This is the third part in a series of posts about my month of solo traveling in the fall of 2022. The prior two posts were about my planning process for creating an itinerary. In future posts, I hope to cover my trip, what went well and what didn’t, and what I would change. I also plan on discussing my West Coast trip.
So between publishing that blog post and leaving on the trip, I made some changes. I cut out the Basque Country entirely, and reallocated that time to Andalusía. My reasoning for this decision was as follows:
- The weather in Andalusía was better than the weather in the Basque country around the time I was traveling
- I wasn’t particularly inspired by the travel videos that I saw for the Basque Country
- By cutting it out, I simplified the logistics (less planes, more trains)
- I was more interested in Moorish / Islamic architecture than I was in modern Spanish culture, and by cutting out the Basque Country, I could spend more time in Andalusía
- Several Redditors reassured me that there was plenty to do for the amount of time I was planning to be there
With the extra days, I added more time in Sevilla, and added Cordoba (1 night) and Granada (4 nights). It still ended up being 16 total travel days, with one day on either end. I’m happy with this decision because I really liked Cordoba and the Alhambra in Granada. I probably would have spent less time in Granada, but the extra time worked out because I got sick and was able to spend 2-3 days recovering before seeing the Alhambra.
I also thought about doing a last minute switch and going to Morocco instead. I ended up deciding against it 3 days before I left for London, and stuck with Andalusía. My reasoning for thinking about switching was:
- I mentioned the goal of my trip to someone who studied abroad in Morocco, and they said to me that if the goal of my trip was to see Moorish architecture and Islamic architecture, Morocco would make more sense
- It would also be cheaper and more adventurous
My decision to not change my itinerary was as follows:
- It would have required re-planning half of the trip 2 days before departure, which would have added stress
- I’ll get another chance to travel to Morocco in my life, so it didn’t feel urgent enough to need to take on that additional stress
- Morocco is also really big, and most people recommended doing only one half of the country at a time. I decided that if I wanted to go, I wanted to do it properly and spend the time to really get to know the country rather than rushing
- Morocco sounded like it was relatively more challenging to travel than Spain, since the latter has more tourist and backpacker infrastructure. For example, Spain has several high speed and local trains, whereas Morocco only has one
I’m happy with my decision to not switch to Morocco last minute. I was satisfied with my Spain trip, and it would have been really stressful to plan all of that out last minute which would have detracted from my overall experience.