Of great concern to you as a would-be traveler might be how to get around a given locale once you have arrived at your destination. You can rent a car in Europe if you like. Just keep in mind that in order to drive in Europe you need an International Driving Permit, which you can obtain from your local AAA or National Auto Club office. These are the only two agencies in the United States officially authorized to issue IDPs, so beware any others offering to give you one. The US Department of State's website has a page that's chock full of information on driving in far-off lands. Then, of course, you'd need to book you're rental in your destination; the rental agency names will look familiar to anyone who's rented a car in the States. It is also worth noting that the VAST majority of private cars are equipped with manual transmissions; while this may not be the case with rental fleets, it's probably not a bad idea to have some experience on a stick shift.
While I have at times thought that having a car would be of benefit, these have all come as I was out in the countryside. Driving in central Barcelona looks to my American eyes like an unnerving proposition and there is a distinct dearth of available parking in a city as densely populated as the larger ones you'll find in Europe. There are a ton of options that you simply do not find in the US (or at least in the great majority of the country). On the local scale there are Metro systems in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Palma de Mallorca, Seville and Valencia. You might even be treated to a live performance and dancing!
If you're not staying in one of those cities, you can check out the Cercanias commuter train service provided by the kingdom's national railway, RENFE. These commuter rail networks serve Asturias, Cadiz, Malaga, Murcia/Alicante, Santander, San Sebastian, and Zaragoza. The Cercanias sites are in Spanish, but you should be able to use a translator program to take care of that. Smaller cities such as Girona, Granada, Los Barrios and Algeciras have readily accessible bus systems to ferry you about their environs. Others, such as the town of Jaen, with a population of 120,000, are also building tram system.
RENFE will also ferry you between cities. Offering nearly comprehensive coverage of Spanish territory, the railway can almost certainly get you wherever it is you'd like to go. One of MY favorite aspects of the service is the price; a single-passenger one-way ticket from Barcelona to Girona will set you back as little as 6.75 euros depending upon the type of service you use. The day trips are naturally the cheapest. AVE high-speed trains are naturally the most expensive, but if you're in a hurry and don't like the idea of flying, they're a great alternative.
Speaking of flying, Europe has a number of discount carriers to choose from as well as some great websites to help you find cheap fares. Again, these will get you where you're going in most cases, but be sure to read the fine print. Unsuspecting travelers can incur fees for using credit cards to purchase flights, failing to check-in online, failing to check-in on time, checking bags, checking heavy bags, looking cross-eyed at the flight attendants or complaining about the fees while in an airline queue. It can be maddening and the misses and I have had a bad experience with one of the airlines in question whose name begins with an "R" and ends with a "Yanair."
Last but certainly not least, there are always buses, and I mean that quite literally. You can take buses on the city, county, provincial, regional and national levels. They're going to be slower, obviously, but if you're in no great hurry they can be a nice way to see some landscape at a slower pace. And buses go from just about everywhere to just about everywhere else, so if your destination is a little more out-of-the-way such as Los Barrios or Gibraltar, it's still not inaccessible.
I would be remiss at this point if I failed to mention that Barcelona has its own bus system, as do all of the major cities in Spain. If you are feeling adventurous and are not easily intimidated, the bus maybe the way for you to travel. There are myriad lines snaking across the city; almost no corner lies beyond the purview of the bus systems. These range from buses that have small circulations through a few neighborhoods to buses that travel to the furthest reaches of greater Barcelona. A good deal of redundancy is built into the network as well to prevent buses being overcrowded and keep wait times during peak travel hours to a minimum. The bus stops are also well-marked and most have maps to help you plot your travel. The network is extensive with well over one hundred different lines serving the city, so it is certainly possible to get "temporarily misplaced." But getting lost can sometimes be the best way to explore the city, so if you are possessed of an intrepid soul and perhaps a working knowledge of Spanish or Catalan, you may be richly rewarded for hopping onto the "wrong" bus and ending up in a wholly unintended but magnificent destination.
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