Our 10 Favourite Walks in Spain

Few countries give you quite so many reasons to keep coming back as Spain. From the food and traditions to the beaches, art and architecture that shift from one region to the next, there’s always something to tempt you back. For us, however, many of Spain’s most rewarding moments begin with a pair of walking boots. 

Spain is made for exploring on foot. Walking slows down the experience and takes you beyond the predictable destinations, whether it's through the deep gorges of the Picos de Europa, walking between the white villages of Andalucía or disappearing into the ancient laurel forests of the Canary Islands. 

We’ve spent years walking these trails ourselves and building trips around them. Narrowing them down to a select few is an almost impossible task, but we’ve chosen ten that we think capture the sheer variety of walking Spain has to offer. Some are challenging, others decidedly gentle. What they share is that they all take you somewhere worth slowing down for. 

There are few better places to start than the Ruta del Cares. Cutting through the heart of the Picos de Europa between the villages of Poncebos and Caín, this is one of northern Spain’s most celebrated walks and a few steps in you’ll understand why. 

The route follows the course of the Cares River through an immense limestone gorge with peaks rising dramatically on either side. Much of the path has been carved directly into the rock face, at times passing through tunnels and along narrow ledges high above the river. Griffon vultures circle overhead, mountain goats navigate seemingly impossible slopes and below, the blue-green waters of the river weave through the gorge. 

Yet for all the drama of the surroundings, the walking itself is relatively straightforward. The trail is largely level once the initial climb is behind you, leaving you free to concentrate on the increasingly spectacular scenery as you make your way towards Caín. The classic route between Poncebos and Caín is around 7.5 milesthe Horse's Tail each way, and you can either walk the full return or arrange transport at the far end. 

Few trails bring you quite so intimately into the dramatic landscapes of the Picos de Europa. For us, the best thing about the Ruta del Cares is just how accessible all that drama feels. You don’t have to haul yourself up a mountain to find yourself right in the middle of the Picos. 

Walk the Ruta del Cares on our Rural Life & Mountain Hikes in the Picos de Europa trip. 

If the Ruta del Cares is all about drama, Ordesa Valley is more of a slow reveal. Tucked inside the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, deep in the Spanish Pyrenees, the Cola de Caballo trail takes you through a landscape that grows more spectacular with every mile. 

Following the Río Arazas upstream, you’ll venture through beech woodlands, encountering a succession of waterfalls all destined for startlingly clear pools. The trail then thins and emerges into the open upper reaches of the valley, where huge cliffs rise on either side and the path crosses the sweeping grasslands of the Circo de Soaso. At its far end is the culmination of this adventure, the Cola de Caballo. Translating as ‘the Horse’s Tail, this particular waterfall spills down the rock face framed by the area’s highest peaks. 

It's a longer day on foot than some of the walks on this list, but that's part of its appeal. The journey through Ordesa delivers woodland, waterfalls, open meadows and towering mountain scenery in one adventure. We love the way this walk keeps changing character. Just when you think you’ve seen the best of Ordesa, the woodland opens up and the scale of the upper valley takes over. It’s a walk that saves some of its greatest rewards for those willing to keep going.  

Explore the Ordesa Valley as part of our Walking Highlights of the High Pyrenees trip. 

Though still in the region of Aragón, the Mallos de Riglos are a world away from the green valleys of the Pyrenees. Here, colossal towers of rust-red rock loom over the small village of Riglos creating one of Aragón’s most distinctive natural landmarks. 

Known collectively as the Mallos, these great conglomerate formations have been shaped by millions of years of erosion and have long attracted climbers to their near-1000-foot tall rock faces. Walking trails loop around these formidable rock formations, offering changing perspectives that revealing their immense scale. 

The classic circular walk steadily climbs away from the village, passing beneath the Mallos and gaining height behind them. From there, the views open up across the surrounding Aragón countryside, with the Río Gállego winding through the landscape below and griffon vultures riding the thermals above.

For us, the Mallos are among the most underrated landscapes in Spain. Photographs give you some idea of their colour, but not quite the sense of scale you get standing underneath them. They bring something entirely different to this list: a warmer, more exposed landscape dominated by burly, rust-red rock formations that look almost sculpted into place. 

Walk beneath the Mallos de Riglos as part of our Walking Highlights of the High Pyrenees trip. 

Some walks impress with the sheer size of what's around you. The coastal trail between Zumaia and Deba offers a completely different experience, which often has you looking down rather than up. 

Following part of the coastal variant of the Camino de Santiago known as “the Camino del Norte”, this walk takes you across grassy hills, past isolated farmhouses and through small pockets of woodland, with the blue of the Bay of Biscay rarely far from view. 

It is, however, the geology beneath your feet that steals the show. This stretch of the Basque coast is famous for its flysch rock. The layers exposed along the coast stretch back tens of millions of years and have become internationally important for understanding chapters in the Earth's geological past. You don't need to be a geology whizz to appreciate it, though. 

The extraordinary layers of tilted sedimentary rock extend out into the Atlantic like great ribs protruding from the cliffs beneath its green headlands. The result is a coastline that feels wonderfully wild, with rolling hills descending to restless waves. 

After three walks defined by mountainous terrain, the route between Zumaia and Deba brings us to the sea, providing a reminder that some of Spain's most remarkable walking journeys lie right at the meeting point between land and ocean. This is one of those walks we love because there’s always something pulling your attention in a different direction. You’ll find yourself stopping more than you expect, whether to look down at the extraordinary geology or out across the Bay of Biscay and, of course, there's always the prospect of exceptional Basque food waiting for you at the end. 

Walk from Zumaia to Deba on our Basque Country Signature Drive. 

Spain's Mediterranean coast might conjure images of sandy beaches and sheltered coves, but walk out into Cap de Creus and you'll encounter something quite unlike your whimsical vacation postcard. 

At the easternmost point of the Iberian Peninsula, the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean in a landscape of sharp rocky headlands. The Tramuntana wind has helped shape it all, carving something a far cry from the busier pockets of the Costa Brava. 

Trails weave through the protected landscapes of the Cap de Creus Natural Park, climbing across rocky hillsides before dropping towards impossibly blue stretches of sea. At almost every turn, there seems to be another distant rugged headland and weather-beaten rock formation to stop and admire through the salty air. 

There's a strong cultural thread running through the landscape here too. Salvador Dalí spent much of his life nearby in Portlligat, just outside Cadaqués, and the unusual shapes, colours and rock formations of Cap de Creus repeatedly found their way into his work. Walking here, you can see exactly why this wild and strange corner of Catalunya, so greatly influenced his imagination. 

Cap de Creus gives us a very different version of coastal Spain and we love it precisely because it doesn’t conform to the usual image of the Mediterranean. It’s a whole other side of it. Windier, rockier and raw. 

Explore Cap de Creus on foot on our Spanish Pyrenees Signature Drive. 

There are plenty of ways to explore Menorca's coastline, but few give you quite the same sense of the island as the Camí de Cavalls. 

This historic trail traces a roughly 115-mile circuit around Menorca, following a route with origins stretching back centuries. Today, it offers walkers access to parts of the island that can feel wonderfully removed from its resorts and roads, linking beaches, coves, farmland and stretches of remarkably undeveloped Mediterranean coastline. 

You don't, of course, need to walk all the way around Menorca to experience it. Individual sections of the Camí de Cavalls can be woven into a wider exploration of the island, and the landscape changes considerably depending on where you join the trail. One moment you might be following a path between pine trees and traditional dry-stone walls, the next, emerging above a hidden cove. 

That’s the great appeal of walking here. Menorca is rightly celebrated for its beaches, but travelling between them on foot changes your relationship with the coastline. The coves become places you discover for yourself, rather than destinations you arrive at with a preconceived idea of what you’re supposed to find. 

For us, this is an immeasurably more rewarding way to encounter Menorca’s famous coves than driving to park up next to hundreds of other beachgoers. There’s something different about reaching a beautiful beach with your own two feet and even better when it isn’t the single destination that everybody is flocking to. The Camí de Cavalls is about discovering Menorca gradually. 

Discover the Camí de Cavalls on our Walking on Menorca's Coastal Trail trip. 

Not every great walk needs dramatic cliffs or sweeping panoramas. In La Garrotxa, in northern Catalunya, the scenery invites you to slow down for altogether different reasons. 

This is one of the region’s most distinctive corners, shaped by a volcanic past that has left dozens of volcanic cones scattered across strikingly verdant countryside. Walking trails wind between them, through farmland and thick woodland, connecting small villages and revealing occasional reminders of the forces that shaped the ground beneath your feet. 

One of the most enchanting places to walk is the Fageda d'en Jordà, a beautiful beech forest growing across an ancient lava flow from the Croscat volcano. We have a particular soft spot for walking here in autumn when the beech forests turn and the thick canopies become storybook-like settings in varying shades of orange. 

Walk through La Garrotxa on our Catalonia Signature Drive. 

If there's one walk on this list capable of making you briefly forget you're in Spain altogether, it is the one that takes you through the spellbinding forests of Garajonay. 

Covering much of the mountainous heart of La Gomera, Garajonay National Park protects one of the finest surviving examples of a laurel forest anywhere in the world. Surviving principally on a handful of Atlantic islands, these ancient subtropical cloud forests provide an otherworldly experience.  

There is a network of trails to choose from, each almost inevitably disappearing beneath dense green canopies and twisting branches before emerging at viewpoints overlooking La Gomera's steep valleys and ravines. It's a striking contrast to the volcanic, sun-soaked landscapes more commonly associated with the Canary Islands. 

Nothing else on this list looks or feels quite like what you experience here. Walking through these ancient forests reveals a side of the Canary Islands, and of Spain itself, that many visitors never expect. Even after years of exploring Spain, Garajonay still has the ability to catch us off guard. There’s something wonderfully unexpected about stepping beneath its cool, tangled canopy and into a landscape that feels so far removed from the sun-soaked Canary Islands outside but no matter how many times you see it up close, it never ceases to amaze. 

Explore Garajonay’s laurel forests on our Hiking the Tropical Landscapes of La Gomera trip. 

Ronda may be one of Andalucía’s most recognisable towns, with its famous gorge and Puente Nuevo looking more like something from a fantasy novel than somewhere you can casually sit and have a drink beside. Lace up your walking shoes and step beyond the town, however, and this extraordinary place becomes the gateway to something much bigger. 

Again, there isn’t one particular trail we’d point you towards. For us, the joy of the Serranía de Ronda is walking from one white village to the next, following old paths through a landscape of limestone mountains, wooded valleys, vineyards and farmland. 

One of our favourite routes begins beneath Ronda’s famous bridge and leaves the town behind for the quieter countryside beyond, crossing a patchwork of wheat fields, vineyards and olive groves. It’s an 8.7-mile walk, with around 1,740 feet of ascent, and a brilliant example of how quickly Ronda gives way to rural Andalucía. Elsewhere, you can follow a 7.3-mile route through cork and Portuguese oak forest before joining an old cobbled path into Grazalema. 

That variety is exactly why we wouldn’t reduce this part of Andalucía to a single walk. Ronda understandably gets most of the attention, but for us, the real pleasure is seeing how quickly the famous landmarks give way to quiet trails, open countryside and the white villages scattered through the surrounding hills. 

Walk from village to village through the Ronda hills on our Walking, Wine & White Villages in the Ronda Hills trip. 

To the far west of Andalucía, the Sierra de Aracena offers a softer, more intimate walking experience through rolling hills, orchards and dehesas. The area is renowned for its jamón ibérico and much of this countryside is shaped by the traditional wooded pastureland that is such a distinctive feature of this corner of Spain. Iberian pigs roam beneath oak and chestnut trees, while old paths, often flanked by dry-stone walls, link one whitewashed village to the next. 

Unlike some of the walks on this list, there isn’t one particular trail we’d point you towards. The real pleasure of Aracena is stringing several walks together and gradually making your way across the sierra. On our own route, days of around four to five hours take you along cobbled paths and shady river valleys, over open hills and through chestnut and cork-oak forests, with small villages providing natural stopping points along the way. 

One day might see you walking high across the sierra before following an old cobbled path into a remote village; another takes you across streams and through chestnut forest to Valdelarco before following the river to a converted water mill. One of our favourite days combines a 6.2-mile walk through the countryside with a long tasting lunch of regional specialities and local wine at the end. 

For us, that combination sums up why walking here is so rewarding. Aracena isn't about ticking off a famous trail or conquering a summit. It's about travelling slowly through a corner of Andalucía where the paths, villages, landscapes and food all feel part of the same journey. The walking becomes your way of getting to know the area, rather than simply the activity you've come to do. 

Explore the Sierra de Aracena on foot with our Walks, Villages & Flavours of the Aracena Hills trip. 

Whichever walk has caught your imagination, we can help you experience it as part of a journey shaped around you. We’ll pair memorable days on the trail with characterful places to stay, great local food and the people and places that bring each corner of Spain to life. 

Explore our walking vacations in Spain →