Hiking in Barcelona: A Newcomer's Guide for English Speakers

One of the quiet joys of moving to Barcelona is realising how close the mountains are. You can be on a metro platform at nine and on a ridge with sea views by eleven, without a car, without a hire agreement, without anything more complicated than a transport card and decent shoes.

If you have just arrived and want to get into hiking here, this is the practical version: where to go, what to know first, and how to end up doing it with other people rather than alone.

Start with the thing nobody tells newcomers

Search for hiking in Barcelona and almost every guide points you straight at Parc Natural de la Serra de Collserola, the huge forested ridge behind the city. It is the obvious answer, and right now it is the wrong one. Recreational access to the park has been restricted since November 2025 following an African swine fever outbreak in the local wild boar population, and Catalan authorities have said the measures will stay in place at least until the end of summer. Residents can still reach their homes, and paved roads, stations and facilities inside the park remain accessible, but turning up at Baixador de Vallvidrera for a forest loop is not currently an option.

Check the situation before you plan anything Collserola-shaped, because plenty of English-language blog posts have not been updated. Meanwhile, there is a lot else within easy reach.

Four routes you can reach by train

Garraf to Sitges

Probably the best introduction to hiking near Barcelona. Take the R2 Sud from Sants to Garraf, roughly half an hour, and walk the marked paths inland through the limestone hills of the Parc del Garraf, past the Sakya Tashi Ling Buddhist monastery at Plana Novella, and back down to Sitges. It is around 20 km and four to five hours of walking, so allow six with stops. The reward at the end is a beach, a train home, and no logistics to solve.

Montserrat

The serrated massif everyone photographs. R5 from Plaça Espanya, about an hour, then the cable car or rack railway up. The climb to Sant Jeroni, the highest point, is the classic, and combined tickets covering train, cable car and the Sant Joan funicular save both money and queueing. Go early: it is popular for a reason.

Montseny

A UNESCO biosphere reserve about 55 km north, greener and cooler than anything nearer the coast. R2 to Sant Celoni, then bus or taxi towards Santa Fe del Montseny. It takes closer to two hours each way, so treat it as a full day rather than a morning.

Camí de Ronda

The old coastal smugglers' path along the Costa Brava, north of the city. The stretches around Tamariu link cove to cove, and most sections put you within a few minutes of somewhere to swim. Best as a day trip with an early start.

Timing it right

Spring and autumn are the sweet spot, with highs somewhere around 15 to 24 degrees and much better light for views. July and August are genuinely hard work on exposed limestone: start at dawn, pick forested routes like Montseny, and carry more water than feels sensible. Winter hiking here is a pleasure, and it is when the ridges are clearest.

A few local habits worth copying: buy proper trail shoes rather than trusting trainers on wet limestone, download the route offline because signal disappears in the valleys, and check the return train time before you set off. Rural Catalan services thin out considerably on Sunday evenings.

Finding people to walk with

Hiking alone is fine. Hiking with other people is how you actually learn a new city, and it removes the part that stops most newcomers: not knowing which route is realistic for your fitness, or how to get back.

That is a lot of what Keep Calm exists for. We are a free, volunteer-run English-speaking community in Barcelona, made up largely of expats, internationals and people who arrived recently and wanted somewhere to start. Our activities run on WhatsApp groups, so the simplest thing is to join the relevant group, see what is being planned, and turn up. Nobody is checking your pace. Everyone was new once, usually fairly recently.

Have a look at what is running on our community page, join a group, and come and walk with us. All Keep Calm activities are 18+.