Spain

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Andalusia, Done the Right Way We arrived in Seville in late June with a vague plan to “see Andalusia,” and by 2pm on the first day the pavement was throwing up heat like an open oven and we were hiding in a tiled courtyard willing it to be 6pm. A waiter watched us melt and laughed: “You came in summer? The towns inland will be hotter still — go in May next time, or get up early.” He was right on both counts, and the morning we finally drove up to Ronda at 8am — cool air, empty streets, the gorge glowing — was the trip we should have planned all along. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Barcelona, Without the Rookie Mistakes We turned up at the Sagrada Família on an August morning thinking we’d just walk in, the way you wander into a cathedral anywhere else. A guard pointed at the snaking line and then at a sign: timed tickets, sold out, come back another day. We’d flown across a continent to stand on a hot pavement and get turned away. That evening, sweating in a fourth-floor room with no breeze, we booked everything else online — and the rest of the trip ran like a different city. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Canary Islands Travel Guide for Budget Travelers This Canary Islands travel guide budget breakdown starts with the thing almost everyone gets wrong: the seven islands are not interchangeable. I booked a last-minute flight from London to Las Palmas in early November — €89 return — and landed into warm sun while half of Europe was pulling on coats. Ten days of papas arrugadas with mojo on plastic chairs outside a guachinche for €8, pine forests above the clouds, and black-sand beaches that looked like another planet. The catch? I nearly booked the wrong island entirely. The decision costs nothing to get right, and this guide makes it simple. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Why car rental in Mallorca changes the whole trip The queue at the Rentalcars desk in Palma airport snaked back almost to the baggage carousel. It was mid-July, roughly half past noon, and the couple in front of me had their confirmation email open on a phone with a cracked screen and a booking made the night before. They waited 47 minutes. I waited eleven, because I had booked three weeks earlier with a reserved slot, walked past the main hall to the quieter off-airport shuttle pick-up, and had a white Seat Ibiza in my hands before their queue even moved. I’m not telling you this to brag — I’m telling you because that 36-minute difference is the whole story of car rental in Mallorca. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca, Starting at €29 I nearly talked myself out of booking. It was mid-January, I had three days off at the end of May, and the cheap flights from Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca sitting on my screen looked almost implausibly low — €38 one-way on Eurowings for a Monday morning departure. I’d assumed Mallorca in May was already peak-season expensive. It wasn’t. Two hours in the air, and I stepped into 24 degrees and the soft golden light of a Palma morning that made Frankfurt’s grey February feel like another planet. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from London to Tenerife, Starting at £49 I almost rebooked for somewhere closer. October, a grey Tuesday at Gatwick, and I was quietly wondering whether four and a half hours was too far for a long weekend. Then I checked the Tenerife forecast — 24°C, clear skies, Mount Teide catching the late afternoon light — and the return fare was £98. I stopped wondering. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from Madrid to Marrakech, Starting at €25 I booked the ticket on a Wednesday evening in October, mostly on a whim: €27 one-way on Air Arabia Maroc, Madrid to Marrakech, departing at a reasonable hour. My first thought was that something had to be wrong. My second thought was that I should stop overthinking and pack. Two hours after landing at Menara I was sitting in a riad courtyard in the medina, sipping mint tea so sweet it made me blink, and mentally replaying how little the whole thing had cost. That is the open secret of cheap flights from Madrid to Marrakech — Africa is closer than most Madrileños realise, and the airlines have priced it accordingly. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from Munich to Málaga — Gateway to the Costa del Sol I booked on a Tuesday evening, half-expecting the fare to vanish by morning. It didn’t. €31 one-way on Eurowings, direct, 2h45, and I landed in Málaga before the afternoon heat peaked. Standing outside Arrivals with the smell of warm tarmac and orange blossom, it struck me that most people driving from Munich would still be somewhere north of the Alps. Cheap flights from Munich to Málaga are genuinely that good when you time them right — and genuinely punishing when you don’t. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from Paris to Barcelona, Starting at €19 I’d booked the train. Had my TGV ticket for €89, a good seat, and a vague plan to watch the Pyrenees roll past the window. Then a colleague mentioned she’d just flown for €19. I checked, found a Vueling seat for €23 the following week, and cancelled the train without a second thought. That’s the dynamic on cheap flights from Paris to Barcelona: there are so many airlines fighting over this route that the price can drop lower than a decent meal. And the flight is just 1 hour 45 minutes. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Granada, Without the Rookie Mistakes We turned up in Granada on a Tuesday in late June, climbed all the way up to the Alhambra ticket office in the heat, and learned in about four words that the day was sold out — every slot, gone. A guy in the queue who’d clearly done this before shrugged: “Mate, you book this weeks ago.” We spent that first day sweating up cobbled lanes instead, and only got in two days later because someone cancelled. Don’t be us. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Madrid, Without the Rookie Mistakes We landed in Madrid at the start of August once, dragging suitcases off the plane into a wall of heat, and a friend who’d studied here just laughed down the phone: “You picked the month half the city packs up and leaves. It’ll be 38°C and the good lunch spots near my old flat are shut.” She wasn’t wrong. We sweated through it, learned the hard way, and came back the next spring to a city that felt completely different — terraces full, evenings long and golden, hotels noticeably cheaper. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Seville, Without the Rookie Mistakes We booked our first Seville trip for mid-July, because the flights were cheap and we didn’t think twice. By noon on day one we were flattened — 42°C, no shade in the Plaza de España, every local sensibly indoors while we wilted in a queue we could have skipped. A waiter took pity on us: “Come back in April,” he said, “and book your tickets online — you’re doing everything the hard way.” He was right. The spring trip that followed felt like a completely different, gentler city. ...