Showing the Andalusian landscape on a sunny day.

It will surprise some people that Spain has wonderful village-to-village hikes that do NOT lead to Santiago de Compostela, and that are not caminos!

The 450km Andalusian Coast to Coast Walk is one of them.

From mid-April to mid-May this year (2025), my sister Dori and I tackled the Andalucian Coast to Coast Walk. The 450km hike is conveniently divided into 21 separate hikes, ranging in length from 11.7km to 26.3km. Cobbled together by Guy Hunter-Watts, who sadly died in a bicycle accident in 2023, it follows quiet back roads, trails and, as we discovered in a few places, we had to rely entirely on our GPX track. We did some bushwhacking on about three occasions, and my sister, who was wearing long pants (she’s the smart one), had no scratches at all. Me, I had multiple scrapes that looked worse than they actually were. But take note if you decide to hike this truly wonderful route. Dori coined the term “prickers” to describe the thorny plants that were the bane of our bushwhacking escapades.

From Maro, a small village on the Mediterranean Sea, we climbed up into the Baetic Mountains and then travelled west until we descended into windy Tarifa, where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet. On our last day, we headed north up the coast for a day’s beach hike to Bolonia. Over the distance, we did our fair share of climbing, but there were only two days with over 1000m climbs and two more over 900m. For me, anything much beyond 1000m gets tiresome. About half the hikes were 20km or more and given that my cut off for distance is about 20km (depending on the associated climb), I was in my comfort zone. This was a perfect hike for me in terms of difficulty. Moreover, my sister who accompanied me had never done a multi-day hike and was not sure she would enjoy day after day on a walk. Turned out the Andalucian Coast to Coast Walk converted her. I was relieved and tickled that she enjoyed it. We were helped along by the cool dry weather. We only used our rain jackets once, and instead of being too hot, I had to pick up some warmer clothes as the thermometer rarely crept over 20 degrees celsius — in other words, perfect hiking weather.

Making the route much to my liking was that each night we had a comfortable bed, some fine meals and a glass, well perhaps two glasses, of great Spanish wine. They cost about 2 Euros each. The towns we stayed in were almost all white. Without exception, our accommodations were fabulous, often interesting and reasonably priced, averaging out to about 75 Euros split between the two of us. I booked all our accommodations in advance, mostly through Booking.com and Airbnb, which made it fairly easy. It was a bit tricky making sure we had a booking in the right town on the correct night, but with the help of a spreadsheet, I managed. My sister was impressed with my logistics and relieved that I did all this work. In return, Dori kept a running tab of what we spent day to day and she carried the guidebook and GPX. I think I got the better deal!

We each carried a backpack that weighed about 20lb, including two litres of water. We would have had to carry a lot more weight had we packed a tent, sleeping bags and food. Our packs weren’t light, but they were manageable.

When we added it all up, it was surprisingly reasonable for what we received. In comparison to going with an organized tour it was “dirt cheap.” The month-long trip cost us $3000 CDN each, not including return airfare to Malaga. Most organized tours, even self-guided ones, cost more than that for a week or 10 days. Note, that we never scrimped. We stayed in very nice hotels, including one located inside a castle. We usually enjoyed a beer upon our arrival and ate in restaurants most days for breakfast and dinner. We carried our lunch with us — though we did become a bit tired of Spanish “ham” (despite how good and famous it is) and cheese on a bun. Not that I’m complaining.

I can highly recommend this hike, though you need to be comfortable with a few stretches of trailless hiking following your GPX track, and a number of places where the Ciceroni guidebook and reality were not aligned. The book is out-of-date, though it’s surprisingly accurate given it’s seven years old. Moreover, for many of the hikes, we were able to follow Europe’s GR routes that were signposted and easier to follow. Also, Ciceroni does a pretty good job of including updates on its website. So each morning, we’d check in with Ciceroni website to see if there were updates to the trail that we needed to be aware of.

The Hike

The Andalucian Coast to Coast Walk guidebook, published by Ciceroni Press in 2018, is a must. This useful reference gives you much of what you require to follow the route and to know how to break the hike down into manageable distances that begin and end in one of Andalucia’s white towns. It recommends places to stay at night, restaurants and other tidbits of cultural and natural history. It’s a must even if it is a bit out of date. Complementing the guidebook is a GPX track that is free. It too is a must as there were places where we followed the GPX tracks using the app, GPX Viewer, and not the guidebook.

This is a photo of the excel spreadsheet I created for our accommodations. It was really, really useful. I’m happy to send a copy to anyone who is interested. It lists the hike we did each day, its distance, elevation, difficulty, plus all of our accommodations. For a copy send an email to Nicola.

Photographs

Below is a series of photos that depict the precious white towns, spectacular wild flowers, mountain views, goats and much much more.

Day One: Maro to Frigiliana / 15.2km / 930 up/ 660m down / April 23, 2025

My sister Dori with Frigiliana in the background. We had our first paella of the trip.

That’s me carrying about a 20lb pack. There were a lot of roads on the route, but they were virtually without cars.

This is the village of Competa. We both loved it. Our room looked over the main square.

There were so many different landscapes, from dry, rocky olive and almond groves to lush green.

This was a wonderful, quirky hotel in Carratraca. It was our favourite though we had to have a European friend of mine call and book it for us as they don’t take reservations on Booking.com or other sites.

This was an extra hike we did. It required us to break the Valle de Abdalajis to Carratraca hike in two. We stayed overnight in the tiny village of El Chorro to take this spectacular hike called Caminita del Rey (the King’s little hike). It requires booking well in advance, as in weeks or months in advance. It was quite something if a bit touristy.

That’s the Rock of Gibraltar in case you are wondering.

We came across this little house in the middle of nowhere. Both Dori and I decided we wanted to live there!

We had trouble finding our hotel in this town, Castillo de Castellar, because it was inside this castle. In fact, the entire town is inside the castle.

It was bittersweet when we began our descent to the sea. We knew our mountain views were a thing of the past.

This was our second last hike. It followed the Mediterranean to Tarifa and the Atlantic.

Also on this second last hike, we came across our first Andalusian horse!

There weren’t many people swimming in the Atlantic along this gorgeous coastline, but there were hundreds of kite sailors and windsurfers.

The Wild Flowers

Both Dori and I were struck by the wildflowers. They were abundant, filling entire hillsides and there were so many varieties, many of them unknown to me. The varieties also changed as April turned to May and as we climbed or descended. The wildflowers on our last two hikes along the coast were completely different than in the mountains, not surprisingly. They were prolific, managing to thrive in this sandy “soil.” I’ve included several photos of what we came across. I think my favourites were the red poppies. There were several orchids too. If you like wildflowers, hike in the spring.

My Illustrations

As many of you know, I’ve been learning to draw and having fun doing it. On this hike, I added colour to most of my drawings, which was really fun. I used Watercolour Pencils as they are great for field journals. You colour as if they were regular coloured pencils like we used in school. After the colouring is done, you take a small paint brush and add water. So I could colour my drawings outside and then add the water when I had a table and water.

I leave you with these whimsical memories of this fabulous hike. It won over my sister despite the occasional bit of bushwhacking through prickers. Like me, she was wowed by the landscape, the gorgeous villages, quirky hotels, plentiful food (especially our favourite ensalada mixta), wildflowers and the variety of trails and scenery. To walk it, you’ll need to be comfortable with a route that isn’t continuously blazed as the Bruce Trail is. You need to follow the directions in the Ciceroni guidebook and the GPX to do it. Oh, and one more thing: we didn’t come across any other through hikers. In fact, we hardly saw any hikers at all, and we were regularly one of only a couple of guests at a hotel. While we booked accommodations ahead and it was comforting to know we had lined this all up in advance, we could have done it without booking ahead.

If you want my spreadsheet of where we stayed and how we planned our hike, send me an email to Nicola.

Finally, a bit thanks to my sister Dori who lead the way.