Málaga Travel Forum

We are a family of four (including 2 teenagers) from Singapore visiting Spain in early Dec08.

We have booked an apartment at Costa del Sol at Benalmadena (Pueblo Evita) for a week and hope to visit Seville, Granada, Cordoba or Tangier during that week. Would you advise that we rent a car to make day trips to the above places during our stay? Or would it be better for us to book separate day tours to the above places?

We also intend to book an apartment in Barcelona for a week and make day trips from there. Again, should we rent a car or just book day tours?

Would be grateful for any advice to help us in our planning.

I recommend renting a car that way you can optimize your day. If you go on tours, you will be tied to a schedule. Car rental is very inexpensive. However, parking is an issue as it is in any European country. This is something you need to consider. Does your apartment offer free parking?

Driving in Spain isn't bad at all. In fact, the drive along the coast was pretty nice, light traffic and wide roads. We drove to Granada from Malaga and that was a pleasurable easy drive, that is, of course, until we got to the city. While in Granada, you will want to park somewhere where you can just walk. There are vans that ply along touristic sites for those places that you wouldn't want to walk to.

Happy traveling!

Day tours for a family of four would probably cost more than the daily charge for a hire car particularly if you book organised day tours on offer from many hotels and apartment blocks.
Public transport may be cheaper but perhaps not always as convenient. A car will give you greater flexibility but you may lose time looking for parking spaces - not as difficult in Dec. as in August!

I would not want to have a car in Barcelona - parking and driving in, out and around can be very,very busy.
You will want to spend quite some time in and around Barcelona where there is much to see and do - all that can be done on foot + public transport.
For trips further afield, if your chosen destination can be reached by bus or train stick with that.
Otherwise hire a car for a couple of days.

Sometime early in December there is a Christian Saints Day - we were in Barcelona once on a Sunday about 6th Dec and there were many street markets selling Christmas ornaments and decorations.

Thanks to both Lifeisatrip and Ranger49 for their very useful replies! Based on your advice, we'll probably rent a car in when around Malaga.

Is there a good car rental company I should go to? Is it better for us to arrange the rental out of Spain or only when we are there?

Here's the site for the company we used:

http://www.carjet.co.uk/common/customer_zone/index.php

It's better to arrange for rental before you get there. You can pick it up at the airport. They will also deliver to your apartment if you so request.

What a coincidence - we also used carjet.com and were very satisfied.
In the Canary Islands we did make the mistake of renting too low powered a car - I nearly had to get out and push it on occasions. So if you are going to be travelling in to the hills with 4 on board go for at least a 1400 cc engine.