COVID-19 Travel to Spain

This describes our experience traveling to Spain in September 2021.  It is not prescriptive for travel arrangements.  Rules concerning COVID-19 travel to Spain can rapidly change.  Consult official sources for up-to-date information before booking and executing travel plans.  We use and recommend the Re-open EU site.

Travel to Spain

We arrived in Spain via overnight bus from Portugal.  We did not fill out a passenger locator form, because we arrived via land.  Most European countries are requiring a paper or digital passenger locator form for entry.  We filled these out for both France (never checked by anyone) and Portugal (collected in-flight by airline).  In September 2021, Spain required a passenger locator form if arriving by plane or boat.  

We did not need COVID-19 testing for entry to Spain.  It was not necessary because our travel route was between EU countries, Jon and Ashley are vaccinated, and both kids are under 12.  Confirm the rules for your prospective route and stay updated on changes, because Spain’s rules are different depending on country of origin.

Getting Around Spain

We spent 13 days on the southern coast of Spain.  Here is the summary of our experience:

• Masks are required for all public transportation services.  The local buses are nice and clean.
• Plan to always wear a mask when indoors.  We did not go anywhere that required masks when outdoors.  But honestly, why be inside anyways?  Everything you’ll want to do is outside.  Most restaurants have a lot of outdoor or open-air seating.
• Read about our top 5 activities in Malaga with kids.Other than a day trip to Morocco (high on our list, but shut down) everything was open.  Hiking trails, paddle-board rental, jet-skis, canyon tours, via ferrata, biking: all of it appeared to be operating normally.  You can also see our budget breakdown for Spain here.
• We did not show our CDC vaccination cards or EU digital passports a single time during our stay.

Conclusion

Our experience was that Spain felt normal!  Other than wearing a mask indoors and on public transportation, there was no negative impact from COVID-19 on travel to Spain.  The weather in the Andalusian region is so good we stayed outside.  Malaga is on our list to return in the future!  We also have posts that detail our experience traveling during COVID-19 to Paris and Monaco.

If you have questions for traveling to Spain during COVID-19, let us know!