Guest Author - Rachel L Webb

Spain offers some tremendously diverse countryside for walking holidays from Green Spain in the north to the Sierras of Andalucia in the South. Rugged, stunning and beautiful Spain has something on offer for everyone, from gentle trails to tortuous mountain paths and lush green vales to scorched earth olive groves.

Wherever you walk the views go on endlessly and combined with the average 300 days of sunshine a year it’s a great choice for walking holidays.
Walking holidays are becoming big business and although you can of course go and walk practically wherever you like, it’s always good to go somewhere you’ve been before so you can really enjoy the walk and the countryside or to follow a pre-planned route.

You can now book an Independent walk holiday – that is a walking holiday that is planned for you from the accommodation to luggage transportation between hotels and easy to follow route maps for different grades of walks and lengths of walks.

One such route on offer is around the area of Ronda in Andalucía, this is the area of the famous white villages in the Sierra of Grazalema. This walk starts in the picturesque town of Zahara and covering an average of 14 km a day or 4.5 – 6 hours walking.

Another Spanish walk the Drovers’ Roads of Andalucía is featured in a book by Steve Watkins and Clare Jones called Unforgettable walks to take before you die. The book is beautifully illustrated with fantastic photos taken by Steve and Clare during a nine month trip that took them across five continents and into 24 countries.

The north of Spain near the Pyrenees’ and the Mediterranean Sea is another destination for a 7-day walking holiday. This walking route in Catalonia is not for the faint-hearted, it’s a tougher route with a medium-hard grading that covers 4.5 – 8 hours walking a day. This route starting in the medieval town of Besalú covers beech woods, rolling plateaus and (extinct) volcanoes.

Whatever location you choose in Spain stunning scenery is guaranteed, and although good weather can never be certain – your bet is pretty safe here.

When is it a good time for walking in Spain? Well April, May, Sept and October are the recommended months for northern Spain and January, February, March, April, May, September, October, November and December are the recommendations for Andalucia.