Burgos will take you to San Sebastian.

You will have already realised that this is a lot to do and you will be exhausted. But as it's your first trip in Iberia it may be worth putting the miles in to get an overview -with a view to revisiting these places in future years.

When we started travelling we moved on nearly every day for a week and then stopped for 3 days. You might want to have a longer stop of about 5 days in the middle of your trip - to relax a bit!

We hope you have a great trip and are blessed with good weather.
Click to expand...
An excellent route did something very similar three years ago. Well recommend. Basque Country well recommended
 
We did a similar trip pre-covid, went down through Spain and didn't have enough time to see much of Portugal in the end, went for 6 weeks.
We didn't have a set itinerary, just a few definite places (several of which we wanted to visit having read about them on the forum) and then we went where the mood and weather took us (changed a couple of times to avoid bad weather).

We went down through central Spain (totally difference experience to the Costas which have their charm as well of course) and there were so many highlights but here are some we'd recommend you put on your list:
  • Burgos, been round it so many times (very unsightly!) and didn't realise how beautiful the town was
  • Segovia (stunning roman aquaduct) and Avila (a fortifed town, breathtaking the first time you see it from the road, MrS thinks they filmed The Pride and The Passion there, Cary Grant and Sophia Loren)
  • Aranjuez - beautiful palace, good campsite and walk through the park to the town. Train to Madrid, we only did one day in Madrid, palace was closed by we didn't mind as we enjoyed the one at Aranjuez so much (and a lot less people)
  • Seville, beautiful and so much to see. Campsite is good and a bus ride away
  • Granada and the Al Hambra, the interior of which has echoes of the Taj Mahal and comes a decent second to it (high praise lol)
  • Palencia, nice town and fabulous free aire (not pretty, but top notch facilities and even free EHU)
  • Guernika was very interesting, had read a book about it recently
  • Bilbao - Guggenheim was good fun and great aire at the bullring, very centrally located
  • Santiago de Compostela we have done in the past, very atmospheric especially as there was a pilgrim sat outside singing opera at full pelt, but that was a bit of a one off lol
  • Zaragoza we did on another trip, the square is beautiful and if you can arrange to be there on a Saturday early evening when families in their sunday best stroll round then do so
  • Figueres - the Dali museum is the most amazing experience. Go early before the coaches if you can. Was never a fan of Dali until we went there, but afterwards... wow!

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Thanks all for the great advice and tips. As suggested I have spent the last couple of days researching the archives on here for similar trips and as well as all the above advice I have convinced myself to go for it.

Can anyone explain what EuroTrotters mean about the ferry discount?
 
StuartB said:
Thanks all for the great advice and tips. As suggested I have spent the last couple of days researching the archives on here for similar trips and as well as all the above advice I have convinced myself to go for it.

Can anyone explain what EuroTrotters mean about the ferry discount?
Click to expand...
Ask Eurotrotters I'm sure they will provide an answer...
 
Oh I forgot to mention two other stunning places El Escorial and the Valley of the Dead where Franco was buried until recently.

both stunningly HUGE and actually nearby to each other. Good campsite halfway between the two 👍

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Our first trip to Spain/Portugal was helped by reading through some of the travel blogs on here. Have a look at those in the footer of Lenny HB's post. His blogs are full of useful tips.
 

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