Costa Blanca regions: 14 cities and resorts — the complete 2026 overview

Frequently asked questions

What is the Costa Blanca?

The Costa Blanca is the ~200 km stretch of Mediterranean coast belonging to the Spanish province of Alicante in the Valencian Community. It runs roughly from Dénia in the north to Pilar de la Horadada in the south. The name ("white coast") was coined by British European Airways in 1957 as a marketing term for the chalk-white cliffs and limestone houses; it has stuck ever since.

How many cities are on the Costa Blanca?

There are 14 main municipalities that everyone in the region considers "Costa Blanca proper" and that this guide covers: Alicante, Benidorm, Torrevieja, Elche, Orihuela, Dénia, Jávea (Xàbia), Calpe (Calp), Altea, Moraira (Teulada), Villajoyosa, Santa Pola, Guardamar del Segura and Pilar de la Horadada. The wider Alicante province has 141 municipalities in total, but most are inland; the 14 above are the coastal and near-coastal ones with regular international visitors.

What is the difference between Costa Blanca Norte and Costa Blanca Sur?

Costa Blanca Norte ("north") runs from Dénia through Jávea, Moraira, Calpe, Altea, Benidorm and Villajoyosa down to Alicante city. Beaches are smaller and rockier; cliffs and pine-clad hills dominate; the climate is slightly cooler and wetter; property is more expensive and the foreign community is heavy on German, Dutch and Scandinavian residents. Costa Blanca Sur ("south") runs from Alicante through Elche, Santa Pola, Guardamar, Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa down to Pilar de la Horadada. Beaches are long and sandy; the land is flat; climate is warmer and drier; property is cheaper and the foreign community skews British, Irish and Belgian. The dividing line is the city of Alicante itself.

Which Costa Blanca city is best to live in?

There is no single answer — it depends on your priorities. For year-round services and culture: Alicante city. For pure beach living on a budget: Torrevieja or Pilar de la Horadada. For walkable old-towns with charm: Altea or Jávea. For golf and gated communities: Orihuela Costa or Moraira. For complete tourist infrastructure year-round: Benidorm. For families wanting Spanish-feeling town life: Villajoyosa or Dénia. We cover the trade-offs city by city below.

When is the best time to visit the Costa Blanca?

May, June, September and October are the sweet spots — sea above 20 °C, daytime highs 22–28 °C, fewer crowds than peak summer, hotel prices noticeably lower than in July-August. Local fiestas are concentrated in June (Hogueras de San Juan in Alicante, around 20-24 June) and July-August (Moros y Cristianos across the region, Misteri d'Elx 14-15 August). Winter (November-March) is the quietest but daytime temperatures still reach 16-19 °C and many British and Northern European retirees move here precisely for the mild winter.

Where is the nearest airport for the Costa Blanca?

Alicante–Elche Airport (ALC) is the main gateway, ~10 km southwest of Alicante city, handling around 18 million passengers a year with direct flights from 100+ European airports. Driving distance from there: 1 km to Elche, 12 km to Santa Pola, 25 km to Guardamar, 40 km to Torrevieja, 50 km to Villajoyosa, 60 km to Benidorm, 85 km to Calpe, 100 km to Dénia, 110 km to Jávea. Valencia airport (VLC) is a closer alternative for the northern Costa Blanca: 90 km to Dénia versus 100 km from Alicante.

How much does property cost on the Costa Blanca in 2026?

Approximate averages per square metre for resale stock in Q1 2026, varying by neighbourhood: Alicante city €1,900-2,400, Benidorm €2,500-3,200, Calpe €2,800-3,500, Altea €3,000-4,500, Dénia €2,400-3,200, Jávea €3,500-5,000, Moraira €4,000-6,000, Villajoyosa €2,300-3,100, El Campello €2,800-3,800 (just north of Alicante), Santa Pola €2,000-2,700, Elche €1,400-1,900 (inland part), Torrevieja €1,700-2,400, Orihuela Costa €1,800-2,500, Pilar de la Horadada €1,800-2,500, Guardamar €2,000-2,700. New-build off-plan typically sits 25-40% above the resale band for the same town.

The Costa Blanca is not one place. It is a 200-kilometre ribbon of Mediterranean coast belonging to the province of Alicante, in Spain’s Valencian Community, and the towns strung along it have less in common with each other than first-time visitors expect. A morning in the limestone alleys of Altea, with its Norwegian cafés and bohemian galleries, feels nothing like an afternoon in Torrevieja, where the salt-lake breeze carries Yorkshire accents across the seafront. The vertical neon of Benidorm and the palm-shaded silence of the Elche oasis are technically forty minutes apart by motorway, but they sit in different worlds.

The defining axis is the north-south divide. Costa Blanca Norte starts at Dénia and runs down through Jávea, Moraira, Calpe, Altea, Benidorm and Villajoyosa to Alicante city — cliffs, pine, smaller coves, a heavier German and Dutch presence, more expensive property and slightly cooler, wetter weather. Costa Blanca Sur runs from Alicante through Elche, Santa Pola, Guardamar, Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa down to the Murcia border at Pilar de la Horadada — long sandy beaches, flat land, dryer climate, much cheaper housing and a heavier British and Irish skew. The frontier is Alicante city itself, the provincial capital and a region in its own right.

This guide covers the 14 municipalities that everyone genuinely means when they say “Costa Blanca”. It is written for newcomers trying to decide where to spend a week, second-home buyers narrowing down a shortlist, and expat researchers who want one document with the real character of each place — not a property brochure. We use 2024 population figures from the official register, driving distances to Alicante–Elche Airport (ALC), and 2026 resale property bands. Live weather and daily news for each town are linked at the end of every section.

Costa Blanca cities at a glance

City	Population	Distance to ALC airport	Closest big beach	Foreign community profile
Alicante	337,304	10 km	Postiguet, San Juan	Mixed; many Spanish, some British, French, Italian
Benidorm	72,062	60 km	Levante, Poniente	Heavily British; also Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian
Torrevieja	84,901	40 km	La Mata, Los Locos, El Cura	British (largest single foreign nationality), Russian-speakers, Scandinavian
Elche	234,765	12 km	El Carabassí, Arenales del Sol	Mostly Spanish; some North African and Eastern European
Orihuela	75,633	35 km	Playa Flamenca, La Zenia, Cabo Roig	British, Irish, Scandinavian (heavy on coastal urbanisations)
Dénia	42,408	100 km	Les Marines, Les Rotes	German, Dutch, British; the most Swiss/Austrian per capita
Jávea (Xàbia)	27,681	105 km	El Arenal, Cala Granadella	German and British dominant, smaller French and Dutch
Calpe (Calp)	23,866	85 km	La Fossa, Arenal-Bol	British, German, Belgian, Russian-speaking
Altea	23,063	65 km	La Roda, Cala del Mascarat	Bohemian / artistic; Norwegian community large per capita
Villajoyosa	34,559	50 km	Playa Centro (Blue Flag), El Paraíso	Mostly Spanish; quiet expat presence
Santa Pola	32,014	18 km	Playa Lisa, Gran Playa, Tamarit	British, French; Spanish holiday-home owners
Moraira (Teulada)	9,196	95 km	El Portet, L’Ampolla, Les Platgetes	German and British, very high purchasing power
Guardamar del Segura	15,474	30 km	Playa Centro, Babilonia, Vivers	Mixed; growing Russian-speaking community alongside British
Pilar de la Horadada	23,100	60 km	Mil Palmeras, Playa del Conde, Higuericas	British and Irish, lower-density urbanisations

Alicante

Quick facts

• Population: 337,304
• Distance to Alicante airport: 10 km
• Closest beach: Playa del Postiguet (city centre), Playa de San Juan (north)
• Language: Spanish dominant; Valencian present in signage and schools
• Foreign community: mixed, with strong Spanish majority and pockets of British, French, Italian and Argentinian residents

Alicante (Alacant in Valencian) is the provincial capital and the only real city on the coast — 337,000 people, a working port, two universities, a tram network and the regional government’s main offices. The old town spreads beneath Mount Benacantil, on top of which sits the Moorish-era fortress that dominates every postcard. Founded by the Greeks as Akra Leuká, then Roman, then Muslim for five centuries, then Christian since 1248, Alicante has the layered, lived-in feel of a small Mediterranean capital rather than a resort.

What to see: the Castillo de Santa Bárbara for the unbeatable view of the bay and the old quarter, the marble pavement of the Explanada de España which is the city’s outdoor living room, and the austere baroque Concatedral de San Nicolás. If you visit between 20 and 24 June, you’ll catch Hogueras de San Juan — the UNESCO-listed fiesta where giant satirical sculptures burn at midnight on the 24th. Anyone planning to stay long enough to need residency should read our guide to getting your NIE and TIE first.

Property in Alicante typically sits at €1,900-2,400 per m² for 2026 resale, with the seafront Playa de San Juan band running €2,400-3,200 and new-build off-plan 25-40% above resale for the same area.

Live weather and full overview for Alicante →

Benidorm

Quick facts

• Population: 72,062
• Distance to Alicante airport: 60 km
• Closest beach: Playa de Levante (east), Playa de Poniente (west)
• Language: Spanish; English widely spoken in tourist areas
• Foreign community: heavily British, with Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian retirees year-round

Benidorm is the most polarising name on the Costa Blanca. The vertical skyline — Spain’s densest cluster of high-rises outside Madrid — was the deliberate 1956 master plan of mayor Pedro Zaragoza, who decided a fishing village of 3,000 could absorb mass tourism by building up rather than out. The result is a town that runs at full capacity twelve months a year, with a tourist infrastructure (hospitals, dual-language schools, English-speaking pharmacies, around-the-clock transport) no comparable resort in Europe matches. Locals call it “Beni” and treat the snobbery as background noise.

What to see: walk the full length of Playa de Levante at sunset for the iconic view of the skyline reflected in wet sand, then climb to the Balcón del Mediterráneo for the cliff-edge viewpoint between the two main beaches. The old town, behind the Castillo lookout, is smaller than people expect and still has a genuine Sunday-morning Spanish character. The Levante strip is the engine of the British holiday economy; for quieter family beach days, Poniente on the western side is much calmer.

Property in Benidorm typically sits at €2,500-3,200 per m² for 2026 resale, with sea-view apartments on Levante running higher and inland new-build 25-40% above resale.

Live weather and full overview for Benidorm →

Torrevieja

Quick facts

• Population: 84,901
• Distance to Alicante airport: 40 km
• Closest beach: La Mata (north), Los Locos and El Cura (centre), La Veleta (south)
• Language: Spanish dominant; significant English and Russian presence
• Foreign community: British is the largest single foreign nationality, with substantial Russian-speaking, Scandinavian, German and Ukrainian residents

Torrevieja grew from a 19th-century salt-export village into a city of 85,000 in fifty years, almost entirely on the back of foreign residential property. Its two enormous salt lakes — one pink, one green — are still in commercial production and give the air its distinctive iodine smell, which doctors have long recommended for respiratory conditions. The seafront promenade is long and walkable, the marina is a working one rather than a luxury showcase, and the supermarkets stock everything from Polish pickles to Marmite. It is the Costa Blanca’s most working-class international town.

What to see: the Eras de la Sal, where salt boats once loaded directly from the lakes, has been restored as an open-air auditorium and is home to the Habaneras choral festival in late July. Walk the salt lake path at sunset for the famous pink water effect (best in still weather, after a hot dry spell). For day trips, La Mata Natural Park covers both lakes and offers flat, pram-friendly paths through the dunes. Anyone moving here for the long term and curious about cross-border dentistry should read our guide to dental tourism from the UK to Spain — Torrevieja has one of the highest concentrations of English-speaking dental clinics in the country.

Property in Torrevieja typically sits at €1,700-2,400 per m² for 2026 resale; new-build in the southern urbanisations runs 25-40% above resale.

Live weather and full overview for Torrevieja →

Elche

Quick facts

• Population: 234,765
• Distance to Alicante airport: 12 km (the airport is officially Alicante–Elche)
• Closest beach: Playa del Carabassí, Arenales del Sol (both on Elche’s coastal strip 12 km east)
• Language: Valencian and Spanish in roughly equal use; the city has strong Valencian identity
• Foreign community: mostly Spanish, with North African, Latin American and Eastern European residents

Elche (Elx in Valencian) is the third-largest city in the Valencian Community and the only Costa Blanca town with two UNESCO World Heritage listings: the Palmeral, Europe’s largest palm grove with over 200,000 trees planted by the Moors as an irrigation-shading system, and the Misteri d’Elx, a 15th-century sacred drama still performed every August in the Basílica de Santa María. Industrially, Elche makes most of Spain’s shoes — Pikolinos, Camper and dozens of smaller brands all have factories here. The city centre is flat, walkable and refreshingly un-touristy; you eat with Spanish families, not other foreigners.

What to see: the Palmeral de Elche is the obvious one — wander the Huerto del Cura for the famous seven-trunked palm. Visit between 13 and 15 August for the Misteri d’Elx, the only ecclesiastical drama in continuous performance since the Middle Ages, sung in Valencian with medieval staging machinery. The Calahorra Tower and the Basílica’s terrace give two contrasting views of the palm canopy. The city’s coastal strip — Arenales del Sol and El Carabassí — has long, undeveloped sandy beaches with dune systems.

Property in Elche typically sits at €1,400-1,900 per m² for 2026 resale in the inland city, with the coastal urbanisations 25-40% above.

Live weather and full overview for Elche →

Orihuela

Quick facts

• Population: 75,633 (including ~30,000 along the coast)
• Distance to Alicante airport: 35 km to the historic city; 50 km to Orihuela Costa
• Closest beach: Playa Flamenca, La Zenia, Cabo Roig, Campoamor (all on the coastal strip)
• Language: Spanish dominant; English very widely used on the coast
• Foreign community: British, Irish and Scandinavian heavy on the coastal urbanisations; the historic city is overwhelmingly Spanish

Orihuela is two completely different places. Inland, 25 kilometres from the coast, sits a thousand-year-old cathedral town with a 14th-century university, a Moorish quarter and the highest concentration of baroque churches in the region — birthplace of the poet Miguel Hernández. On the coast, twenty kilometres of low-rise villa urbanisations — Playa Flamenca, La Zenia, Cabo Roig, Campoamor, Villamartín — make up the heart of British retiree Costa Blanca, with the La Zenia Boulevard outdoor shopping centre as its commercial anchor. The two halves share a town hall and almost nothing else.

What to see: inland, the Cathedral of El Salvador (Gothic, with a Velázquez in the museum), the Santo Domingo college (the “Escorial of the Orient”), and the abandoned seminary on the hilltop. On the coast, the protected cliff path between Cala Capitán and Cabo Roig is one of the prettiest short walks in the south, with cala-hopping along volcanic-looking rock formations. La Zenia Boulevard is open seven days a week and is the largest commercial centre in the south of the province.

Property in Orihuela Costa typically sits at €1,800-2,500 per m² for 2026 resale; the historic city is cheaper at €900-1,400 per m². New-build off-plan in Orihuela Costa runs 25-40% above resale.

Live weather and full overview for Orihuela →

Dénia

Quick facts

• Population: 42,408
• Distance to Alicante airport: 100 km (Valencia airport is 90 km — closer)
• Closest beach: Les Marines (north, 12 km of sand), Les Rotes (south, rocky coves)
• Language: Valencian is strongly dominant; Spanish universal but Valencian comes first on signage
• Foreign community: German, Dutch and British; the highest Swiss and Austrian per capita on the coast

Dénia (in Valencian, the same spelling) is the northern gateway of the Costa Blanca and one of Spain’s twelve UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy. The old town climbs from the Marqués de Campo high street up to the castle, with the fishing port still landing the famous red prawn (gamba roja de Dénia) every afternoon at the lonja auction. The town’s character is genuinely Valencian — Castilian Spanish coexists with Valencian, the food culture is built around local rice and seafood rather than tourist menus, and the population swells but does not transform in summer.

What to see: the medieval castle, free in the late afternoons and with a small archaeology museum inside. The Baix la Mar fishermen’s quarter, around the Carrer Loreto, is the densest concentration of restaurants and tapas bars north of Alicante. The Montgó massif (753 m) rises directly behind the town and is a national park with marked trails. The ferry to Ibiza (2 hours) and Formentera leaves from the port and is the obvious day-trip if you have a week. For a longer guide on residency paperwork once you decide to stay, see our NIE and TIE walkthrough.

Property in Dénia typically sits at €2,400-3,200 per m² for 2026 resale; old-town apartments and Les Rotes villas push higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Jávea

Quick facts

• Population: 27,681
• Distance to Alicante airport: 105 km
• Closest beach: Playa del Arenal (sandy, central), La Granadella (cove, southern), Playa de la Grava (port)
• Language: Valencian is the official primary name (Xàbia); Spanish universal, English widely used in expat areas
• Foreign community: German and British dominant, smaller French, Dutch and Belgian communities; over 50% of the population is foreign-born

Jávea (Xàbia in Valencian) is built around three distinct centres rather than one: the old town inland, the fishing port to the north, and the Arenal beach strip to the south, each about two kilometres from the others. The geography is dramatic — the white limestone Montgó closes off the north, Cap de Sant Antoni and Cap de la Nau frame the bay, and the southern cliffs hide some of the most photographed coves in Spain. Over half the residents are foreign, which gives the town a permanent international tone without quite tipping it into a resort feel.

What to see: the Cap de Sant Antoni walking route starts from the port and follows the cliff edge to the lighthouse with vertical views to Dénia. Cala Granadella, twenty minutes south, is the postcard cove with crystal-clear water and the famous Granadella restaurant on the sand. The old town’s church-fortress (Iglesia de San Bartolomé) doubled as a refuge in 16th-century pirate raids and is the architectural anchor of the historic centre. The Saturday morning market in the old town is the largest in the area.

Property in Jávea typically sits at €3,500-5,000 per m² for 2026 resale; sea-view villas on the cape and around the Arenal run higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Calpe

Quick facts

• Population: 23,866
• Distance to Alicante airport: 85 km
• Closest beach: Playa de la Fossa / Levante (north of the rock), Playa Arenal-Bol (south)
• Language: Valencian (Calp) and Spanish in roughly equal everyday use; English very common
• Foreign community: British, German, Belgian and Russian-speaking; one of the most multilingual towns on the coast

Calpe (Calp in Valencian) is impossible to misidentify on a map: the Peñón de Ifach, a 332-metre limestone monolith, rises straight from the sea and divides the town’s two main beaches. Around the rock, modern Calpe is a sprawling town of medium-rise blocks and villa urbanisations, with a salt flat in the centre still inhabited by flamingos. The old town up the hill is smaller than first-timers expect — a few alleys around the parish church and the remains of the medieval walls — but the seafront is where Calpe really lives.

What to see: the Peñón de Ifach itself is a protected natural park, and the Senda del Peñón de Ifach hiking route climbs to the summit through a tunnel for the most striking panoramic on the northern Costa Blanca (about 2 hours round-trip, decent shoes essential). The Banys de la Reina, a Roman fish-farm carved into the rocks at the southern end of Playa Arenal-Bol, is free to walk to at low tide. Calpe’s fish market auction at the port runs late afternoon Monday to Friday and is open to the public to watch.

Property in Calpe typically sits at €2,800-3,500 per m² for 2026 resale; the front line of Playa de la Fossa runs higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Altea

Quick facts

• Population: 23,063
• Distance to Alicante airport: 65 km
• Closest beach: Playa de la Roda (centre, pebble), Cala del Mascarat, Playa de l’Olla (north)
• Language: Valencian dominant in the old town; Spanish and English universal
• Foreign community: bohemian and artistic, with the highest Norwegian community per capita on the coast; Dutch, German and Russian-speaking residents also strong

Altea is the photogenic one. The whitewashed old town climbs a hill on the northern edge of the Bay of Altea, capped by the blue-tiled dome of the Mare de Déu del Consol church which is the single most photographed building between Valencia and Murcia. The seafront has no high-rises — the town imposed a height limit decades ago — and the long pebble beach of La Roda runs the length of the Mediterranean-facing side. Altea hosts the Universidad Miguel Hernández faculty of fine arts, which keeps a steady supply of galleries, small theatres and bookshop-cafés in the old town. It is the artiest place on the Costa Blanca by some distance.

What to see: the climb up Calle del Mar to the church square, ideally an hour before sunset when the bay turns gold. The Wednesday open-air market on the Plaza del Convento sells locally produced ceramics, painting and textiles. The Calpe-bound coastal walk along the seafront passes a series of small calas before reaching the cliffs of El Mascarat. For dinner, the old town has more restaurants per capita than anywhere on the coast except Dénia.

Property in Altea typically sits at €3,000-4,500 per m² for 2026 resale; the Sierra de Altea villa zone and Mascarat run higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Villajoyosa

Quick facts

• Population: 34,559
• Distance to Alicante airport: 50 km
• Closest beach: Playa Centro (Blue Flag, in town), Playa del Paraíso, Playa del Bon Nou
• Language: Valencian dominant; Valencian name is La Vila Joiosa
• Foreign community: mostly Spanish; quiet expat presence, with Belgian and French families notable

Villajoyosa (La Vila Joiosa in Valencian, often shortened to “La Vila”) is the chocolate capital of Spain — the Valor factory has been making cocoa since 1881 and its small museum on the seafront is free and worth thirty minutes. The town’s other famous feature is the row of brightly painted houses along the harbour, originally so fishermen could identify their homes from out at sea; the colours are now a protected heritage feature. La Vila kept its old town intact when neighbouring towns demolished theirs, and the result is a working Spanish coastal town with a population that lives there year-round rather than rents to tourists.

What to see: walking the seafront from the painted houses to the Tossal fortress takes about half an hour and shows you the town in cross-section. Late July is the time to visit if you want the spectacle of Moros y Cristianos in Villajoyosa, where the climax is the actual “Desembarco” — Christian and Moorish fleets land on Playa Centro at dawn for a re-enacted battle, one of the most theatrical fiestas on the Mediterranean coast. The Vilamuseu archaeology museum holds the artefacts from the Roman-era ship wrecks excavated offshore.

Property in Villajoyosa typically sits at €2,300-3,100 per m² for 2026 resale; the Cala Finestrat and Playa del Paraíso bands run higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Santa Pola

Quick facts

• Population: 32,014
• Distance to Alicante airport: 18 km
• Closest beach: Playa Lisa, Gran Playa, Tamarit, Playa del Varadero
• Language: Spanish dominant; Valencian present in administration
• Foreign community: British and French, with Spanish summer holiday-home owners outnumbering year-round foreigners

Santa Pola has the closest international airport of any major Costa Blanca beach town — just 18 kilometres along the AP-7 — and it remains the day-trip destination Alicante families pick for a swim and a paella. The town is built around a 16th-century castle-fortress sitting on the main square (rare on the Costa Blanca because most coastal forts are ruined), and the fishing harbour is the second-largest on the Spanish Mediterranean coast for landed catch. Behind the town, the Santa Pola salt flats are a protected wetland with one of Europe’s largest resident flamingo populations.

What to see: the Castell-Palau de Santa Pola houses the town museum and is free. The salt-flat boardwalks on the western side of the town are flat, pram-friendly and best at sunset when the flamingos cluster. The boat to Tabarca — Spain’s smallest inhabited island, twenty minutes offshore — leaves several times a day in summer and is a half-day excursion in itself. The Cabo de Santa Pola lighthouse at the southern end of the town has a viewing platform with one of the widest panoramics on the southern coast.

Property in Santa Pola typically sits at €2,000-2,700 per m² for 2026 resale; the Gran Alacant urbanisation behind the town runs slightly lower, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Moraira

Quick facts

• Population: 9,196 (Teulada-Moraira municipality combined)
• Distance to Alicante airport: 95 km
• Closest beach: El Portet (the postcard cove), L’Ampolla (central sandy), Les Platgetes (rocks)
• Language: Valencian dominant in the inland village of Teulada; Spanish and English universal in Moraira
• Foreign community: German and British dominant, with the highest average purchasing power on the Costa Blanca

Moraira is technically a coastal pedanía of the inland village of Teulada — the official municipality name is Teulada-Moraira and the registered population is only just over 9,000, though in summer the resident count multiplies several times. Moraira deliberately blocked high-rise development decades ago and is now one of the lowest-density resorts on the coast, with the entire seafront limited to three or four storeys and the surrounding hills covered in detached villas rather than urbanisations. The result is the most expensive square-metre on the Costa Blanca after central Jávea and the Sierra de Altea, and the highest concentration of fine-dining restaurants per capita anywhere in the region.

What to see: the curved sandy cove of El Portet, a five-minute drive east of the town centre, with the protected Cap d’Or rising directly behind it — the watchtower on top is a 30-minute climb and the view stretches from Calpe to the Cap de la Nau. The Sunday market on the seafront is small but consistent. Teulada village inland, three kilometres uphill, has a Gothic church and a Renaissance market square that almost nobody visits — the contrast between the inland Valencian original and the coastal international Moraira is one of the most striking on the Costa Blanca.

Property in Moraira typically sits at €4,000-6,000 per m² for 2026 resale; the front line of El Portet and the Cap d’Or zone runs higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Guardamar del Segura

Quick facts

• Population: 15,474
• Distance to Alicante airport: 30 km
• Closest beach: Playa Centro, Babilonia (north), Playa Vivers (south), Playa de los Tusales
• Language: Valencian (Guardamar is the southernmost officially Valencian-speaking town); Spanish universal
• Foreign community: mixed, with a growing Russian-speaking community alongside British and the long-established French families

Guardamar del Segura sits at the mouth of the river Segura, between Santa Pola to the north and Torrevieja to the south, and is defined by the pine-forested dunes planted in the 1900s by forestry engineer Francisco Mira to stabilise the shifting sands that had been burying the old town. The result is one of the few Spanish Mediterranean towns where the beach is hidden behind a kilometre of mature pine forest with picnic areas, walking paths and Phoenician archaeology dotted along the trails. Guardamar is the southernmost Valencian-speaking town and feels noticeably different from the adjacent (Spanish-only) Torrevieja just ten minutes south.

What to see: the Reina Sofía park, the Alfonsí Park, and the dune walking circuit between them. The Cabezo Lucero Phoenician archaeological site, free and signposted from the pine forest, is the source of the famous Dama de Guardamar bust. The municipal castle on the hilltop has been excavated and is open most afternoons. The fishing port on the river — rather than the sea — has restaurants that serve the local arroz a banda and salazones of dried fish that are a Guardamar specialty.

Property in Guardamar typically sits at €2,000-2,700 per m² for 2026 resale; front-line apartments and El Raso villas run higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

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Pilar de la Horadada

Quick facts

• Population: 23,100
• Distance to Alicante airport: 60 km
• Closest beach: Mil Palmeras, Playa del Conde, Higuericas, Las Villas, Jesuitas
• Language: Spanish only (Pilar is south of the Valencian line); English very common on urbanisations
• Foreign community: British and Irish dominant on the coastal urbanisations, with the lowest urbanisation density on the southern Costa Blanca

Pilar de la Horadada is the southernmost municipality of the Alicante province, sharing its border with the Murcia region. The town is split between the inland centre (Pilar itself, a working market town five kilometres from the coast with no tourist orientation at all) and a five-kilometre coastal strip of low-rise urbanisations — Torre de la Horadada, Mil Palmeras, Riomar — that feels much quieter than the Orihuela Costa just north because the building density was kept lower from the start. The beaches are some of the calmest on the southern coast, with shallow water that suits families.

What to see: the seafront promenade from Torre de la Horadada north to Mil Palmeras is flat, paved and runs for several kilometres past five different beaches. The Wednesday morning market in Pilar town is the largest in the south of the province and stocks fresh produce that the coastal supermarkets do not. The Cala de las Higuericas, at the northern end of the municipality, is a small cove backed by low dunes and pine; the southernmost beach, Jesuitas, sits right on the Murcia border and continues seamlessly into the next town’s coast.

Property in Pilar de la Horadada typically sits at €1,800-2,500 per m² for 2026 resale; Torre de la Horadada front-line runs higher, with new-build 25-40% above resale.

Live weather and full overview for Pilar de la Horadada →

How to choose

If you’re standing back from this list trying to pick one place, the practical decision tree is roughly this. Want year-round services, hospitals, universities and a real city around you? Alicante, full stop. Want twelve-month tourist infrastructure and English everywhere? Benidorm — the only Costa Blanca town that genuinely never closes for winter. Want pure beach living on a smaller budget? Torrevieja for the largest expat support network, Pilar de la Horadada for the quieter version of the same thing, or Guardamar if you want the dune-forest setting between them. Want a walkable old-town with charm and you don’t mind paying for it? Altea for the visual one, Jávea for the multilingual one, Dénia for the Valencian-Gastronomic one.

For golf and gated urbanisations the answer is Orihuela Costa, with its eight courses inside fifteen minutes’ drive. For absolute peace and the highest property tier, Moraira. For a Spanish-feeling town with a working seafront and a fiesta that’s still locally meaningful, Villajoyosa. For families wanting beach, airport proximity and Spanish atmosphere in one package, Santa Pola. And if you’re moving with school-age children or running a business, Alicante and Dénia are the two with the deepest international-school and co-working ecosystems.

Whichever way the shortlist falls, the next step is comparing how each place actually feels day to day. Check live weather conditions across the coast, and follow our daily local news for what’s happening in each town this week.