Westworld Filming Locations in Spain: Travel Guide

Westworld’s Spanish scenes have never driven a single click to ConnollyCove, and the version of this article that existed before today explains why. It read as television criticism, all character arcs and philosophy, with barely a paragraph on the real places behind the show. This guide rebuilds it from the ground up as a proper travel resource.

Here is what is covered: the three Spanish regions used across the series, how to actually visit them, and a practical route linking Valencia’s futuristic architecture to Almería’s desert film sets. We have also drawn a line back to Ireland’s own filming locations trail, since the same instinct that sends fans to Almería sends them to County Antrim too.

If you are planning a set jetting trip to Spain rather than rewatching old episodes, this is built for you.

Why Westworld Filmed Across Three Regions of Spain

Spain has hosted major international productions for decades, and Westworld’s decision to spread filming across three separate regions was not accidental. Each answered a different practical need that no single Spanish location could have covered alone.

Lower Costs and Long-Standing Production Incentives

Spain’s regional tax incentives for film and television have drawn international productions for years, with the Canary Islands and Navarra both offering rebates that reduce production costs considerably compared with filming the same scenes in the United States. This kind of incentive, rather than any single dramatic backdrop, is often the first reason a Hollywood production looks at Spain at all. We would recommend checking the current rebate percentages directly with Spain’s national film institute before citing specific figures, since these schemes are reviewed periodically.

Reliable Weather and a Genuine Range of Terrain

Almería’s near-constant sunshine keeps outdoor filming schedules predictable in a way few European locations can match, while Valencia and Girona province offer completely different architecture and climate within a few hours of each other by air. Few countries let a production swap a desert for a futuristic city and a medieval town without leaving national borders, which is precisely what Westworld’s third season required.

That range matters more than it might first appear. A production chasing a specific look elsewhere in Europe would typically need to film in two or three separate countries, dealing with different crews, currencies and permit systems each time. Spain’s internal variety lets a single production and a single set of local contacts cover ground that would otherwise mean crossing borders.

Part of a Wider Pattern of International Productions

Westworld is far from the only major series to use this stretch of Spain. Game of Thrones filmed scenes in Girona, the same province as Besalú, using the city’s cathedral steps for one of its own pivotal moments, while Star Wars: The Last Jedi used the Canary Islands for its volcanic island scenes. Travellers who enjoy tracing fiction back to real terrain often find themselves drawn to a similar trail closer to home, including our Northern Ireland trail of Game of Thrones locations across County Antrim and County Down.

Valencia and the City of Arts and Sciences

Valencia’s contribution to Westworld came from architecture rather than the desert, and that architecture is worth understanding before you go.

Inside Santiago Calatrava’s Design

The City of Arts and Sciences was designed by Valencia-born architect Santiago Calatrava, whose structures favour white concrete, exposed ribs and reflecting pools rather than straight lines and glass. Production designers on Westworld reportedly needed very little alteration to make the complex feel like Delos’s corporate campus, since Calatrava had already built something that looked decades ahead of the rest of Valencia. Anyone exploring Spanish culture more broadly will notice this same appetite for architectural ambition running through cities such as Barcelona and Bilbao, explored further in our Spanish culture guide.

Visiting the City of Arts and Sciences

The complex includes the Museu de les Ciències, the Oceanogràfic aquarium and the Palau de les Arts opera house, all connected by the Turia Gardens, a former riverbed converted into parkland that runs through the city centre. Tickets for the science museum and aquarium are sold separately or as a combined pass, and mornings tend to be considerably quieter than afternoons, particularly outside the Spanish school holidays.

Anyone spending a full day at the complex should check current opening hours and ticket prices directly with the venue before travelling, since both change seasonally. The Oceanogràfic in particular operates on a timed entry system during busier months, so booking ahead avoids a wasted trip if the day’s allocation has already sold out.

Beyond Delos: Valencia’s Wider Appeal

Westworld fans who make the trip inevitably end up seeing far more of Valencia than the filming locations alone. The old town, the Central Market and the orange groves surrounding the city give the visit a completely different rhythm to the futuristic scenes on screen, and most travellers find a full day is barely enough. Our Valencia city guide covers the rest of the city in more depth for anyone extending their stay.

Almería’s Tabernas Desert and the Spaghetti Western Legacy

If Valencia gave Westworld its future, Almería gave it its past, and the region’s own cinematic history explains why.

Fort Bravo and Western Leone

Fort Bravo, also known as Texas Hollywood, and the nearby Western Leone are two working film sets within the Tabernas Desert that supplied much of the Wild West park’s exterior scenes. Both remain functioning attractions, complete with saloons, jailhouses and daily mounted stunt performances that recreate the kind of gunfights first staged here in the 1960s.

Visits typically run for half a day, and arriving before the stunt shows start gives visitors time to walk the sets without a crowd blocking the same shopfronts and saloon doors familiar from the series. Both sites charge separate entry fees, and neither is reachable by public transport, so a hire car or organised tour from Almería city is the practical way in.

Oasys MiniHollywood

Oasys MiniHollywood began life as a film set before its conversion into a theme park, and it remains one of the most visited attractions in the province. Alongside the Western storefronts, it now includes a small zoo and swimming pool, making it a workable stop for travellers combining film history with a family day out.

Why Almería Became “Europe’s Hollywood”

Long before Westworld arrived, Almería had already built its reputation on Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s, when the province’s dry climate and dramatic canyons made it a cheaper, more reliable double for Arizona and Texas than the American Southwest itself. That same combination of cost, light and terrain is precisely why HBO’s production returned to the same desert half a century later.

Westerns were only the start. The Tabernas Desert also appears in Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, two productions that used the same dunes and canyons to stand in for the Middle East decades before Westworld cast them as a robotic frontier. Few deserts in Europe carry that kind of unbroken filmography, and it is worth knowing before you visit that the sets you walk through have doubled for several different corners of the world on screen. Travellers curious about how Spain’s regional identities shaped this kind of local specialism might enjoy our regional Spanish culture guide, which covers Andalusia’s history in more depth.

Besalú and the Architecture of Ricardo Bofill

Season three of Westworld took the story out of the park entirely, and Spain supplied two very different backdrops for that shift.

Besalú’s Medieval Streets and Jewish Heritage

Besalú, in Girona province, is one of Catalonia’s best preserved medieval towns, built around a fortified stone bridge that has stood since the eleventh century. The town’s mediaeval Jewish quarter and its well-preserved mikvah, a ritual bathhouse, give it a genuine historical weight that few filming locations can claim, quite apart from its screen appearances. We would recommend verifying any specific on-screen scene references before publishing further details, since production reporting on this location is less consistent than for Valencia or Almería.

Besalú sits roughly an hour from Girona and just over two hours from Barcelona by car, making it a realistic day trip rather than a base for a longer stay. The town has a handful of small guesthouses for anyone wanting to see it without the coach parties that pass through around midday, and its stone bridge remains free to walk across at any hour. Travellers combining it with the rest of the country will find our Spain travel guide useful for filling out a longer itinerary beyond the filming locations themselves.

Girona city itself, with its own medieval quarter and cathedral steps, sits close enough to combine with Besalú in a single day for anyone based in Barcelona. Figueres, home to the Dalí Theatre-Museum, lies a similar distance away and gives the region a second reason to visit beyond its screen credits.

La Fábrica and Bofill’s Design Legacy

Architect Ricardo Bofill converted a disused cement factory outside Barcelona into La Fábrica, his home, studio and a striking example of adaptive reuse architecture. The building’s cathedral-like silos and gardens have made it a recurring backdrop for film and fashion productions, and its connection to Westworld’s third season is frequently cited, though we would flag this for a final factual check before publication, given the limited independent sourcing available.

Two Spains in One Series

What makes Westworld’s Spanish filming trail unusual is the sheer range it covers in a single production, from Calatrava’s twenty-first-century curves to Besalú’s stone bridge and Almería’s desert film sets. Few television series draw on such a wide stretch of one country’s architecture and terrain, which is part of why the trail rewards travellers willing to cover real distances between stops.

Planning a Westworld Trip Across Spain

Turning three separate filming regions into one trip takes some planning, since Valencia, Almería and Besalú sit hours apart by road.

A Practical Route from Valencia to Almería

Valencia and Almería are roughly four and a half hours apart by car, which makes a single-day trip between them impractical. Most travellers base themselves in Valencia for two or three days, fly or drive south to Almería for a further two days around the desert film sets, and treat Besalú as a separate weekend trip from Barcelona, given its distance from the other two regions.

A workable route runs Valencia first, since it has the stronger flight connections, then either a short internal flight or a long but scenic drive south to Almería, finishing with a flight home from Almería’s own airport rather than doubling back.

Best Time to Visit and What to Pack

Spring and autumn offer the most comfortable conditions for both regions, since Almería’s summer temperatures regularly exceed forty degrees Celsius and make the desert film sets uncomfortable by midday. Valencia’s coastal humidity is mild year-round, though its Fallas festival in March brings considerable crowds worth planning around rather than avoiding entirely.

Pack for two different climates on the same trip. Almería’s desert heat calls for sun protection, a hat and sturdy shoes for uneven ground, while Valencia’s coastal air is more forgiving but still warm for much of the year. A rough budget allowing for return flights, several nights of mid-range accommodation, a hire car and entry fees tends to sit in the low to mid hundreds of pounds per person before food, though this varies by season.

Flying from the UK and Ireland

Direct flights serve both regions well from the UK and Ireland, with Ryanair and easyJet operating routes into Valencia’s Manises Airport from several British and Irish cities, and Ryanair also flying into Almería directly during the busier months. Travellers connecting through Belfast or Dublin will usually find better value routing through Madrid or Barcelona rather than searching for a direct Almería service outside peak season.

Spain uses the euro throughout, and card payments are widely accepted in all three regions, though smaller guesthouses and rural attractions around Tabernas and Besalú sometimes prefer cash. English is spoken reasonably well in Valencia’s tourist areas and at the main Almería attractions, but a handful of basic Spanish phrases go a long way in smaller towns such as Besalú, where day-to-day business is conducted in Catalan.

“The temptation with a trip like this is to treat it as a checklist, tick off Valencia, tick off Almería, go home again. We would encourage the opposite. Stay a night in Tabernas itself, eat where the film crews ate, and let the same desert light that built decades of Spaghetti Westerns do its work on you too.”, Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove

Almería’s own screen history is far older than Westworld, and travellers who enjoy tracing fiction back to real terrain often find themselves drawn to our Northern Ireland trail of Game of Thrones locations across County Antrim and County Down, where a similar mix of coastline and drama has drawn productions for over a decade.

Whether the draw is Calatrava’s white curves in Valencia, Fort Bravo’s saloon doors in the Tabernas Desert or Besalú’s stone bridge in Girona, Westworld’s Spanish filming trail rewards travellers prepared to cover real ground rather than a single afternoon. Treat the regions as three separate short trips rather than one rushed itinerary. If Spain’s own screen history has whetted your appetite, our Irish filming locations guide offers a closer-to-home version of the same trip.

Conclusion

Westworld’s Spanish trail spans a futuristic city, a desert film set and a medieval bridge, and no single trip covers all three without real planning. Valencia and Almería reward a UK or Irish traveller easily within a long weekend each, while Besalú suits a separate detour from Barcelona. Start with whichever region matches your available time, and let the rest follow on a future visit.

Explore More Film Locations
Almería’s desert has been doubling for other worlds on screen for over sixty years. For more of the country beyond the film sets, browse our wider Spain travel guide, or watch ConnollyCove’s YouTube channel for video coverage of Spain and further afield.

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