Malaga is a base camp. Here is what to book from it.
Which Caminito del Rey ticket includes the bus back to the car park. Whether Ronda or Granada makes the better single day out. What a dolphin boat from Benalmádena really costs. Every tour on this coast, read and ranked.
One metre wide, one hundred metres up, and the busiest ticket in the province.
The Caminito del Rey runs one way through the El Chorro gorge on a boardwalk bolted to the rock, with a glass floor at the far end. Entry is timed and capped, walkers go north to south, and the difference between tours is almost always the transport: whether a coach collects you in Malaga, whether a shuttle carries you back to your car, and whether the helmet and the entry ticket are already in the price.
- 1Caminito del Rey Guided Tour with Transportationfrom $69
- 2Caminito del Rey: Guided Tour and Entry Ticketfrom $35
- 3Caminito del Rey Guided Tourfrom $67
The Malaga bookings that fill up before everything else.
A cliff walkway, a Moorish fortress above the port, the town where the bridge crosses a gorge, and the boats that leave from every marina on the coast. These are the days people build the rest of the week around.
What travellers actually book in Malaga.
Every review →Ordered by how many travellers have actually been and left a review, not by what anyone wants to sell. Most of the top of this list walks the same boardwalk through the same gorge; the Picasso rooms are the only ticket that gets close.
1
Caminito del Rey Guided Tour with Transportation
Guided Caminito del Rey tour from Málaga with roundtrip transport, expert commentary, and a thrilling 100m gorge walkway. 7.5 km, 7 hours.
From · $69
Read our review →
2
Caminito del Rey: Guided Tour and Entry Ticket
from $35
3
Museo Picasso Málaga Entry Ticket
from $15
4
Caminito del Rey Guided Tour
from $67
5
El Chorro: Caminito del Rey Guided Tour with Shuttle Bus
from $44
6
Caminito del Rey: Tour with Official Guide and Drink
from $34
7
Alcazaba and Roman Theatre Guided Tour With Entry
from $14
8
Benalmadena: Dolphin Watching Boat Tour
from $22
From Malaga you can reach the Alhambra, an African port and a British border in the same week.
All day trips from Malaga →This is the real reason to base yourself here. Three very different days sit inside two hours of the city, and choosing between them is the only hard part.
Ronda, Setenil and the road between them
The Puente Nuevo drops straight into the Tajo gorge, and the same ticket usually adds Setenil de las Bodegas, where the street runs under an overhanging rock and the bars are built into it.
Granada, with the Alhambra inside the ticket
Alhambra entry is timed, named and released ahead; the Nasrid Palaces slot is the part that sells out. Tours that include the palaces cost more and are worth the difference.
Gibraltar: apes, a tunnel and a border queue
You leave Spain to get there, so a passport travels with you. The Rock delivers Barbary macaques, St Michael’s Cave and, on a clear day, the Rif mountains of Morocco across the water.
Everything worth leaving Malaga for, in driving order.
Approximate road time from the city, one way. Anything under two hours is comfortably a day trip; the coast road east is slower than the map suggests in August.
Granada
Gibraltar
Ronda
Cordoba
Seville
TangierThe Costa del Sol makes more sense from a boat than from the beach.
Bottlenose and striped dolphins live off this stretch year round, and the boats that look for them leave from Benalmádena and Fuengirola most mornings. Later the same marinas send out catamarans that time the turn for sunset.
What a day out in Malaga actually costs.
Every reviewed tour sorted by its lowest published price. The city’s best museum ticket costs less than a round of drinks; the gorge and the far day trips are where the money goes.
Museum and fortress tickets, tapas walks, segway hours, a dolphin boat and most flamenco seats.
The full days: the Caminito with transport, Ronda and Setenil, canyoning in the Guadalmina, cooking classes with lunch.
- 1Caminito del Rey Guided Tour with Transportationfrom $69
- 2Caminito del Rey Guided Tourfrom $67
- 3Granada Full-Day Trip with Alhambrafrom $128
Private drivers, the Alhambra with a guide, chartered boats and the long crossings to Morocco.
Picasso, six-thousand-year-old dolmens, and a waterfall you reach by kayak.
Sun and sardines are the easy part of this province. These three are the reasons people come back.
The Picasso Rooms
Picasso was born on Plaza de la Merced in 1881 and left as a boy, and for most of the last century Malaga had almost none of his work. The Museo Picasso finally opened in 2003 in the Buenavista Palace, a few minutes’ walk from the flat where he was born, and the birthplace itself is a second, much quieter museum. Tickets to both are cheap; the guided versions are worth it for the early rooms.
- 1Museo Picasso Málaga Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 11,138 reviews
- 2Picasso’s Birthplace Museum Entrance Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 813 reviews
- 3Picasso Museum Guided Tour with Skip-the-Line Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 485 reviews
Antequera’s Dolmens
An hour north of the city, three burial chambers built between five and six thousand years ago sit under grass mounds beside a modern road. The Menga dolmen is roofed with slabs weighing close to two hundred tonnes and points at a mountain shaped like a sleeping head. Above them, El Torcal is a limestone plateau eroded into stacked discs. Most tours pair the two; take the walking shoes.
- 1Caminito del Rey & Antequera: Dolmens and free time★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 605 reviews
- 2Antequera: Dolmens and El Torcal Tour with Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 124 reviews
- 3Guided tour of the Dolmens and El Torcal★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 94 reviews
The Maro Waterfall
East of Nerja the coast turns to cliffs and stays that way to the Granada border, protected as the Maro-Cerro Gordo reserve. There is no road down. Kayaks launch from the beach at Maro and paddle in under a waterfall that drops straight off the rock into the sea, with stops at caves the road never sees. Morning departures beat both the wind and the boat traffic.
- 1Nerja: Guided Kayak Tour Nerja Cliffs and Maro Waterfall★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,916 reviews
- 2Nerja: Cliffs of Maro-Cerro Gordo Guided Kayak Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 923 reviews
- 3Kayak & Snorkel Tour in Cerro Gordo Natural Park, La Herradura★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 649 reviews
The Alhambra, the gorge and the border: Malaga’s book-ahead list.
Most of this coast can be arranged the night before from your hotel. These cannot. They run on capped numbers, named tickets and passport control, none of which care what time your flight lands.
- 01Granada Full-Day Trip with AlhambraAlhambra tickets are timed and carry your name; the Nasrid Palaces slot goes weeks ahead and passports are checked at the door.
- 02Caminito del Rey Guided Tour with TransportationNumbers on the walkway are capped per day and the route runs one way, so a place is a place — there is no turning up and joining the back.
- 03Gibraltar TourThis is an international border. Bring the passport itself, and expect the queue at the frontier to be the slowest part of the day.
- 04Tangier, Morocco Day Trip from Costa del SolMorocco, by sea. Passports are stamped, the crossing depends on the weather in the Strait, and the boat leaves without you.
- 05Hammam Al Ándalus Entry Ticket with MassageThe baths run in fixed sessions with a set number of places, and the evening slots are the first to close.
Malaga drinks its wine sweet, straight from the barrel, with the tab chalked on the counter.
The old bars near the cathedral still pour Moscatel and Pedro Ximénez from wooden casks and keep the bill in chalk on the wood. Around them: espetos of sardines skewered over a boat full of sand, a market hall with a stained-glass wall, and enough paella classes that you can learn to make it before lunch and eat it after.
- 1Malaga Wine & Tapas Small Group Guided Tourfrom $83
- 2Caminito del Rey/White Village Tour & Tapasfrom $75
- 3Wine & Tapas Tourfrom $77
When the levante blows, Malaga moves indoors.
The levante is the easterly that runs up this coast from the Strait. It flattens nothing and cancels plenty: boat trips get moved, the crossing to Tangier goes first, and the beach turns into a sandblaster. The city has a good answer to all of it. Pick a museum, a bath house, a kitchen or a tablao, and let it blow through.
By place — city, coast and inland
Marbella29 tours
Mijas10 tours
Nerja & Frigiliana18 tours
Ronda23 tours
Puerto Banús6 tours
The White Villages4 tours
Antequera8 tours
El Chorro35 tours- Every review →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
The newest Malaga reviews.
All recent →
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Benalmádena: Sea Life Benalmádena Premium Entry Ticket
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Benalmádena: Costa del Sol License-Free Boat Rental
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Benalmadena: Boat Rental without License Required
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From Estepona: Vía Ferrata de Benalauria climbing tour
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Audioguide City Walk Malaga for cruises (German & English)
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