Benidorm

Overview

Benidorm is a purpose-built high-rise resort city on the Costa Blanca, and it has never pretended to be anything else. Two long sheltered beaches, a wall of towers behind them, and the third-largest concentration of tourist accommodation in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona. You come here for warm sea, cheap beds and a flat promenade, or you don’t come at all.

About 77,300 people live here permanently, in a municipality of just 38.5 km², and the summer population can pass 400,000. Roughly a third of registered residents are foreign nationals, with British passport holders the largest single group at 7.4%, ahead of Romanians at 4.0%. That mix is why a good part of the city functions in English all winter.

The vertical shape was a deliberate planning choice, not an accident of speculation. Tourism began modestly in 1925, when the port was extended and the first hotels appeared; the decisive moment came in 1954, when mayor Pedro Zaragoza Orts pushed through the plan that set Benidorm building upwards on a small footprint.

Geography does the rest of the work. The old town sits on the Canfali headland, a low rocky point that splits the bay into Playa de Levante to the north-east and Playa de Poniente to the south-west, with the small Playa del Mal Pas underneath the headland itself. All three have held Blue Flag status since 1987. The Serra Gelada ridge closes the bay to the north-east and keeps the worst of the weather off it.

Opinion on the place splits hard and both sides are right. It is an efficiently run resort city that delivers exactly what it advertises, and it is also the visual opposite of the old towns in Valencia and Alicante. If the towers are a deal-breaker, the tram to Alicante takes 70 minutes and runs all day.

Neighbourhoods

Levante

The resort as advertised. High-rises stacked behind the north-eastern beach, the densest hotel cluster in the city, and the British and Irish bar streets a block or two back from the sand. Everything is flat, wide and walkable, and between June and September it is never quiet. Stay here if you want to be inside the noise rather than near it.

Casco Antiguo

The old town on the Canfali headland is the smallest district and the least resort-like: low buildings, narrow lanes, older bars, and both beaches within a few minutes’ walk. Plaça de Sant Jaume at the top is the anchor, and the district suits couples and older visitors more than groups. Prices for food and drink are noticeably more Spanish here than on either promenade.

Poniente

The long south-western beach district, with Ferrater’s wave-patterned promenade running its length and a €13 million rebuild behind it that made the whole seafront wheelchair-accessible. Hotels here lean towards families and long-stay retirees, bars close earlier, and the beach is the one locals actually use. Ten minutes’ walk from the bar zone, which is far enough.

Rincón de Loix

The far north-eastern end beyond the main Levante hotel strip, and the part of the city that operates most obviously in English. Mostly apartment blocks rather than hotels, with its own supermarkets and shops, cheaper by the week and a longer walk to the centre. Self-catering territory.

Inland

The blocks around Avenida del Mediterráneo and the Parc de l’Aigüera are where the city does its ordinary business: banks, the municipal market, everyday shops, the bus station. No sea view, five to ten minutes from either beach, and the cheapest beds in the centre.

See & do

The two beaches

Playa de Levante runs about 2 km north-east from the headland, backed the whole way by bars, terraces and towers. Playa de Poniente is the longer, calmer one on the other side, the beach locals use, and its promenade is a genuine piece of architecture: Carlos Ferrater’s 2009 seafront walk, all undulating coloured concrete, which took a special mention in the European Prize for Urban Public Space and a nod at the Spanish Biennial of Architecture.

Smaller and rockier options sit at either end. Cala del Ti Ximo and Cala de l’Almadrava are north of Levante under the Serra Gelada cliffs, both better for snorkelling than sunbathing, and Cala de Finestrat is the neighbouring town’s Blue Flag cove past the far end of Poniente.

Casco Antiguo and the Balcón del Mediterráneo

The old town covers the headland between the beaches and takes about ten minutes to cross. The Església de Sant Jaume i Santa Anna stands at the top of the Canfali hill, built between 1740 and 1780, and the streets below it hold the tapas bars. At the seaward tip, the Balcón del Mediterráneo is a white balustraded terrace hanging over the water with the Mal Pas cove below and both beaches curving away either side. It is the photograph everyone takes, and it is free.

Parc de l’Aigüera

The inland park, opened in 1990, runs as a long landscaped axis between the two beach districts and is the only shaded walking route in the city centre that isn’t a seafront. In August afternoons that matters more than it sounds.

Serra Gelada

The ridge north-east of the city became a natural park in 2005, covering 5,655 hectares of land and sea across Benidorm, l’Alfàs del Pi and Altea, with sea cliffs over 300 metres high and a summit, the Alto del Gobernador, at 430 metres. Two waymarked walks start from the Benidorm side: the Ruta Roja, about 3 km and easy, ending at the Albir lighthouse, and the Ruta Amarilla, a harder clifftop route.

Isla de Benidorm

The triangular rock offshore is 6.57 hectares, 350 metres long, 260 metres wide, rises to 73 metres and sits about 2.5 miles out from the bay. Excursion boats run out to it from the Levante pier in season for snorkelling and the view back at the skyline. Also worth finding on foot: the Tossal de la Cala, an Iberian settlement occupied between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE on the hill at the far end of Poniente, and the ruined 16th-century Torre de les Caletes above the northern coves.

Theme parks

Four large parks sit within a few kilometres of the city and they are the reason a lot of families book here. Terra Mítica opened on 27 July 2000 with five zones themed on Egypt, Greece, Rome, Iberia and the Mediterranean islands, and runs 25 rides including four roller coasters. Aqualandia, on the lower slopes of Serra Gelada, has been open since 1985 across 150,000 m², and its Verti-Go slide drops 33 metres; the animal park Mundomar next door dates from 1996 and shares the same owner and car park. Terra Natura combines a zoo with a water park.

Adult admission runs around €39 at Terra Mítica, €31 at Mundomar and €30 at Terra Natura, with reductions for children aged 4 to 12 and for seniors. Aqualandia opens from late May to early October; the others run longer but on seasonal timetables, so check before travelling in winter.

Food & drink

Two food cultures run in parallel here and barely touch. The Casco Antiguo and the inland streets do rice, tapas and grilled fish on Spanish timings; the Levante hotel strip does fry-ups, roasts and pub food on British ones, with breakfast advertised from about €2. There are over a thousand places to eat in the city, so the question is never whether you’ll find something, only which of the two cities you want to eat in.

For the Spanish side, head for the old town. Calle Santo Domingo is known locally as the tapas alley, and the lanes around it hold the older bars, with set lunch menus in the mid-range places running around €16. The rice dishes are the same family as in the rest of Alicante province: arroz a banda, arroz negro, paella, all cooked to order and all lunch propositions rather than dinner ones.

The Mercat Municipal is open Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 20:00, and is the practical stop if you’re self-catering: fish, meat and produce, plus salted fish and almond turrón from the province to take home. For open-air markets, the Rastro El Cisne flea market runs at weekends on the N-332 and there are weekly street markets on Wednesday and Sunday mornings.

The British food scene is not a curiosity to be sniffed at; it is most of what the strip sells and it is honest about it. Pints, karaoke, all-day breakfasts, prices that have barely shifted in years. Eat there if that is what you came for, eat in the old town if it isn’t, and don’t expect either side to be much interested in converting you.

Nightlife

Benidorm runs three separate night scenes and they only overlap by accident.

The British and Irish strip behind Playa de Levante is the loud one: karaoke, tribute acts, drag shows, football on screens, and cheap drinks running from late afternoon to the small hours through the season. Out of season a lot of it still opens, because the long-stay northern European population never leaves. This is the Benidorm that appears on television and it is entirely unapologetic.

Spanish-style copas and clubs sit closer to the centre and the old-town edge, opening later and closing much later. The seafront terraces on Levante fill first, indoor bars take over after midnight, and the clubs proper don’t get going until around 01:00. Prices climb as you move from the British strip towards the seafront terraces.

The third scene is the old-town tapeo: wine, small plates, no dance floors, mostly residents and repeat visitors, done by around midnight. Benidorm Palace, the city’s long-running cabaret, sits somewhere between the three, with shows on Tuesdays and Thursdays to Saturdays at about €32 for the show alone and €52 to €62 with dinner.

The city also has one of the larger LGBT scenes on the Spanish coast, concentrated in the old town and the streets inland from Levante. Benidorm Pride is a fixture of the calendar, with the 2026 edition running from 1 to 6 September.

When to go

The Serra Gelada ridge and the mountains inland shelter the bay, and the numbers show it: annual mean temperature around 18.9 °C, more than 3,000 hours of sunshine, and slightly over 300 mm of rain in a year. Winter highs sit around 17 °C, summer highs between 28 °C and 32 °C. There is no bad month to walk the promenade; there are several bad months to swim.

January and February. Mild, cheap and busy with winter residents rather than holidaymakers. The sea is too cold for most people. The Benidorm Fest fills the Palau Municipal d’Esports l’Illa de Benidorm in February, three shows across a week, and it now runs as a Spanish music industry showcase rather than a Eurovision heat: RTVE withdrew from the contest, so the 2026 winner was the first not to go on to represent Spain.

March and April. Fallas week in March is a Valencian Community affair that reaches Benidorm too, and Easter brings a short sharp spike in domestic visitors and hotel prices. Good walking weather on Serra Gelada before the heat arrives.

May and June. The best window for most people. Warm days, a sea that has caught up, full daylight until late, and hotel prices well below the July peak while everything is open. The town charter anniversary falls on 8 May, and the Hogueras de San Juan bonfires close June.

July and August. Peak everything: highest prices, fullest beaches, and a city holding several times its resident population. The Low Festival runs three days of indie and rock in late July and pulls a young Spanish crowd from across the country. If crowds are the problem, this is the wrong fortnight; if volume is the point, this is what the city was built for.

September and October. The other strong window, and the one repeat visitors use. Crowds thin from the second week of September once Spanish schools go back, the sea is at its most usable, and the Moros y Cristianos parades land in October. Autumn rain, when it comes on this coast, arrives as short violent storms rather than drizzle.

November and December. Quiet, mild and short-dayed. The Fiestas Mayores Patronales take over the second weekend of November for five days, the biggest local celebration of the year and the one least aimed at tourists. December fills again with British, Dutch and Scandinavian winter residents.

Getting there

By air. There is no airport in Benidorm. Alicante-Elche (ALC) is the one you fly into, served by more than 30 scheduled and low-cost airlines from most major European cities, and it handled more than 18 million passengers in 2024. Shared shuttle transfers start from around €10 each way and private transfers take 30 to 45 minutes. Book the transfer with the flight; it is consistently cheaper than sorting it at arrivals.

By tram. The TRAM L1 from Luceros in Alicante is a tram-train that runs the coast to Benidorm in 70 minutes over 44.6 km and 20 stations. Trams leave at least every half hour. The Benidorm station is on Carrer de l’Estació, about 2 km west of the centre, so budget a bus or taxi at the end.

By bus. The coach station on Carrer Francisco Llorca Antón handles regional and international services, and ALSA runs the coastal route between Valencia and Alicante through Benidorm.

By train. No mainline station. Renfe long-distance and high-speed services stop at Alicante or Valencia and you change to the tram or the coach for the last leg.

By car. The AP-7 motorway, the N-332 coast road and the CV-70 from inland all reach the city. Madrid and Barcelona are both within about a five-hour drive. Parking is the catch: most central streets are parked solid day and night, so take a hotel with a garage or use a paid car park and leave the car there.

By sea. No scheduled passenger ferries. Alicante is the regional cruise port.

Getting around

Walking covers most of it. The centre is compact and completely flat apart from the climb onto the old-town headland, though the city is longer than it looks: end to end along the seafront is over an hour on foot.

Urban buses. Llorente Bus runs the city network from 06:00 to midnight, with night services from midnight to 06:00. A single fare is €1.50 by day and €1.65 at night.

Passes. The Tourist Card costs €11 for 24 hours, €20 for three days and €38 for seven; the reloadable Eco Card is €54 for 30 days and is only worth it if you are staying a month. For a week of beach, old town and one theme park, single fares usually work out cheaper than the seven-day card.

Tram. Besides the L9, the L1 is the link south to Alicante and the towns along that stretch of coast. Both use the same station west of the centre, so the tram is a day-trip tool rather than a way of moving around town.

Taxis. Ranks sit at the bus and tram stations and outside the larger hotels along both promenades, and cars are metered. Late on summer nights the queues at the Levante ranks are long; walking inland a few streets is usually faster.

Bikes. Both promenades have continuous flat cycle lanes and rental outlets are common along them. It is the quickest way to cover the 5 km of seafront without waiting for a bus.

Where to stay

Benidorm has the third-largest stock of tourist accommodation in Spain, behind only Madrid and Barcelona, packed into 38.5 km². That volume is why the prices work, and it is also why choosing the right district matters more here than the star rating does.

Levante. The largest hotel cluster, immediately behind the northern beach, heavy on package operators and all-inclusive towers. Closer to the bar streets means louder; closer to the headland means calmer at the same price. Book here if the nightlife is the point.

Poniente. Family and long-stay hotels along the southern beach, quieter evenings, wide accessible promenade at the door. Similar prices to Levante and a ten-minute walk from the noise if you want to visit it rather than live in it.

Casco Antiguo. Small hotels, guesthouses and apartments in the old town, the least resort-like beds in the city and within a few minutes of both beaches. Inventory is limited, so book early.

Rincón de Loix. Self-catering apartment blocks at the far end of Levante. Cheaper by the week than by the night, well stocked with supermarkets, and a fair walk from the centre.

Inland. A handful of hotels and apartments behind the Parc de l’Aigüera. No sea view, cheapest central option, five to ten minutes to either beach.

Campsites. Benidorm has an unusually large campsite sector for a high-rise city, with several sites inland from the beaches offering pools, restaurants and laundries, and they take motorhomes as well as tents. This is where the long winter stays happen at the cheap end.

When to book. July and August need two to four months’ notice for anything specific. The Benidorm Fest week in February and the Low Festival weekend in late July both tighten availability sharply. The rest of the year rewards booking late.

Practical info

Currency, voltage, plug type, time zone and tap-water safety are all covered in the Spain country guide and none of them differ here. What follows is Benidorm-specific.

Tourist offices. Tourist Info Benidorm Centro is at Plaza Canalejas 1, on +34 965 851 311, open Monday to Friday 09:00 to 21:00, Saturday 10:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 14:00. A second office, Tourist Info Benidorm Europa on Avinguda d’Europa, is on +34 965 860 095 and keeps shorter hours. Both hold beach flag information, bus timetables and the current duty pharmacy list.

Town hall. The Ajuntament is at Plaza SS.MM. Los Reyes de España 1, and the municipal switchboard is +34 966 815 400 for anything from lost property to beach services.

Safety. Pickpocketing and the occasional mugging are the realistic risks, with the street markets the most reported spot, and most incidents happen late at night with alcohol involved. Set that against a city holding up to 200,000 people at peak: in proportion, the numbers are small. Don’t leave anything visible in a parked car and lock apartment windows on the lower floors.

Language. Valencian and Spanish are both official, and street signs use Valencian forms, which is why the same place appears as Playa de Levante and Platja de Llevant. English is understood almost everywhere in the tourist districts and by a good share of residents, given that roughly a third of the registered population is foreign.

Wi-fi and connectivity. Free wi-fi is standard in bars, restaurants and hotels across the tourist districts.

Emergencies. 112 reaches police, ambulance and fire anywhere in Spain. Pharmacies work a rotating out-of-hours duty roster, posted on the door of every pharmacy and held at the tourist offices.