Area Guide: Barcelona & Costa Brava
2025 edition
A couple weeks later and i’m still basking in the glow of this trip, the discoveries felt hard won after lots of research and the timing of the trip (June) meant that each place wasn’t yet overrun by the Summer high season.
A few friends wanted to go to a music festival in Spain and asked if I wanted to come along. My answer was that sure the music festival in Spain sounded fun but it was mostly about the Spain part, with them. Plotting out my week, I planned to fly in and out of Barcelona, rent a car to drive up the coast from there, stopping for 2 days each at a few different beach towns before heading back down to Barcelona for the festival.
I can’t stress this enough - if you’re renting a car in Spain, you need an international driver’s permit. This doesn’t take long to procure but I didn’t know this until I arrived. Without one, some car rental companies will still rent to you BUT, if you get stopped by police for any reason and can’t present it, there is a fine. More important than that, when I researched it a little more, if your rental car insurance is supplied by something like an American Express card and you drive without the IDP and you get in an accident, your insurance is essentially voided. So taxis and trains it was. Uber works in the larger cities, and then it’s either an app called Cabify, Freenow or my preferred route, asking hotels to just book you local taxi companies. It actually felt quite nice to not have everything available in an instant. It made me move slower.
Tossa De Mar
Tossa De Mar is about 90 minutes north of Barcelona by car, and has something of a fairytale feeling to it. Cobblestone streets, medieval Castle walls spilling into the sea and beaches tucked just far enough away from the big cities for it to feel like a proper escape. We stayed at the relatively new Elisabeth By The Sea and while they were still in what felt like soft opening mode (the gym was opening soon after we left), it was a perfect spot to start the trip from. Right on the beach, with everything walkable, a small pool on the roof and a killer included breakfast. They also have a hammam with a sauna, steam room, cold plunge and soaking pool.
