I’ve put together this Madrid travel guide because I know that if you’re just starting to plan your trip, you probably have hundreds of questions.

Madrid is as exciting as it is overwhelming, so if you don’t organize your trip well, you might end up facing some unexpected surprises.

Planning ahead will also help you enjoy the city much more, and most importantly, make sure you don’t head back home without missing any must-see spots. That’s why I’ve created this Madrid travel guide, where I’ve addressed all the questions you’re likely to have at this stage.

This is actually the method I follow myself whenever I plan a trip regardless of the destination – the only different is the length of the document, depending on how long I’ll be traveling.

Table of Contents

Why should you follow this Madrid travel guide?

As soon as you consider the possibility of coming here, your first step should be create a Madrid travel guide. I’m aware that the best part of planning a trip is creating a collection of beautiful images of your destination, but you should definitely gather as much information as possible and start trying to figure out the basics of your trip.

So your Madrid travel document should answer to the 5 main travel questions:

Where?
When?
What?
How?
Why?

OK, OK,… There’s no reason to stress.

Planning a trip is funnier than you think, trust me. Over the years I have improved and refined my trip planning research, and it all gets down to a general step by step outline.

So that’s exactly what you should do: breaking down each of the steps to planning a trip. This way you’ll avoid any confusion and you’ll manage the information you gather in a practical, down to earth way.

At the end of the planning workflow, you’ll end up with a comprehensive document containing all of the information you need for your trip: everything from where you’re staying and how to get there, to what to eat.

Once you’re done, take that document with you (print it or leave on the cloud) and refer to it constantly during your trip.

Insider tip: My favorite tool is Google Docs. All I do is open a new Google Doc and start including all the information there. Don’t worry about formatting for now, I refer to that later on.

Why a Google Doc?

You can access it online and offline (love this!).

Google Drive storage capacity should be enough for your Madrid planning guide (unless you stuff it with a gazillion pictures).

You can share it with the rest of your fellow travelers so you can all contribute to.

Ready? Let’s start from the beginning!

But first, a quick note…

What not to include in your Madrid travel guide

The truth is that each minute you spend in the hotel looking stuff up is a minute you’re wasting instead of being out there enjoying your trip!

That being said, once you’re outlining your schedule for each day, make sure that you don’t overbook your days. In similar fashion, don’t map out every single day of a trip down to each tiny detail. When your travel plans will inevitably fall apart (they will), you’ll get stressed, and that’s the exact opposite of the perfect vacation.

So make sure that your trip is well-planned while being flexible enough.

Don’t plan an itinerary for every single day

Your Madrid travel guide should never include a fully detailed itinerary for each day.

What happens the weather is not what you were expecting? What if you find something else you’d like to do instead once you arrive? And if you’re too tired and you prefer to do something more relaxed?

Solution: be flexible and planning out a few half day options to choose from.

Which ones? Well… Have a look at these amazing walks.

Each day, you can choose from your activities and plan depending on the circumstances. For instance, go to one of the beautiful museums Madrid has when it’s raining cats and dogs. Pick a bunch of things to do near your accommodation if you’re feeling tired, etc.

And my favorite: allow yourself at least half a day or a full day that is totally unplanned. Use this time to return to a highlight that you missed, explore a new corner, or to relax!

Don’t plan out every meal

What if the fancy and amazing restaurant you wanted to go to for lunch is full? Or even worse, closed?

There we go… Now you have to look online for some recommendations, get to that place, check if there’s a table… And by the time you’re reading the menu, you’re not hungry anymore.

Solution: write down one or two restaurants that you would love to try.

How? Easy.

Depending on where you plan to be (or where you actually are), open Google Maps and look for recommendations. Have a look at the reviews and always (always) read some of the worst ones, to make a much more informed decision.

Don’t plan on doing too much

Have you ever heard of “slow travel”?

Slow travel is a travel philosophy based on taking your time and enjoying the unexpected.

Don’t do too much, but rather choose to do what you really like. Connect with local people, try traditional food and discover local traditions. Immerse yourself in the destination you’re visiting and transform a simple holiday into a life-changing trip. This is slow travel.

So don’t be the regular tourist and don’t overestimate time. Otherwise, you’ll spend all your vacation running from one place to the other.

Step #1: Create your Madrid travel guide

Before you start planning like crazy…

Insider tip: Create your Madrid travel guide (a Google Doc as I suggested earlier or any other tool) – a master document that will include ALL the practical information regarding your trip. This way, you’ll be able to check at a glance all the details in case of doubt.

Start opening up a brand new document where you’re going to copy and paste every information that you find useful.

And now, let’s start with the basic aspects to get your trip to Madrid off to a good start. They will help you make sure that you have the most important things under control.

Note: This is the workflow that I follow, but it’s not the only way or the best way to plan a trip to Madrid. Use it as a reference and adapt it as much as you want.

Step #2: What are your vacation dates?

It might seem silly to you, but this is the first thing that you need to decide, and depending on the dates, some things will be within my reach and others won’t, like finding affordable flights.

Best time to visit to Madrid. If you have flexible dates, you can decide your travel dates according to your preferences – cheapest month, less crowded season, you don’t like heat…
How many days in Madrid is enough? Establish how many days you want to spend here. Once you’ve done it, write down the dates in your Madrid planning guide – they’ll prove useful when booking flights or trains, accommodation, things to do, etc.

Step #3: Find out the visa requirements

It’s important first to verify whether you need a Spain visa or not. This can change depending on your nationality and whether your country has a visa agreement with Spain.

If you need a Spain visa you’ll need to apply for a short-term visa (Schengen visa). The location where you should submit your Spanish Short-Stay visa application is determined by your place of residence.

Visa for Spain. Check out if you need to obtain a visa to travel to Spain.
Spanish Embassies around the world. Can you get a visa online or do you need to get it in your home country?

Jot down all the practical information and the relevant links into your document.

Step #4: Book your flight

Now here comes my favorite part: it’s time to book your flight!

Insider tip: Whenever you make a booking or reservation, take a screenshot of your details and confirmation number and throw it into your master document immediately. Include absolutely everything – flights, hotels, tours, tickets, anything you’ve paid for!

All flights, whether low-cost or standard carriers, fly into the main international airport in Madrid called Adolfo Suárez Madrid Barajas Airport, which is extremely well connected and close to the city center.

Getting to Madrid by plane. Madrid is a very well connected city nationally and internationally by air.
How to find very cheap international flights. It’s easier than you think, you only need to learn a few tricks and hacks. Let me give you the lowdown on how to use Google Flights, Skyscanner and Momondo to find cheap flights.
Cheap air flights to Spain. Once you have become a master (which is not as hard as it seems, it’s only a matter of time), look for cheap flights to Madrid.

Great, and now the next step.

Step #5: Book your accommodation

Accommodation is another major headache for first-time travelers. In Madrid, there are plenty of options for all budgets, from hostels and small inns to budget hotels, boutique hotels, and luxury top-notch hotels.

Once you know your travel dates and you have your airplane tickets, I recommend booking you hotel well in advance. During peak travel times, it can be really difficult to find a room without a reservation, and it can also take you a lot of time. Nowadays, you can easily book your hotels online, so once you’re in Madrid, you can focus solely on enjoying your experience here.

Madrid’s city center is a relatively large area, but it’s not complicated to navigate through it.

Where to stay in Madrid. I suggest you start having some idea of where are the cool neighborhoods, and where are most of the highlights and hidden gems you should visit. So you can search for accommodation near what you want to visit or explore.
Map of Madrid. Don’t make any guess while booking – look at the map, locate each accommodation, and decide whether it’s a cool place or not based on whether there are interesting attractions nearby or not.
Hotels in Madrid. Madrid offers a vast range of accommodation. With so many options, I’ve created a selection of the 5 best hotels in each category.
Book your accommodation in advance. This should be one of your top priorities if you want to get good rates in a cool area.

And remember to include the booking information in your master document!

OK, off to the next step – sort out all the travel essentials.

Step #6: Get a travel and health insurance

First and foremost: you should NEVER travel without traveler’s insurance.

Why? Because bad things happen (sometimes).

Travel insurance is your safety net when things go wrong on a trip. From canceled flights to lost luggage, injuries, and even family emergencies, it has you covered. I always advice to never travel without it because it can save you from losing thousands of dollars. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen so many times.

I’ve used it myself – for a doctor in New Zealand, a cancelled flight to Colombia (the airline filed for bankruptcy!), and a cancelled trip to Ecuador (the country declared state of emergency 2 days before my flight…). Each time, I got fully reimbursed, so I didn’t have to worry about the costs.

Make sure you’re covered in the event of emergencies, medical issues, trip delays, or trip cancellations – it’s well worth the expense for international travel.

Not sure if it’s worth it? Have a look at a detailed guide to travel insurance that will help you decide.

Step #7. Get a travel money card

Another common question I get all the time is whether you need to carry cash. Before the pandemic, many transactions were still done in cash. However, nowadays, almost everything can be paid for with a card, so the need to withdraw a lot of cash before your trip no longer exists.

I recommend to get a Wise travel money card to avoid currency exchange fees and pay easily with your card throughout Madrid (and even withdraw money from an ATM if needed).

Money in Madrid. How can you have access to your money in Madrid while you’re visiting? With this tutorial you’ll learn all about how to pay and get cash.
Wise travel money card. This debit card is the best travel money card you can use in Spain. Stop worrying about crazy fees and abusive currency exchange rates.

Step #8. Sort out your internet connection

Having internet while traveling will be almost essential for checking maps, transportation options, booking tickets for attractions, and more.

And, while you’ll find free Wi-Fi in several cafes and public areas in Madrid, it’s best to keep that as a backup plan.

First, check with your carrier to see if they offer international data plans. Roaming charges are usually crazy… And even if you have a UE carrier, roaming data is 9/10 times limited to a certain number of GB/month. Start watching your favorite Netflix series and… Boom! Bye UE roaming data in a few hours!

So it’s always more cost-effective to buy an eSIM with internet for your phone (just remember it needs to be unlocked).

Get your eSIM before the trip. They send it to your email right away, you install it at home, and activate it as soon as you arrive in Madrid. That way, you’ll have internet from the moment you land.

International SIM card for Madrid. For the past few years, it’s been my favorite option for getting Internet. That said, your phone has to be compatible, although luckily more and more are. With my link, you get a discount.
Map of Madrid. In these maps I created for you, you’ll find attractions, hotels, flamenco shows, and much more. With Internet access, you can explore them all.

Step #9: Plan your arrival in Madrid

Arriving in Madrid should be thrilling, not stressing! The last thing you want after a long flight is to get here exhausted and confused, and then have to figure out how to get to your hotel safely and without getting scammed.

It’s easy to get confused and lost, especially when arriving somewhere where not everyone speaks English.

That’s why planning your arrival in Madrid is essential.

How to leave the airport and get to your accommodation

As soon as you know where you’ll be sleeping, you should start planning out how you’re going to get there. Your accommodation should definitely always be the first place you should go when you arrive at a destination.

You’re probably wondering things like:

How much should a taxi cost?
Is a cab the cheapest option? Or do cabs at the airport take advantage of tourists and up-charge them like crazy?
Is my hotel or apartment right off a local bus or subway line?
Can I take public transit from the airport?
Is there Uber or any other service (e.g. Cabify, Bolt)?

Fortunately, there’s no need for you to do any research, just have a look at my complete guide on how to exit the Madrid airport.

Include this information in your Madrid travel guide

Make sure that all the details are in your master document. You’ll end up using it for everything!

Write down in your Madrid travel guide the name and address of your hotel or apartment, clearly visible and readable. So if you’re having difficulty communicating with someone you can show it to this person – a lifesaver in places like Madrid where not everyone speaks English.

I also recommend you to add a screenshot of a map with the hotel’s location. This is especially helpful for communicating with taxi drivers if you don’t speak Spanish.

You should also include walking, driving, or transit directions to the accommodation so if you don’t have data or Wi-Fi while on the streets (there’s a quick way to avoid this), you can still find how to get there:

Write down instructions in your master document.
Use Google Maps. Create an itinerary using Google Maps and save it so you can use it offline.

And remember, since you threw your booking information into your master document, once you arrive, you can checking in in the blink of an eye.

How to get back to the airport to take your flight back home

Don’t forget to figure out how to get from your hotel or apartment to the airport.

You’ll need this information before leaving Madrid.

Step #10: Plan what to do and where to go

After buying the plane tickets, this is by far the most fun part of planning for a trip: it’s time to find all the exciting things you’ll do as soon as you get there!

The idea here is to establish what you want to visit and start to get an idea of what you want to do in Madrid.

Where to start

And in order to do this, you should create a list of things that catch your attention: a few attractions here and there, a couple of cool neighborhoods to explore, a few food recommendations, a list with things to do, you know the drill.

Go back to your own Madrid travel guide (remember, that Google Doc that you can share with the rest of your fellow travelers so you can all contribute to).

Then, start dumping all the interesting stuff you find in. It’s easy, just copy and paste everything. Later on, you have time to go back and edit it down.

How to find the cool stuff

Obviously, the hardest part is finding things to do…

The first reaction would be to Google “best things to do in Madrid“. But as you can imagine, it takes ages to go through everything, scan all the information and filter what’s interesting from what’s not.

And the worst of it all is that it almost never gets you off the beaten path, which is the best way to get to know a destination like Madrid.

Solution: Avoid any generic travel advice. Follow first-hand suggestions like the ones you’ll find on this website! After 10+ years writing content for Madrid Traveller, I can assure you there’s a lot to dig into…

Visit Madrid’s most emblematic museums.
Attend a flamenco show.
Enjoy specific events (bullfights, football matches).
Book a walking tour or a cool experience.
Check a ton of things to do in Madrid (month by month guide!).
Save on tickets for museums, sightseeing buses, and more by purchasing a tourist pass.
Embark on a day trip from Madrid.
Go to other destinations, like Barcelona, Seville, Granada, Córdoba or somewhere else in Spain.

Edit your findings

At first, your list will be humongous.

Little by little, you’ll go through all the information you’ve gathered to edit and organize it:

Remove everything that’s repetitive.
Delete every idea that’s not interesting anymore once you’ve found other cool stuff to do.
Classify your findings by types (sights, events, neighborhoods, food, experiences and so on).

Step #11: Fine tune the location logistics

By now, you should have a pretty messy document with:

Your travel dates.
The Spain visa requirement details, if you need one.
Your flight details.
Your accommodation information and how to get there.
Your travel and health insurance details.
Your eSIM card details to ensure internet connection throughout your whole trip.
All the details on how to exit the Madrid airport.
A bunch of sights to see and things to do.

So now it’s time to edit, correct and organize this last category.

Start by removing duplicates of sights and things to do. Then, skim your list and delete all the sight and things that don’t sound as good now that you know more about Madrid. It’s time to start figuring out what you actually might want to do.

At this point, spend as long as you need researching logistics for all of those places you want to visit and things you want to do.

Here’s what you should add to your travel document for each attraction or activity you’ve included in your trip itinerary.

How to get there (walking, bike, public transportation)?
What are the hours it’s open?
How much does it cost?
Any travel tips?

Step #12: Time to pack and check last minute preps!

What are the must-have travel essentials that you should pack for your trip to Madrid? Any last minute thing that you should check or confirm before catching the flight?

There’s a surprising number of to-dos that need to be crossed off before heading out for any trip. So prior to every vacation, you should generate a mental checklist of things that need to be taken care of.

Insider tip: Before you leave home, scan or photocopy all your important documents (e.g. passport, driving license, credit cards, etc.) and keep the copy in a place that’s easy for you to access while abroad – in the cloud (e.g. iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.), on a pen drive or printed out and left in your suitcase.

Traveling is fun and exciting, but even the most meticulous packer might forget something at home. Don’t procrastinate, and don’t try to cram too many tasks into the night before you leave, and end up forgetting things to do and items to pack.

After years traveling around the world, I thought I’d share some extra tips with you…

Make sure you check this handy travel checklist for Madrid highlighting some of the most important things to do before leaving home.
Consider whether you’ll need to bring emergency medications or extra supplies of your regular medications.
Minimize your pre-trip stress with a comprehensive packing list. This way, you’ll make sure you’ve got everything you need to make your trip hassle free.

The ultimate Madrid travel guide: Plan your trip step by step