Valencia is a destination that is becoming increasingly popular amongst tourists especially the young ones. It is the perfect getaway if you still want to experience that Spanish culture without going to big cities such as Madrid or Barcelona.
We visited Valencia last Summer for a short trip, and we wanted to share with you how to spend the ideal quick gateway in this lovely city. In this blog we will present to you our experiences, some tips and tricks, along with what you can and cannot miss out on, to make the most out of your visit in Valencia.
There are many cities around the world that provide direct flights to Valencia. The airport there is medium sized, and it offers various full-service and low-cost airlines for flights to many destinations around Europe.
To make the most out of your short trip, we suggest either taking a flight very early in the morning or rather do like us and arrive late the night before, to be able to start exploring directly in the morning. Both options have their own advantages and disadvantages.
If you plan to arrive early in the morning, you will be tired throughout the day, and it is likely that you will have to carry your suitcase around until you are able to check in into your accommodation. However, if you plan to arrive late the day before, you will incur an extra night accommodation cost. This would depend on your preference as well as your budgeting needs.
Moreover, we think that Valencia can be easily explored in just a few days, hence it would be the perfect stop during your Spanish tour. This city can be conveniently reached from many major cities within a matter of a few minutes/hours by train, car or bus. These can all be more efficient options, depending on where you’re coming from, to make your trip as long as possible from the few days you have.
Due to the short duration of the trip, accommodation plays a vital role to maximise out of your trip. We suggest that you first establish your itinerary, to figure out the location of most of the attractions you wish to visit.
If your accommodation is far, you will likely waste a lot of time on transportation which is not ideal for a short trip. Hence, we suggest finding something more centralised, that even though might be a bit more costly, it will still be worth it as you will be saving on transportation costs.
We recommend apps like Circuit or similar applications that allows you to plan your trip, adding multiple stops and giving you the best routes, to make sure you don’t miss out on anything while being the most efficient as possible. This enables you to save time, as well as to establish where would be the ideal accommodation location for you.
A crucial step with a short trip, is to always plan well in advance. If this is not the case, you will likely end up wasting both money and time to decide what to do next and how to do it. Moreover, if some places require you to book in advance, you can miss out on the opportunity to enjoy such an attraction.
Planning in advance requires you to have a detailed itinerary of what you want to do and when you want to do it. If you are travelling with someone else, as we did in Valencia, it might be more difficult to come up with the ideal plan that fits the needs of the whole group hence, this step would be more vital.
When we went to Valencia, we travelled with another couple. A great thing we did which we suggest to everyone, is that we met a few weeks in advance to establish all the activities and attractions which we wanted to visit and do. This allowed us to create the perfect plan including the time to spend at each activity, and how we would get to the next one.
Moreover, by planning in advance, you would have a better understanding of your costs which is also crucial. Since we knew all, we wanted to visit beforehand, we were able to purchase most of the tickets online. This meant that we did not have to wait in any queues to purchase tickets while also saved us some money by finding coupons or discount codes online.
There are several ways to move around in this city, depending on which price points suit you the best and how quick you want to get around. This is essential to prepare ahead of time especially during a short trip, as to ensure there are no delays in your itinerary.
In Valencia there are many modes of public transportation such as metro, trams and buses. A single ticket is quite cheap at €1.50 per person, however if you plan to use public transport often we suggest getting a Valencia Tourist Card. duration of your stay.
However, even though public transport is generally efficient, and the schedule time is usually followed, it can get quite busy in summer, and buses can run late if there is a lot of traffic. There is also the option of taking a taxi with apps such as Uber and Bolt (two of the must-have travel apps) offering rides between €6-10, which can be more efficient. Be careful with taxis as drivers have a habit of taking the wrong turns on purpose, to make your ride longer and hence charge you an extra fee.
In our case, we mostly took taxi’s as it was more reliable, time saving and when the cost was divided by us 4, we realised that it was quite cheap. However, Valencia is a very walkable friendly city since most of the attractions are located closely to each other. Hence, we still recommend that you walk to nearby attractions as it would still save you money and time from waiting for the transport to arrive.
Finding a place to eat in a foreign country can be hard, especially when there are many options to choose from and people with different taste buds. Thus, it is essential that you take a moment in advance to plan, as to not waste any time in the moment.
We usually make a choice between two options when it comes to deciding on where we should eat from. Either the day before, we take some time to find a place and reserve a table for the next day or else just plan to visit around and stop and eat wherever we think seems good during our exploration.
If you are on a budget, we highly recommend going to a bakery where they offer vast options of sandwiches and local delicacies such as Empanadas filled with many different ingredients. We found that this is a more budget friendly option while also being an ideal on-the-go meal rather than stopping at a restaurant.
However, we still recommend trying out a restaurant at least once if you have both the budget and the time to do so and taste some delicious local cuisine such as paella. If you take our recommendations, choose the restaurant in advance as well as reserve a place, it will allow you to be both budget friendly and time efficient.
There are a lot of things to do in Valencia that are suitable for everyone’s needs. Hence, it can be quite difficult to choose which attractions you should visit if you are on a time crunch. Therefore, we made a list of the Top Attractions in Valencia that you should not miss out on:
This is a market that offers a large variety of fresh local ingredients and food. It is a nice place to discover, to smell different aromas, and to taste some of the freshest local food and wine. It is also essential to visit this place if you plan to cook some food during your trip, as it allows you to buy fresh ingredients and to try-before-you-buy from the many different vendors available.
This is the largest aquarium in Europe that has over 500 species. If you plan to visit the Oceanografic make sure to at least allocate half a day there as there is so much to see. We were deeply fascinated by the number of diverse species that there was, as well as the amazing dolphin show that is included in the price of the ticket. Tickets can be quite expensive at €32 per person; however, we still believe that it was very worth it overall. If you want to read more about Oceanografic make sure to check out our post specifically on it.
There are many stunning beaches all over Valencia however, this will forever remain one of our favourite ones we visited. The sand is so fine, small and golden and the sea was quite blue and clean. We went in the beginning of July, and we can tell you that the water was much warmer than we expected. There were a few waves, to make the experience more fun, while still being calm enough to allow you to enjoy and relax.
This is one of Spain’s oldest Botanical Gardens, established in the 16th century. It features over 4,500 plant species from all over the world, including some of the rarest plants. Entry tickets start from €3 making it one of the cheapest attractions you can visit. This is truly a magical place to see all the different greenery around you and is quite a peaceful experience to walk around and observe all the amazing nature.
This is a square that is part of the old town. It includes several different stunning buildings surrounded by flowers, fountains and many different shops and food places. It is truly one of the nicest areas to just walk around and appreciate the culture and its beauty. Moreover, it is ideal if you love to take photos. When we went, there were also some animators dressed up as different characters to entertain the kids.
Apart from the attractions we mentioned above, there were several others that we loved and that we will never forget, such as the many stunning gardens and greeneries that you should pass by while going to some of the other attractions. If you manage your time effectively, you will be able to visit all that you wish without the hassle and rush.
However, during our trip we noticed that some of the stuff we did were not as worth it, and we would have rather spent that time extra visiting the attractions that we loved instead. This of course is just our opinion based on what we love to do, hence we suggest doing some research and choosing and prioritising based on your likings:
This building includes an IMAX cinema and an interactive science museum. The cinema was not bad, and you have some options to choose from for a short viewing where it truly takes you into another dimension. However, be careful if you get dizzy easily as the enormous screen can quickly make your head spin. We found the science museum quite dull and there was not much to do, moreover if there are too many people, it is very hard to try the interactive activities making it more boring. However, we still suggest walking next to the building, as the surrounding area is quite stunning especially in the evening.
The Cathedral is very nice to look at from the outside however, after doing research and based on our budget and timing, we found that it was not worth it to wait in the long queue to go inside. This of course depends on your preference, however if you decide to do like us, make sure to still pass by it as the architecture is quite beautiful to look at and even the marble square surrounding it.
This is a zoo that holds over 4,000 animals from around the world. At first, we wanted to visit immensely however when considering the time and price we decided to make a choice between it and the Oceanografic and finally chose the aquarium. This highly depends on your preferences as well as how you want to allocate your time. If you plan to visit both biopic and Oceanografic, keep in mind that it would take you more than a day to visit and can take a substantial part of your budget.
It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was originally built in the 15th century. Although stunning from the outside, there is not much to see on the inside. If you are on a time crunch, we do not suggest that you wait in the queue to go inside, but rather just pass by it and take some good photos to savour the memories.
This was quite a nice building that offers many different shops such as clothing stores and fast-food chains. Even though we still went, we realised that the shops were all like the ones that we have at home, hence, should have not been a priority in our visit list. If you love shopping however, this is something that you should do, as it offers a vast range of shops and many places to eat from.
All these places were still very stunning to visit, and we do not regret going to any of them. However, if time is the bottleneck during your trip, as it was for us, we would have preferred to allocate more time for the attractions that we loved rather than rushing to visit all on our list.
Our trip to Valencia was amazing overall and we enjoyed every second of it. Although it was quite short, it allowed us to make use of our time more efficiently, appreciate every moment, while also realise that it is possible to go abroad even for a short period of time.
If you are like us who loves travelling but is constrained with the amount of time and money they have, it might be a though choice when it comes to choosing whether to go.for that trip or not. Hence, in our blog we aim to make our experiences more relatable and hopefully help you make the best choice.
While planning in advance might be quite stressful especially when travelling in groups, it is essential when it comes to taking short trips in order to make the most out of your time. If you listen to our tips, we believe that you could Visit Valencia in 3 Days, without the necessary hassle and rush.
These tips are not just applicable to Valencia but can be useful with any short getaway. Let us know if you prefer to take one long trip or many short ones throughout the year. Moreover, don’t forget to check out some of our recent posts such as Malta and London and let us know what else you would like to see from us.
See you next time!
We are Martina and Cyprien, a young couple with a commun passion for travelling.
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