Car hire at Málaga Airport.

Málaga Airport is the front door to the whole Costa del Sol, and for most visitors it is also where the rental car story begins. It handles the fourth-largest passenger volume in Spain, with almost everything arriving through Terminal 3, and the density of rental supply here is the reason airport pickup is usually cheaper than renting in Marbella, Fuengirola or Málaga city — more competition, more fleet, more desks fighting for the same customer.

Collection splits into two kinds and it is worth knowing which you booked. In-terminal desks sit in the T3 arrivals hall, a few minutes' walk from baggage reclaim, with the cars in the adjacent multi-storey car park. Off-airport operators are cheaper on paper but run from depots a short shuttle ride away, typically 10 to 20 minutes each way once you have waited for the bus. Neither is wrong; they are a trade between money and time. If you land late at night, with children, or on a tight connection to a check-in, the in-terminal desk is worth the difference.

Plan for the queue rather than being surprised by it. Arrivals bunch around the northern European flight waves in the late morning and again in the evening, and a counter that is empty at 07:00 can have thirty people at 11:30. Have the booking reference, the driving licence, the credit card in the main driver's name and, where your licence requires it, an international driving permit ready together. The deposit is held on a credit card — many suppliers will not accept a debit card for the block, and that single detail causes more problems at this airport than anything else.

Getting out is easy once you know the first junction. The airport road feeds directly onto the MA-21 and then the A-7, and from there the coast unrolls westward: Torremolinos in ten minutes, Benalmádena fifteen, Fuengirola half an hour, Marbella about forty minutes on the AP-7 toll and closer to an hour on the free A-7 in high summer. Eastward the A-7 runs to Nerja and the Axarquía. For Málaga city itself, park on the edge — the historic centre is a low-emission zone and the streets inside it were not built for cars.

The airport also makes the best base for the longer Andalusian drives, because you can pick up on arrival and hand the car back on the way out without a single extra transfer. Granada and the Alhambra are about an hour and a half inland on the A-92; Ronda an hour and three quarters by the mountain road; Seville two and a half hours; Caminito del Rey under an hour north. A one-way drop at Seville or Granada airport is usually possible for a fee, which turns a week on the coast into a proper loop.

Two practical habits save money at return. Take the full-to-full fuel option wherever it is offered and fill up at one of the stations on the A-7 within a few kilometres of the airport rather than at the last possible forecourt, where prices are higher. And photograph the car from all four corners plus the windscreen and the fuel gauge before you leave the parking bay, and again when you hand it back; a two-minute record settles almost every damage dispute before it starts. Allow an extra thirty minutes over your planned airport arrival if you rented off-airport, because the shuttle runs on its own schedule, not yours.