Lonely Planet Spain: Detailed Itineraries | Travel Like a Local | Insider Tips | Covers Madrid, Castilla y León, Barcelona, Catalonia, Basque Country and more

by Isabella Noble

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher

Lonely Planet Spain is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Bask in orange-scented breezes while savoring a Valencian paella, witness the fiery passion of Andalucia's flamenco dancers, or be captivated by Madrid and Barcelona's art and architecture; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Spain and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet Spain Travel Guide:



Full-colour maps and images throughout

Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests

Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots

Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices

Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss

Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - customs, history, art, music, dance, architecture, landscapes, bullfighting, cuisine, wine, and more

Free, convenient pull-out Barcelona map (included in print version), plus over 110 colour maps

Useful features - including Walking Tours, Travel with Children, and Month-by-Month (annual festival calendar)

Coverage of Madrid, Barcelona, Catalonia, Aragon, Basque Country, La Rioja, Cantabria, Asturias, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Valencia, Mallorca, Ibiza, Seville, Andalucia, Extremadura, and more
eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones)



Downloadable PDF and offline maps to avoid roaming and data charges

Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews

Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities to get to key pages in a flash

Embedded links to recommendations' websites

Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience

Zoom-in maps and images

Seamlessly flip between pages

Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing
The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Spain, our most comprehensive guide to Spain, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less travelled.


Looking for just the highlights of Spain? Check out Lonely Planet's Discover Spain, a photo-rich guide to the country's most popular attractions.
Looking for a guide focused on Barcelona or Madrid? Check out Lonely Planet's Barcelona guide or Madrid guide for a comprehensive look at all these cities have to offer, Lonely Planet's Discover Barcelona, a photo-rich guide to the Barcelona's most popular attractions, or Lonely Planet's Pocket Barcelona, a handy-sized guide focused on the can't-miss sights for a quick trip.
Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Anthony Ham, Stuart Butler, Anna Kaminski, John Noble, Miles Roddis, Brendan Sainsbury, Regis St Louis, and Andy Symington.

About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths and understand more of the nature and culture of the places they find themselves in.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Spain, Guidebook, Ebooks

776 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 1997

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy completa

De gran ayuda para conocer la cultura española desde siglos atrás. Es una guía muy completa que incluye todo los aspectos necesarios para interpretar la historia con conocimientos básicos y planear rutas de viaje con mayor certeza.

[Jim Bowen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whenever I travel abroad, I always buy a Lonely Planet, or Rough Guide to the place I'm visiting. This book almost ruined their reputation overnight. It is without down the WORST Lonely Planet guide I have ever read.

As an example, where are the places a Brit goes, when they go to Spain? Madrid and Barcelona maybe, but Ibiza, and Majorca have to be up there, don't they? If you're going to Ibiza, or Majorca, however, don't rely on this book. All the islands are covered in 2 page. You read that right. One of the most popular tourist places in Spain gets maybe half a page.

The sad thing is that I suspect that this is true of a lot of places. It all feels rather precised and rushed. If you go off the beaten track, even slightly, don't use this book. It'll be no use to you. The place you are probably won't be discussed.

To make matters worse, there's no index. So if you're looking for where you are, and you haven't already found it in the Kindle book, you're going to be out of luck, because you won't be able to find if it's listened anywhere, because there's no index to help you.

Now I know., you're thinking this book covers the whole country, it's going to be general. Bur let me tell you, there's general, and then there's so general and bland that things become meaningless. This book falls very much into the second category.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lonely Planet Books are indispensable, I just wish they were better at referencing the map in the text, and the page ref from the map key.

[Taylor Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love travelling, and Lonely Planet is always my go-to travel guides when I go abroad. Their guide to Hungary was essential to my fiancee's and my trip to Budapest last December, and their Spain guide was the real MVP of our road trip around Spain that we came back from a couple weeks ago!

Sure, we did tons and tons of research on the internet leading up to this trip, but there's really no substitute for a good guidebook.

Because this was a road trip, we had the freedom to go off the beaten track a bit and visit a few places between our big destinations. Lemme tell you, THAT is where this book REALLY helped us out in a huge way. Without Lonely Planet, we wouldn't have known Morella even existed, much less driven on the narrow mountain roads that overlook beautiful landscapes on our way to have lunch in a small mountain city still surrounded by a medieval wall. Lonely Planet also told us about Cabo de Gata-Nihar, a national park in Andalusia with beautiful beaches and tall cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

Of course, the food recommendations were all excellent, the advice, incredibly helpful, and the shopping recommendations, interesting and unique.

This was a special trip, regardless (my girl and I got engaged in Granada!) but having this travel guide made everything so much smoother!

[Jeff Beardsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

My family and I are long-time travelers around the globe, and have developed definite opinions of travel guides over the years. Along with planning travel over the internet, we've basically settled on two different guides to take with us as we go. The Eyewitness Travel Guides are my preference for advanced planning and reading on a particular destination. The Lonely Planet Guides are perfect for our travels while we are on the road. Lonely Planet fills in many of the details that Eyewitness leaves off the pages of their travel guides. Eyewitness gives us the visual for where we are heading, Lonely Planet gives us the filler. Between the two, we've settled on a routine that has suited us well for our travel purposes. Highly recommended!

[Kamran Rahman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent three months driving around Spain from December 2022, and had this book on my kindle and iphone. So, not the paper copy. I visited mainly historical sights, a few cities, and a few beaches.

This book summarises history and culture very neatly and then tells you what you need to know about Spain. My only gripe is that everything is hyped up to an unrealistic degree. Each town is the best this, or the most impressive that, or has the tastiest food or drink.

Having a book where you can search for words, and highlight things to plan your visit proved to be invaluable. I had to search for a lot of things on the internet, but I always came back to this book for a concise and simple explanation.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid travel book delivered yet again by Lonely Planet. I found it very helpful in planning my trip to Northern Spain. I supplemented the book with some other sources, but it provided a good foundation.

However, I find the Kindle version really frustrating. Even though I was bookmarking pages and trying to refer back to them, I still like the hard copy better.

[Greg Winkler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I love all the Lonely Planets. They aren't perfect and people often harp about some address being wrong or train route not updated. But these beautiful books give me what I need to wander around the globe feeling safe enough and endlessly free. And, no, I didn't read this whole book. Just the Catalonia part. Just the part I need.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, practical information to help me plan my trip. Will be bringing it with me!

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Madrid and Granada - first time visit for MT
Highlights - Prado, Madrid; Alhambra, Granada.

[Maria M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book, it helped us in our trip around Spain, good advise.

[Alison Calvagno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful guide!

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like all of the Lonely Planet guidebooks the one for Spain offers a wealth of information geared to travellers.

[José Alfonso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ayudó a planear dos largos viajes a España, uno de varios libros

[Sophie Nye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a lot of this book + other Spain travel books I got from the library, because I am going to Madrid soon! I really like Lonely Planet travel books...also just like reading travel books for fun!

[Shirley Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Girona

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and very useful information.

[Susieleest · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is impossible to give any shrimps to this fine travel book.
It is just a great travel book for anyone looking to visit this beautiful and diverse country.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative travel book witha wealth of information for would be vistors to Spain. I enjoyed the historical information about the sites. I was not captivated by the description of Madrid though. Described as a city where everyone stays up very late - the city does not sleep. Not for me!

[lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

you are kidding me! change the title to spanish mainland only. missing ALL the spanish islands which is rather a BIG omission...mallorca, menorca, ibiza, ALL the canary isles (which are a hugely popular winter destination) and of course also excluding ceuta & melilla. guess the lonely planet feel we should dig into our pockets and buy 2 seperate island guides too. not even approaching the quality of "old" lonely planets. but who expects that these days?

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update after actual travel: My initial opinion is unchanged - this book has some useful information that is not in the Rick Steves guide, but overall I think Steves is better (but, if you don't want to spend money and have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, I think you can get by with just this book). The information in this book does seem to have been updated to 2018 - i.e. most of it is fairly current, but the costs data, given the sky high inflation of the last couple of years, is out of date.

This is a review of the Kindle edition, which is dated 2018 but is based on the 2013 12th edition - some of the text appears to have been updated to 2018, but how current it is I'll only know when I go (I'll update this review after I travel, which probably won't be until 2023).

I'm using this book (which I'm reading using a free trial of Kindle Unlimited) to draw up a rough itinerary for an extended trip, I will buy the Rick Steves guide before I start making bookings - in my experience Steves is generally better than LP, but he's highly opinionated and he only covers things he's interested in (so, not contemporary art or fine dining), so it's good to consult a 2nd guidebook, particularly for a long trip.

This book is very thorough, covering a wide variety of destinations, and of attractions in each destination (though, as other reviews note, it does not cover the islands!) - so, given the above, I'm satisfied with it. It doesn't give much detail on how to avoid queues, you have to go to Steves for that. It doesn't given much detail on trains either, you have to go to The Man in Seat 61 for that. There are very few photos, you have to go to Google or IG for them (or don't and be surprised).

The formatting of the Kindle edition is awful (large sections are simply unformatted), which makes the book hard to follow, as well as looking ugly. The links to Google Maps would be awesome if they worked properly, but often they don't (they often take you to the lat-long, rather than to the pin for the actual attraction). The links to websites do work and are very handy. The search function is very handy too. Kindle is the sensible way to carry a guidebook (who wants to lug a huge brick around the world?), so it's so sad that there are so many kinks in this Kindle edition, and that the newer edition isn't available on Kindle!

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suuuuuuper thorough. I purchased this guide while living in Asturias and basically ripped it to shreds in rain and shine (Madrid downpour was not kind to the pages). There's something for every travel taste in here, and it covers every corner of Spain. I would love to see it go into more detail about the lesser known places (such as my beloved Asturias, or the corners of Galicia), but this is a great general travel book. If you want more in depth about regions or activities, I would suggest hiking/landscape books, or region specific books.

[Tim Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

These Lonely Planet guides are excellent. I actually read a newer edition, not from beginning to end, but in spurts. I cannot over recommend these guides to read through before heading to the airport.

[Zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my bible while I lived in Spain for 8 months. It is helpful and informative.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was essentially useless while we were in spain.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

a little dry, but useful.

[Alex]

Lonely Planet Spain (Spain, 3rd ed) by Damien Simonis (2001)

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used when I was in Spain, remembering it being a good travel guide.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives loads of ideas about what to do, where to go, etc. I will continue to use this book as I travel around Spain.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love and trust Lonely Planet's guides. I've used them for years, now.