Spain and Portugal Motorhome Tour September – October 2022

Spain and Portugal Motorhome Trek – click to enlarge

Our second European tour in the Hymer motorhome since lockdown, a longer trek than we planned due to motorhome problems and return ferry crossings being unavailable when we wanted them. 

Our route from Santander in Spain is shown on the left. We took the opportunity to visit some of the places that we saw during our escape from Covid (Read the full account here) by revisiting Zamora in Spain and Freixo de Numão in Portugal. As always the trip had many highlights and a few disappointments. Read the daily accounts for more.

A month away in Spain and Portugal, mostly staying on free aires, called Area de Servicio para Autocaravanas in Spain, many free, others at very modest prices especially when compared to motorhome stopovers in the UK. Two thousand miles driven in a total of 65 hours behind the steering wheel, average speed 30 miles per hour, fuel consumption 30.2 miles per gallon. Total diesel used 301 litres.

Three nights spent on ferries, 2 nights on paid campsites in the UK, 8 nights of paid campsites in Spain and Portugal and 18 nights of free aires in Spain and Portugal. The UK campsites were the most expensive, providing the least facilities, often worse facilities than free aires in Europe; the Spanish and Portuguese campsites had good facilities and were reasonably priced.

The roads in Spain are generally very good and tool free, especially the Autovias. Portuguese roads are not so good, there are many toll roads and the ‘ordinary’ roads are not well maintained. We had planned to visit the Paiva Walkways but abandoned that plan because the mountain roads were so narrow and winding, the effort of driving was simply too great.

Click an overnight location for the detailed description of the day.

Summary of wine tasting motorhome tour of Spain and Portugal