Car hire in Benalmádena.

Benalmádena is really three towns stacked up a hillside: Benalmádena Costa along the beach with the playful Puerto Marina, Arroyo de la Miel in the middle where the train stops and locals live, and whitewashed Benalmádena Pueblo at the top. That vertical spread is exactly why a rental car earns its keep here — the levels are connected by steep, winding streets that turn a 10-minute drive into a sweaty 40-minute walk, and the best sights (the Colomares castle, the Buddhist stupa, the base of the Calamorro cable car) are scattered across all three.

There's no single rental compound in town. Pickup points sit mainly down on the Costa, around Puerto Marina and the main N-340 avenue, and most suppliers serving Benalmádena will deliver to hotels and apartments on any of the three levels — worth taking if you're staying up in the pueblo, where collecting a car from the beachfront is a chore. As everywhere on this coast, delivery slots in July and August go early.

With Málaga Airport only 20 minutes away on the A-7, the airport-versus-town question tilts toward the airport if you want a car for the whole trip: choice and prices are better, and the drive down is trivial. Renting in Benalmádena itself makes sense for part-stay rentals — a couple of excursion days in a two-week beach holiday — or when you arrive by train and decide mid-stay that the cable car and beaches aren't quite enough.

Driving out is easy once you're on the A-7, which runs along the bottom of town. Málaga and its museums are 25 minutes east (park at the edge; the historic centre is a low-emission zone), Fuengirola 10 minutes west and Marbella about 35. Inland is where it gets good: Mijas Pueblo is 20 minutes away, the Caminito del Rey gorge walk about 50 minutes via the A-357, and Ronda a scenic hour and a half. If you fancy a longer day, Nerja and its caves are about an hour east, and the white villages behind Marbella fill a lazy Sunday easily. The AP-7 toll only starts paying for itself west of Fuengirola in high summer.

Within town, a car smooths the family logistics: morning at the Bioparc in neighbouring Fuengirola, afternoon ride up the Calamorro cable car, sunset at the stupa, dinner at Puerto Marina. The pueblo deserves an unhurried morning — park at its edge and walk in, because the lanes are narrow, steep and short on turning space. This is the textbook case for a compact automatic: effortless on hills, easy to park.

Parking overall is medium-difficulty: fine on the Costa, tight in the pueblo. Use the car parks at Puerto Marina and along the beachfront, and the lots on the pueblo's edge. In August, arrive before noon or accept a circuit or two. Most hotels on the Costa have garages — confirm the height limit if you've booked an SUV. Off-season, all of this relaxes considerably: from October to May you can park almost anywhere on the Costa without thinking about it.