Spanish travel vocabulary: 60 words for airports, hotels and directions

60 Spanish travel words

Nouns come with el or la, and verbs are in the infinitive. This is the travel pack from the Contos web app, so you can review exactly these words as flashcards.

Which travel words change between Spain and Latin America?

Transport is the area where Spanish varies most from country to country. Everyone understands the Spain words in the list, but locals in Mexico City or Buenos Aires will use their own. If you are travelling outside Spain, learn the right-hand column as well.

Words with a second meaning on the road

Several travel words do double duty, and a sign or a story can use the other sense.

• la salida is a departure on a board at the airport, but on a door it means the exit. La llegada is arrivals.
• el pasillo is the aisle on a plane and also the corridor of a flat or a hotel.
• el recuerdo is a souvenir, and more often a memory. Recuerdos a tu madre means "give my regards to your mother".
• la estación is a station and also a season of the year; the days and months page has the four seasons.
• la habitación doble is a room for two people. It may have two single beds; ask for una cama de matrimonio if you want a double bed.

Spanish also has its own verb for checking in a bag. The list gives hacer el check-in, which you will hear at the desk, but airline staff in Spain also say facturar (¿Tiene equipaje para facturar?, "Do you have luggage to check in?"). In Mexico the same thing is documentar.

At the hotel desk

In a hotel, reception is la recepción, and you usually say estar en la recepción, "to be at reception". In this chapter, a night receptionist in a small hotel in the Basque Country is on her own at two in the morning:

Asking the way and getting around

Directions use only a handful of words from the list: a la izquierda, a la derecha, todo recto, cerca and lejos. With perdone (excuse me) and ¿dónde está…? you can ask for almost anything.

To say how you travel, Spanish uses en: en tren, en metro, en taxi, en coche. Walking is the exception: a pie or, in Spain, andando. At B1 the stories pack several travel words into one sentence:

One warning for Latin America: in Spain you coges a train or a bus, but coger is vulgar in Mexico, Argentina and several other countries, so say tomar el tren there. The common Spanish verbs page explains more.