IIt was 7am and I was lying on a rock, half asleep, determined to keep my eyes open so I could see the sunrise over the Mediterranean. It was the morning after a long night in Ibiza with my school friend Nuria. I don’t usually get up this early, and I’m not a late bloomer, but we were only on the party island for a short time and we were determined to make the most of it.
It wasn’t like we were just on a weekend trip; a long and varied journey had brought us here, a Generation Z odyssey over land and sea, with the goal of going clubbing.
For many Brits, it is normal to travel to France without flying. But travelling to Spain – let alone the Balearics – seems a step too far for most. But Nuria and I, in our mid-twenties, care about the impact our actions have on the planet (Nuria is vegan, I am a guilty flexitarian) and we love dancing. So when we heard that the no-fly tour operator Byway had launched an Ibiza itinerary, it seemed like a perfect fit for us.
The trip normally takes ten days, including an overnight ferry crossing and stops for city breaks, but we only had six days so we wanted to go via Girona and Barcelona and enjoy the trip (and party a bit) along the way.
Blanca Schofield and her friend Nuria in Parc Güell, Barcelona
BLANCA SCHOFIELD
On the Eurostar from London to Paris, I got chatting to other passengers and told them why they chose to travel by train. Their reasons were that they didn’t like flying or waiting at airports, the environment, and that the cost was comparable and the views were better. Even though our package was aimed at Gen Z travelers, it cost over $1,000, but we wanted to keep other costs down.
Nuria and I had spent a year at university in Paris. As desperate as we were to go to Spain, when we arrived we felt that we could at least Parisian life by stopping at the crêperie Le Goëland d’Aligre (10 Place d’Aligre) on the way from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon for a fantastic lime, butter and sugar crêpe (£3.40) and a cider (£3.40).
Double-decker TGV trains run from Paris directly to Barcelona via Girona, so we decided to get off there early to explore somewhere new. The six-hour journey offered glimpses of a beautiful aqueduct near Granchette, southeast of Paris, and cows sheltering under trees in Burgundy’s mountainous Morvan Natural Park – peaceful contemplation that was a far cry from the usual boozy warm-up in Ibiza.
We arrived in Girona at a glorious dusk and walked up a hill to our hotel, the Palau de Bellavista, which has a terrace with a small pool and great views over the city. In the evening we found a delicious tapas dinner in the old town, at the Taverna del Foment (from £6; elfomentgirona.cat), but didn’t party.
This meant that after scrambled eggs and orange cake for breakfast, we still had enough energy to head out and see if Girona was as stunning by day as it was by night. Indeed, the 11th-century cathedral (£6.40; catedraldegirona.cat) and the 12th-century Arab baths (£2.55; banysarabs.cat) were intimate and dramatic – no wonder the game of Thrones Location scouts opted for outdoor filming – offering affordable respite from the heat. And I found the best empanada of my life, made of tender beef, at Volver, a tiny restaurant owned by Argentinian Franco Annocaro (£2.55).
Café Mambo is the most famous bar in Ibiza
ALARM
Then came a 40-minute train ride through the countryside along the Montseny mountain range to Barcelona. Arriving at 7.30pm, we took the metro to our hotel, Allegro Barcelona, a few streets away from Gaudí’s Casa Batllo, with its bright-pink decor and posh hostel vibe, then headed straight for a pre-boogie meal of paella and patatas bravas at Teresa Carles (mains from £9.30; teresacarles.com). Because Nuria loves techno, we went to Moog, a small club that was a little deserted on a Thursday night but built our anticipation of more long nights of electronic music in Ibiza (£8.50; moogbarcelona.com).
We were in bed at a reasonably reasonable hour to get up and recover from our hangovers in a civilised way at Gaudí’s Park Güell (£8.50; parkguell.barcelona) and the Picasso Museum (£12, museupicassobcn.cat). We wanted to be at the port by 8pm to catch our 9.30pm overnight ferry to Ibiza. But then – disaster. It was cancelled. There are up to three crossings a day, but none had any spare sleeping cabins and we didn’t fancy spending the night in a chair. Instead, we adopted the go-with-the-flow attitude of slow travel and opted for an eight-hour ferry to Palma de Mallorca for a day (which is not usually part of the package).
It was a mixed experience: terrible food, ridiculously long bar queues and no chilled drinks, but comfortable cabin beds and the thrill of watching the sunset and moonrise over the Mediterranean from deck. Arriving in Palma at sunrise, we quickly checked into our hotel, the Melia Palma Marina, and paid £1.70 for a bus to Platja d’Illetes, a beautiful sheltered beach 20 minutes west, for a nap and swim in the calm morning light at the Balneario Beach Club (entrance £14.80; balnearioilletas.com).
The pretty island of Es Vedra can be reached by a short boat ride from Ibiza.
ALARM
When it got too hot we went back to relax by the hotel pool before exploring the 14th century castle, old town and gothic cathedral. This was followed by an attempt to go out for the evening but the clubs in Palma were awful, with boring, repetitive reggaeton-style music, apart from the tiny, brilliant WhyNot bar run by Corraldo, a charming Italian who makes a wonderful Negroni and can say cheers in any language.
It’s good that we didn’t stay outside to late, because at 8am we were on the ferry to Ibiza and dozed until 10:30am when we arrived in Ibiza Town on the party island. Vamos!
From Ibiza Town – where our accommodation, the self-contained studios at Sud Ibiza Suites, had fantastic east-facing sea views – we caught a bus (£1.70) to San Antonio in the west and walked 25 minutes to the beautiful Cala Gracioneta beach. For sunset, DJs and a dinner of crispy prawns (£29), we had to head to the classic beach bar Café Mambo (cafemamboibiza.com).
We could have stayed until 3am – David Morales played a great set – but we wanted clubbing, so after a few drinks in our studio we went to Pacha for a hypnotic event by Solomun, the Bosnian-German DJ so emblematic of Ibiza that the New Yorker once ran a long article about him (entrance from £51; pacha.com). I insisted on not staying until the end, but I was enchanted and we left at 7am, making the most of it and feeling like legends.
The next afternoon we explored the small white streets of Ibiza Town’s old town, then it was back to clubbing, starting with David Guetta’s F*** Me I’m Famous event at Ushuaïa until 11pm (£85; theushuaiaexperience.com). The 56-year-old French DJ was clearly having the best time, mixing hits like titaniumhe danced to Abba on his desk. Across the road is Hï, voted the best club in the world by DJ Mag this year. After a quick chill on the beach in the moonlight, we danced there for a couple more hours, in huge dance halls and to DJs in the toilets (from £42.50; hiibiza.com).
For our final day, we organised a walking tour with Manuel Ehrensperger, the Swiss founder of Ibiza Hike Station, a former jet-setting business manager who now shows visitors Ibiza’s most magical hidden bits (from £51; ibizahikestation.com). He didn’t disappoint, taking us to a stunning spot in the south-west to marvel at the island of Es Vedra and then swim from an empty, secret beach.
It would have been nice to have more time for walking and swimming, but that would have meant missing out on our previous city breaks. We were happy with our choice of slow travel and this special, interesting route to Ibiza – a fun, green way to reach the White Isle.
This article contains affiliate links that allow us to earn income
Blanca Schofield was a guest of Byway, the nine nights B&B from £1,360 ppincluding eight nights in hotels and one on the ferry, return train and ferry travel from the UK (byway.travel), and from Pacha (pacha.com), Café Mambo (cafemamboibiza.com), Ushuaia (www.theushuaiaexperience.com), Hello (www.hiibiza.com) and Ibiza Hiking Station (ibizahikestation.com)
Become a subscriber and alongside unlimited digital access to The Times and The Sunday Times, you can enjoy a collection of travel offers and competitions curated by our trusted travel partners, especially for Times+ members
Sign up for our Times Travel Newsletter and follow us on Instagram And X
