Granada Spain in 7 Days on a Budget (Day Trips)
Seven days out of Granada: all six day trips, plus a buffer
This plan takes the 6-day version , keeps all six real day trips exactly where they were, and adds a seventh day left deliberately unscheduled. There is no honest 7th day trip beyond Sierra Nevada, Cordoba, Guadix, the Alpujarras, the coast, and Antequera, so padding one in would just mean a rushed, overpriced excursion nobody asked for. The full six-trip breakdown, with costs and cheapest transit for each, sits in the Granada as a base guide .
| Day | Day trip | Travel time from Granada | Rough spend (per person) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Sierra Nevada | About 45 min | EUR 20 in hiking season; EUR 65-90 with a winter ski pass |
| Day 2 | Cordoba (the Mezquita) | 1h20-2h by AVE | About EUR 55 (train, ticket, lunch) |
| Day 3 | Guadix | About 1 h | About EUR 20 (train, lunch) |
| Day 4 | The Alpujarras | 1-1.5 h | About EUR 85 (guided tour, tastings) |
| Day 5 | Nerja or the Costa Tropical | 1-1.5 h by bus | About EUR 30 (bus, optional Nerja Caves ticket) |
| Day 6 | Antequera | About 1 h via the A-92 | About EUR 20 (tour or car share; dolmens free) |
| Day 7 | Flex day (weather buffer, repeat, or rest) | None | EUR 0-10 (optional repeat trip or tapas) |
Book these before you go:
- A guided Sierra Nevada trip on GetYourGuide : worth the fee if you would rather not manage bus timetables and lift-ticket lines yourself.
- A guided Alpujarras day tour on GetYourGuide : the realistic way to see Pampaneira, Bubion, and Capileira without a thin bus schedule.
- A Nerja and Costa Tropical day tour on GetYourGuide : covers both towns in one trip if picking just one feels like leaving something out.
- A room in the Albaicin or centre on Booking.com : seven nights is long enough that a few euros a night in location savings adds up.
Day 1: Sierra Nevada
Catch an early ALSA bus from the Estacion de Autobuses (or drive), about 45 minutes and 31km out, to Europe’s southernmost ski resort. In winter (roughly mid-December through April, snow-dependent) a day pass runs from about EUR 47 at its cheapest to around EUR 66 over the Christmas holidays; buy it online through sierranevada.es rather than at the ticket window. Outside ski season the same ride buys a genuinely free day: hike from the Borreguiles plateau toward Mulhacen, mainland Spain’s highest peak, paying nothing beyond the bus fare. Check the mountain forecast that morning either way; conditions above 2,000m close roads and lifts on short notice.
Day 2: Cordoba and the Mezquita
Book an early AVE or Avant seat on renfe.com a few days ahead, not months ahead like the Alhambra back in Granada. The fastest run covers Cordoba in about 1h20, slower services closer to 2 hours. The Mezquita, a working cathedral built inside a former Great Mosque’s forest of horseshoe-arch columns, costs about EUR 13 for adults, or nothing at all Monday to Saturday roughly 8:30-9:30am (that free window skips the nave and choir, so treat it as a bonus rather than the full visit); check current hours on the Mezquita’s own site . Spend the rest of the morning in the Juderia, browse turismodecordoba.org for the rest of the city, and catch an afternoon train back.
Day 3: Guadix
Guadix is the cheapest full day on this list: about an hour away by train for roughly EUR 6, or a similarly priced bus. The cave houses here are still lived in today, not a museum piece, carved into the soft rock on the edge of town and free to walk past on your own. A short paid tour of one furnished cave-house museum runs a few euros if the free wander leaves questions unanswered. It is a genuinely different cave tradition from Sacromonte’s flamenco caves back in Granada, and cheap enough to pair with a lighter-spend day after Cordoba’s bigger outlay the day before.
Day 4: The Alpujarras
ALSA buses reach Pampaneira, but only a couple of times a day, thin enough that reaching more than one village and getting back the same day by public transport is a real risk. A guided day tour, from about EUR 70 to 90 per person, covers Pampaneira, Bubion, and Capileira in one run and usually beats a solo car rental once fuel and parking are counted for one or two travelers. Trevelez, the region’s highest village, is the place to buy jamon de Trevelez by the gram rather than a full leg, and a plato alpujarreno lunch (ham, chorizo, morcilla, egg, potatoes) runs about EUR 12-15 in any village bar.
Day 5: Nerja or Granada’s own Costa Tropical
Granada’s own coastline is the Costa Tropical (Almunecar, Salobrena, Motril), about 1 to 1.5 hours by ALSA bus and free once you are there, dark volcanic-sand beaches instead of an entry fee. Nerja itself sits further on, in Malaga province, and its main draw is the Nerja Caves, a large show-cave system costing about EUR 16 to enter. Doing both towns in one day works only with an early start or a booked tour that handles the timing; picking one over the other is the cheaper, saner plan for a single day. Salobrena’s whitewashed old town under its Moorish castle is the better pick for a genuinely free mountains-to-sea contrast day.
Day 6: Antequera
Antequera is the free day on this list. The Menga, Viera, and El Romeral dolmens, Neolithic monuments dating to roughly 3750-3650 BC, are UNESCO-listed and cost nothing to enter, and the El Torcal karst park next door is a similarly low-cost add-on. The catch is transport: only 2-3 direct buses a day make the roughly 1-hour run via the A-92, so a rental car or a bundled tour (many combine the dolmens, Antequera’s historic center, and El Torcal in one day) is the realistic way in without burning half the day on timetables. Either way, it is the cheapest full day this itinerary has to offer.
Day 7: A flex day, not a seventh day trip
There is no honest 7th day trip beyond the six above, so this last day is deliberately unscheduled. Use it as a weather buffer if Sierra Nevada got rained or clouded out earlier in the week, repeat whichever day trip was the best value, or spend it resting in Granada on free-tapa economics (a drink for about EUR 2.50-3.50 buys a tapa automatically, still the norm here) rather than manufacturing a paid excursion nobody planned for. Padding this day with a rushed trip is the one way to blow a budget that has stayed under control for six days straight.
Why not fill day 7 with a second Cordoba or a Medina Azahara add-on?
Because it turns a cheap, deliberate buffer into a rushed extra AVE round trip that undoes the point of having slack in a seven-day plan. Medina Azahara is a genuine ruin near Cordoba, but seeing it properly wants its own day, not a bolt-on after a return train ride. Anyone who wants it should give Cordoba a second, separate visit on a future trip rather than cramming it into this one.
Is 7 days enough for Granada’s day trips?
Seven days runs through all six real day trips in this family plus a genuine buffer, more time than any of the six actually requires. Nothing here is stretched or padded to fill the extra day; the flex day exists precisely so nothing has to be. The Alhambra and the Albaicin sit outside this family, in the 7-day Granada city plan instead.
Book the Alpujarras tour, the Nerja or Costa Tropical logistics, and the Sierra Nevada trip first, since those three carry this plan’s only real booking risk; the flex day on day 7 is there specifically so a missed forecast or a canceled bus does not wreck the whole week.