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Operación Salida: What to know about driving during Spain’s summer exodus

This weekend marks the start of Spain's big summer exodus when people flee the cities and drive to the countryside or the coast for their holidays. Here's what you need to know if you want to avoid traffic jams and other problems on the road.

Published: 26 July 2019 12:54 CEST
Updated: 29 July 2023 08:15 CEST

Operación Salida: What to know about driving during Spain's summer exodus

Be safe on the roads during Spain's great summer exodus. Photo: PAU BARRENA / AFP

With millions of people expected to be hitting the Spanish highways throughout August 2023, traffic jams at peak times are inevitable.

This is after all Operación Salida, the name Spaniards have given to the ‘great exodus’ that occurs every year as millions head to the coast for their summer holidays.

It occurs typically during the last few days of July or the first few days of August, again on August 15th (a public holiday) and then finally at the end of August when everyone returns home.

There’s nothing like being stuck in traffic on a hot highway for hours and hours to put a dampener on that holiday feeling, but help is at hand.

Here’s what you need to know to avoid the busiest travel times, find the best routes, and avoid difficulties as you head off for your summer break.

When are the roads at their busiest?

Spain’s General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) predicts that there will be almost nine million road trips from Friday, July 28th to Tuesday, August 1st, and more than 49 million journeys throughout August.

Andalusia and Valencia are expected to be the busiest regions during this time.

The busiest areas in Spain during August 2023. Source: DGT

The busiest time of all will be this Friday (July 28th) in the afternoon, mainly between 4pm and 11pm, which will cause traffic problems at the exits of large cities, as well as many tourist routes towards the coasts.

Traffic will pick up again on Saturday (July 29th) in the morning from 9am to 2pm with intense traffic leaving the urban centres and heading to the beaches.

On Saturday evening, there may again be a rise in traffic towards big cities as those who had their holidays in July will be returning home.

On Sunday (July 30th) in the morning, major roads going towards the coast and the roads that connect coastal towns will be the busiest, especially between 6pm and 11pm. Again there will also be people returning from their July holidays back towards urban centres.

On Monday (July 31st) the busiest times will be between 7pm and 10pm as those who have their holidays in August will be leaving after work.

Finally, on Tuesday (August 1st), there could be a greater intensity of traffic in the outbound direction from 9am to 5pm due to the start of the tourist season. This will be compounded by the usual rush hour traffic.

These are the busiest routes in Spain over the summer. Source: DGT

The roads are expected to clog up again on Monday August 15th (a national holiday across Spain) and the following day Tuesday 16th.

The same is likely to happen when people drive back home at the end of their summer holidays on Saturday August 30th and Sunday August 31st, which will see the biggest number of cars on the roads returning to the cities.

For live traffic information visit the DGT website.

Spanish traffic authorities will add additional lanes during peak rush hour times, halt all road construction work and prevent slow vehicles such as lorries from driving during these periods of heavy traffic.

Apps to avoid the worst of the traffic

A choice of apps can be utilised to warn you of traffic hotspots in real time, help find alternative routes, warn of police controls and steer you away from motorway tolls or locate the best-priced fuel on your route.

Google Maps

It’s most likely already on your smartphone. It provides real time info on traffic jams and offers faster alternative routes.

Waze

This is one of the best apps for Operacion Salida, providing real time traffic and alternative routes, it also allows users to share information on accidents, police checkpoints and other roadside dangers or annoyances. This app also offers comparative prices at fuel stations along your route.

DGT

The official app from Spain’s traffic authority provides info on speed cameras, and up to the minute trouble spots along your route.

File photo of traffic jam on a motorway in Madrid. Photo: AFP

SocialDrive

This app is an information-sharing platform that relies on drivers sharing info on traffic in real time.

RACC

This app doesn’t just provide minute-by-minute updates on traffic congestion, it also allows you to plan your journey to beat the traffic, calculating the best time to leave. It also provides info on service stations along the route and parking at your destination.

Via Michelin

The Michelin app gives real time traffic updates, will advise you of a route to avoid tolls and can also calculate how much fuel you need and the cheapest place to buy it on the way.

Truck Parking Europe

This app is the Tripadvisor equivalent for rest stops advising on good places to eat at roadside service stations and where to find the best facilities.

Eyes in the skies

Traffic helicopters and drones will likely be patrolling the skies over Spain’s busiest roads and at known traffic hot spots to look out for dangerous driving, traffic accidents and tailbacks.

The drones are equipped with cameras to beam live footage back to road traffic monitors who will use the information to alert ground patrols to traffic problems such as accidents.

Drones will also be deployed to the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands to monitor holiday traffic.

There will also be undercover police vans on the roads to keep a close eye on drivers.

Roadside patrols and speed traps

Photo: AFP

The Civil Guard have said there will be more than 1,800 patrol cars out on the roads during the busiest periods of Operacion Salida and at peak times leaving beach resorts.

Expect to see roadside checks where you could be asked to present your papers (car registration/insurance/driving license) and to see random breathalyser tests to check for drunk driving.

Speed traps are installed across Spanish roadsides to check for speeding vehicles. Keep to the speed limit or you may find you come back from holiday to a rather stiff speeding fine.

MAP: The trick to find out where Spain’s invisible speed cameras are

Check your car before your journey

Spain’s car owners club, RACE, warns that the majority of car problems resulting in roadside assistance come from battery and tire problems.

Make sure that you check your tyre tread (it should be a minimum of 1.6mm across the central ¾ line of the tire) ahead of the journey and that you have a functional spare tire in the vehicle.

Also check tyre pressure at the start of your journey, and the fluid levels of oil, windscreen cleaning liquid and radiator coolant.

Drive safely and wear a seat belt!

Last summer 225 people lost their lives on Spanish roads during the months of July and August with the DGT recording that several of these were not wearing a seatbelt.

Take regular breaks

The DGT advises drivers to stop at least every 200km to stretch their legs, have a drink and use the toilets and get some fresh air to prevent tiredness.

During a previous Operación Salida, the DGT also produced this handy guide to outline the responsibilities of everyone in the car.

Driver: Drive, concentrate on the road, focus on the destination, don’t stress about the traffic.

Front seat passenger: Stay awake, responsible for the music, responsible for Google maps, Waze etc, warn driver of any dangers.

Back seat passenger: Chief distributor of sweets, can issue complaints about air conditioning, can hit the front seat passenger to make sure they don’t fall asleep and sleep like a bear.

Good tourist, bad tourist: How to travel responsibly in Spain

Barcelona resident David Mar doesn’t travel, but he thinks about tourism every day.

Tourists crowd the buses — essential for movement in a hilly neighbourhood like his. They leave trash for residents to discover in the morning. They shout and sing at night and wander drunkenly through the residential streets, ambling into backyards and pulling down laundry on clotheslines.

“It’s a disturbance that goes from when you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night,” he told The Local Spain. “You don’t feel welcome in your own neighbourhood.”

Mar lives in Turó de la Rovira, on a 262-metre hill that towers over the city.

A viewpoint atop the hill called Los Bunkers de Carmel has gone viral on TikTok for its sweeping city views, bringing hordes of tourists to come drink wine, watch the sunset, and sometimes party into the early morning.

But for the residents of the surrounding Carmel neighbourhood — among Barcelona’s poorest — the consequences of this tourist explosion have been severe.

Mar was involved in a physical altercation with a group of four Australians, after he confronted them for tipping over parked motorcycles.

And last June a 76 year-old man was assaulted by a group of seven English-speaking youths after he tried to stop them from jumping a fence that had been put up around the Bunkers.

Such events are commonplace in Carmel, Mar says, with the post-pandemic massification of tourism provoking an unstoppable flow of Instagram-like-hungry travellers, fuelled by an increasingly lucrative industry whose interests often conflict with those of local residents.

“It collides directly with the most basic rights of those who live here,” Mar says. “Our right to housing, our right to transportation, our right to rest peacefully.”

With some 1.3 billion international arrivals globally in 2023, more people are travelling for pleasure than ever before in human history.

But as excessive crowds stress infrastructure and locals find themselves pushed out of their own communities, prevailing attitudes towards travel must be reconsidered if global tourism is to continue growing sustainably.

“Tourism isn’t a right, it’s a decision that you make,” Mar says. “And if you do it, you must be aware of the consequences it can generate.”

A couple uses a selfie stick to take a picture next to a banner warning tourists on drought alert in Catalonia, near Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

Empathy abroad

Bartolomé Deyá Tortella, a researcher and the Dean of Tourism Faculty at the University of the Balearic Islands, says few tourists consider such consequences.

Instead, they embrace their inner hedonist and focus their vacation time on maximum pleasure for minimum price. This mindset might cause a tourist to forget their values and do things they’d never do at home.

“We all become capitalists when we practice tourism,” Deyá told The Local. “You think, ‘I paid for this, I’m on vacation, I’m having my moment of pleasure, I worked the whole year for it.”

Such thinking could explain why someone might respect quiet hours in their own neighbourhoods, but shout drunkenly in the streets late at night while on vacation.

Or why on a trip to Mallorca, where Deyá lives and works, a tourist might feel compelled to take a 10-minute shower — despite the water-stressed Mediterranean island’s near-drought conditions — while residents routinely shower in a minute or less.

Failure to consider saving water or respecting quiet hours comes down to lack of empathy, Deyá says, and our tendency to other the people whose communities we enter while traveling.

“Act as if you were in your own home,” he says. “If when you’re in your own city you don’t shout in the street because you know your neighbours are sleeping, why do it when you’re traveling?”

Social sustainability

Much has been said about environmental sustainability, but it’s easy to forget the social impacts of travel; how our interactions with local people and economies can change that society.

“When every one of us travels, it implies that the places where we came from are transformed, the places we pass through are transformed, and obviously, so are the places we arrive to,” Manuel de la Calle Vaquero, Vicedean of the Faculty of Commerce and Tourism at Complutense University of Madrid, told The Local Spain.

With this in mind, the most sustainable way to travel is by using one’s presence to positively impact the local community.

Or in other words, to leave a place better than you found it.

“When you jump on a plane, it’s important to make sure that trip counts for something positive,” says Justin Francis, founder of Responsible Travel, a holiday company that collaborates with local partners to plan socially and environmentally sustainable vacations.

“I advise people to fly less, keep short trips flight-free – and, when you do fly, stay in a place longer and travel in a way that does as much good as possible,” Francis says.

Anti-gentrification banners addressing were already hanging from balconies in Barcelona back in 2017. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

Neighbourhood colonisers

One of the most significant ways in which tourism can alter the social landscape is through accommodation.

Not long ago, tourists and residents in Spain did not typically mix, with tourists sticking near their hotels, rarely straying into residential zones, Deyá says.

But today’s tourist has matured, and now expects novelty; an “authentic” experience that they can convince themselves distinguishes them from the thousands of other tourists expecting the same.

Nowadays they live among residents, in apartments instead of hotels, utilizing short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, which has led to the dissolution of boundaries between a city’s tourist and local zones.

Vaquero describes this new kind of tourist as the “anti-tourism” tourist, in the sense that they’re not interested in the sort of tourism promoted by governments and travel agencies, but instead consider themselves the explorers of new “authentic” destinations outside the typical tourist sphere.

“The one who wants to leave the traditional tourist circuit and supposedly goes looking for ‘authentic’ neighbourhoods — that tourist is obviously the coloniser,” Vaquero says.

The boom in short-term vacation rentals has led to what’s been dubbed the “Airbnb effect” in neighbourhoods worldwide, in which residents are slowly replaced by a constant flux of tourists. For landlords, vacation rentals can be far more lucrative than renting to residents, thus incentivizing them to evict long-term tenants in order to list their properties on Airbnb.

This is exactly what happened to Emanuele Dal Carlo. His landlord didn’t want to renew the lease on his small Venice apartment because they could make more renting it out on Airbnb. Like so many other Venetians, Dal Carlo had to move to the mainland.

To better understand the cultural erosion he saw happening to his city as a result of Airbnb, Dal Carlo enlisted the help of researchers to conduct a study, through which he discovered only 2,000 of the 3,300 Airbnbs in the city were registered with the government, and many were rented by foreign hosts with zero connection to Venice.

This means that much of the money tourists spend on accommodation never lands on the ground, thus eliminating any potential benefit to the local economy.

“What’s wrong is that the money available from tourism is not fairly distributed between workers and residents,” Dal Carlo says.

Dal Carlo now runs Fairbnb, an ethical Airbnb alternative which promotes “community-powered tourism.” Hosts are certified local, and the platform fees are put directly towards a social project in the local community, like food redistribution or sustainable energy initiatives.

As a tourist, the best way to avoid feeding the problem is by avoiding short term rentals when possible, Dal Carlo says, and instead booking accommodations with local businesses, like small independent hotels or traditional bed and breakfasts.

And if you absolutely must use Airbnb, Dal Carlo suggests booking with local hosts.

“If you’re traveling to Venice and your host is from Finland, ask yourself some questions,” he says.

An elderly local man on crutches waits to cross as a group of tourists using Segways squeeze by and into the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

Whose fault?

In Spain, anti-tourism protests have crescendoed in recent weeks. The travel industry, it seems, has grown beyond its means, and locals are taking note.

To some degree, the problem can be traced to poor planning on the part of local governments and the unchecked expansion of algorithmic platforms like Airbnb.

Deyá points out that many government entities in Spain have welcomed tourist money, pursuing marketing campaigns without investing in adequate preparation.

“Tourism is the typical sector where many governments say, ‘ok, let’s leave it, because this works. Don’t touch it,’” Deyá says. “But there’s been no planning, there’s been no strategy.”

Back in Barcelona, the city’s public transport authority was involved in the promotion of the Carmel bunkers through its Bus Turistic webpage, encouraging tourists to come see the “spectacular views over Barcelona.”

The promotion was taken down on April 16th after continued anti-tourism protests from the Turó de la Rovira neighbourhood council, of which Mar is a member.

But as is the case with so many industries in a crowded world full of contradictions, the individual cannot be absolved of all responsibility, as one’s choice to participate in harmful systems enables their continuation.

No law or tourist tax will compel tourists to act with empathy, and the absence of such regulations should not be used to justify one’s bad behaviour abroad.

“The problem is that we’re hypocrites, and we think that it’s someone else who has to solve the problem,” Deyá says.

Mar, who’s never been much of a traveller himself, is no longer interested in traveling internationally after seeing what tourism has done to his city.

“So much of my city has become inhospitable for residents,” he says. “Because we’re truly suffering from it here in Barcelona, the concept of tourism disgusts me more and more.”

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