Self-Guided Tours in Spain

Self-guided city games reach across Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Granada, Malaga, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Toledo, Tarragona, Zaragoza, Cordoba, Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife's Santa Cruz all have at least one. Alongside those sits a quieter family: single-site audio-guide apps for places too small for a full city game — the medieval villages of Besalu and Rupit, the walled circuit of Avila, and the monastery of Montserrat.

The city games split by theme as much as by geography. Straight scavenger hunts cover a historic centre in roughly two hours against a ticket code and GPS routing; puzzle quests wrap the same streets in a story instead — a witch trial on Montjuic, a surreal memory-loss mystery in Madrid's parks, ghosts in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. Both styles run on a phone with no guide. The single-site audio apps work differently: cheaper, slower, meant for one village or monastery rather than a whole old town, with routes that can be driven as well as walked.

Practical. Summer in the interior — Madrid, Toledo, Zaragoza — runs hotter and drier than the coast, often past 35C in July and August, while Barcelona, Valencia and the Basque coast stay closer to 28C with more humidity off the sea. Phone-based games need battery and signal; old quarters built of stone can weaken a GPS fix, so the street clues matter as much as the map. Midday heat in the interior is worth avoiding on foot between roughly one and five in summer. The games never sell out, but Easter week fills the Andalusian old towns fastest, and July and August bring the heaviest crowds.