Destinations
Places worth the drive, with parking and access notes.
Three towns in one — a pretty pueblo, a busy beachfront and the playful Puerto Marina — plus a mountain cable car and a fairy-tale castle. A varied, family-friendly stop close to Málaga airport.
The famous cliff-hung walkway through the Gaitanes gorge is a one-way, two-entrance affair in the middle of nowhere — which makes a car by far the easiest way to do it, and turns the trip into a full lake-and-mountain day out.
Volcanic headlands, empty coves and whitewashed fishing villages in Spain's driest corner. Public transport barely exists inside the park — Cabo de Gata is the definition of a road-trip destination.
The Mosque-Cathedral, a maze-like Jewish quarter and Andalucía's most famous patios — under two hours from Málaga on the A-45, and far more rewarding when you control your own arrival time.
A cascade of whitewashed lanes above Nerja, regularly voted among Spain's most beautiful villages. The catch: it clings to a hillside with no through road — so arriving by car, early, at the right car park is half the visit.
The 'Garden of the Costa del Sol' keeps a genuinely Spanish old town — flower-filled lanes, a famous mural route and an easy, walkable centre — west of Marbella with long, uncrowded beaches.
A relaxed, family-friendly resort midway between Málaga and Marbella, with a 7 km promenade, a Moorish castle and one of Spain's best small zoos — and very easy parking.
The Moorish Alhambra, the tangled lanes of the Albaicín and the Sierra Nevada rising behind it all — Andalusia's great inland day trip, about an hour and a half from Málaga by car.
The capital of the Costa del Sol mixes an Andalusian old town with a glossy marina and 27 km of beaches — and it's the perfect base for the western coast and the white villages inland.
A whitewashed village perched 400 metres above the Costa del Sol, twenty minutes up the hill from Fuengirola — postcard lanes, sweeping sea views and an easy first taste of white-village Andalusia.
A whitewashed beach town on the eastern Costa del Sol, built around the Balcón de Europa lookout — with cliff-backed coves, the famous caves and the village of Frigiliana all a short drive away.
Marbella's superyacht marina is pure Costa del Sol glamour — designer boutiques, waterfront restaurants and a beach on each side. It's an easy 10-minute drive west of Marbella.
The Andalusian capital — cathedral, Real Alcázar and Plaza de España. Drive there on the fast A-92, park once on the edge of the old town, and explore the centre entirely on foot.
A clifftop town split by a 100-metre gorge and stitched back together by the Puente Nuevo — reached by one of Andalusia's great mountain drives and far better with your own car than on a tour bus.
A white village literally built into a rock gorge — houses roofed by cliff, tapas bars in the shade of the overhang. Reachable only sensibly by car, and best combined with Ronda.
The original Costa del Sol resort, just minutes from Málaga airport, pairs long sandy beaches with the old fishing quarter of La Carihuela — famed for its beachfront seafood. The handiest first or last stop of a trip.
Mainland Spain's highest mountains, less than an hour above Granada: Europe's southernmost major ski resort in winter, high-altitude hiking in summer — and a spectacular mountain road either way.
Europe's southernmost town: a whitewashed old quarter staring across the Strait at Morocco, backed by kilometres of wild Atlantic sand. Public transport is thin — this is car country.