# Inland Trips From Benidorm 2026: 8 Drives Worth Making > Guadalest is 25 km from Benidorm and its car parks fill by 10:30 in August. Eight inland trips within 90 minutes of the coast, with drive times, parking, entry costs and an honest verdict on which ones survive high season. Published: 2026-08-01 Updated: 2026-08-01 Author: Oleg Fesechko Canonical: https://wesnagroup.com/blog/inland-trips-from-benidorm-2026 License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Cite as: Wesna Group, "Inland Trips From Benidorm 2026: 8 Drives Worth Making", wesnagroup.com --- Guadalest sits 25 km from Benidorm, a 35 minute drive on the CV-70. Arrive at 09:30 and the castle rock is quiet. Arrive at 11:00 in August and you are parking 600 m downhill behind four coaches. Eight inland trips sit within 90 minutes of the resort, and each one below carries its drive time, its parking and the hours to avoid. ## Guadalest: go before 10:00 or after 16:30 Fewer than 250 people live in El Castell de Guadalest. You enter the old quarter through a tunnel cut into the rock, which is the reason the village survived several sieges and also the reason it jams solid when two tour groups meet head on. The combined ticket for the Castillo de San José ruins and the Casa Orduña runs around EUR 6. The Orduña family rebuilt that house after the earthquake of 1644 and governed the valley from it for the next three hundred years. The private museums charge separately, usually EUR 4 to EUR 5 each. Two are better than they sound: the microminiatures museum, where somebody has painted a Goya onto a grain of rice, and the salt and pepper shaker collection, which holds more than 20,000 pieces and is exactly as absurd as that number suggests. Parking is pay and display in the car parks strung along the road below the village, roughly EUR 2 to EUR 3 for a few hours. Free spaces exist further down the hill, which means a walk back up in whatever the temperature is doing. Coaches from the Benidorm hotels start unloading around 10:30 and most have gone by 16:30. Be honest with yourself about what you are going to see. The lower street is souvenir shops selling the same turrón, the same leather bags and the same fridge magnets. The thing worth the drive is the view from the bell tower rock down onto the reservoir, and it takes about 40 minutes to do properly. Eat afterwards in Benimantell or Beniardá, three kilometres back down the valley, where the restaurants still cook olleta de blat, the local wheat and bean stew, for a fraction of what the village charges. ### The reservoir, and kayaking on it That improbable turquoise comes from dissolved limestone, not from anything anyone added. Engineers finished the Embalse de Guadalest in the early 1970s, and it supplies drinking water to the Marina Baixa, so swimming is prohibited. People try anyway and get fined. Licensed operators run kayak sessions from the Beniardá side, three kilometres below the village. Expect roughly EUR 20 to EUR 30 per person for a guided two hour outing, booked ahead. Go in the morning: the water is flat, and almost no shade survives on the reservoir once the sun is high. May, June and September are the best months. ## Fonts de l'Algar: cold water and rock like glass Twenty kilometres from Benidorm, 25 minutes, on the edge of Callosa d'en Sarrià. The marked route runs about 1.5 km one way along the Algar river past a series of falls and travertine pools, the largest drop around 20 m. The site holds protected wetland status from the Generalitat, so the pools are managed rather than wild. Entry is in the region of EUR 6 for adults in summer and roughly half that for children, with parking charged separately. Prices and hours change every season, so check before you drive. Gates open at 10:00 and close in the evening in high season; in winter the site runs weekends only and the bathing areas stay shut. Two practical points that people ignore. The water sits at roughly 15 to 18 degrees all year, which is a shock in August and unpleasant in October. And the travertine is slippery, closer to wet marble than to rock, so wear something with grip and expect to see at least one person go down hard. Sun leaves the gorge by mid afternoon. In July and August the site can hit its visitor cap by midday. Arrive at opening or come after 17:00. If you are here in April or May, the surrounding terraces hang heavy with loquats. Callosa is the níspero capital of Spain and holds its own denominación de origen, and the paper bags tied over the branches are protecting the fruit, not hiding anything. ## Sierra de Aitana: 1,558 m, with a fence at the top Aitana is the highest peak in Alicante province. An air force radar station occupies the top, fenced and closed, so nobody walks onto the true summit. What you do instead is the circular from the Font de Partagat above Benifato, and it is the best day walk within an hour of the coast. Drive: 40 km, 45 to 50 minutes. Park at Partagat, around 1,030 m, on a rough dirt area that is free and full by 10:00 on autumn weekends. The loop is 11 to 12 km with roughly 530 m of ascent, four to five hours at a steady pace. It passes the Simes de Partagat, natural shafts that villagers once packed with snow and used as ice stores before refrigeration reached the coast, and the Pas de la Rabosa, a rock corridor narrow enough that a large rucksack has to come off. Take two litres of water each. A fountain runs at Partagat, but do not build the day around finding water in it. The ridge sits roughly 8 to 10 degrees below coastal temperature and the wind up there is a different proposition from the beach. Snow and ice are normal between December and March. Do not start this walk at midday in July or August. If you want something harder, Puig Campana rises 1,406 m above Finestrat, the mountain with the notch that you can see from every Benidorm balcony. It is five to six hours on loose scree with no water, and it punishes bad footwear. ## Polop, Sella and Tàrbena: the short versions **Polop** is 12 km from Benidorm, 20 minutes. The restored castle on the hill gives you the whole Marina Baixa in one turn, from the Puig Campana notch round to the sea. Below it lies the old cemetery that Gabriel Miró wrote about, which is a stranger and better thing to visit than that description makes it sound. Down in the village, 221 spouts run along a stone wall at the Font dels 221 Xorros, and locals still queue there with plastic bottles. All of it is free. Park near the fountain; the old town streets are not worth attempting in a hire car. **Sella** is 30 km, about 40 minutes via Finestrat and Orxeta. Around 600 people live there. From October to April the bars fill with climbers, because the crags above the village, Divino and Wild Side among them, hold hundreds of bolted routes and rank among the reliable winter sport climbing venues in Europe. In summer the rock is too hot to touch. Even if you never climb, drive up the barranco road and have lunch in the plaza. It is the least developed valley in this list. **Tàrbena** is 45 km, roughly 55 minutes, up beyond Callosa. Mallorcan families resettled the village after the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609, and the local speech and the sobrassada both still show it. From there the CV-715 drops over the Coll de Rates towards Parcent, a climb of about 6.5 km at an average of 5%, which is why you will share it with professional cycling teams on winter training camps and with a great many motorcyclists on Sundays. A word on where you can actually buy, because these villages are the part of the region people fall in love with and then discover has nothing for sale. Wesna holds no listings in Guadalest, Callosa d'en Sarrià, Benifato, Sella, Tàrbena or Bocairent, and we will not pretend otherwise. Those villages turn over a handful of houses a year, largely privately. Finestrat village is another blank on our map. What we do have is stock in the towns on the road to all of it: 15 sale listings in Polop, four in La Nucía and 45 in Benidorm. Start with the [Polop sale listings](/catalog?city=polop&deal=sale), where [WES-1930D, a 3-bed house of 144 m2 at EUR 470,000](/property/wes-1930d) sits on the CV-70 corridor that feeds most of this list. Several of our Benidorm properties sit under the same mountains at the coastal end, among them [WES-1410, a 1-bed apartment of 77 m2 at EUR 275,000](/property/wes-1410) at Cala Finestrat. If the mountains matter more to you than the beach, read our guide to [La Nucía hilltop living](/blog/la-nucia-property-2026-hilltop-living-brits-norwegians). ## Bocairent and the Sierra Mariola, if you have a full day Eighty kilometres and about an hour and twenty minutes via Alcoi, so this is a full day rather than a morning. It is worth doing once in spring or autumn. Bocairent stands on a rock outcrop at around 600 m, which alone makes it 8 to 12 degrees kinder than the coast in August. The Covetes dels Moros punch about 50 chambers into a cliff face, Andalusi granaries that you now reach by fixed ladders. Tickets come from the tourist office and cost roughly EUR 3 to EUR 5. Take a torch, and do not climb them in a skirt or in flip flops. The town also dug its bullring straight out of the rock, back in 1843. Above the town spreads the Serra de Mariola natural park, protected since 2002 and covering roughly 17,000 hectares. It is the herb mountain of the Valencian region, which is where herbero, the local liqueur, comes from. Two targets inside it: the Cava Arquejada at Agres, a vaulted 17th century snow well, and the Font Roja park above Alcoi at around 1,100 m, one of the best preserved Mediterranean woodlands in the Comunitat Valenciana. Font Roja has a visitor centre and free parking that fills on Sunday mornings. The Generalitat publishes access rules, fire risk closures and the current state of the tracks for both parks at [parquesnaturales.gva.es](https://parquesnaturales.gva.es), and the regional tourism board keeps village opening times at [comunitatvalenciana.com](https://www.comunitatvalenciana.com). Check both in July and August, when high fire risk closes forest tracks at short notice. ## Costs, drive times and when to go | Trip | From Benidorm | Typical cost per adult | Best window | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | El Castell de Guadalest | 25 km, 35 min | About EUR 6 combined ticket, EUR 2 to EUR 3 parking | Before 10:00 or after 16:30 | | Guadalest reservoir, by kayak | 22 km, 35 min | EUR 20 to EUR 30 guided | May, June and September mornings | | Fonts de l'Algar | 20 km, 25 min | Around EUR 6, parking extra | At opening, or after 17:00 | | Sierra de Aitana circular | 40 km, 50 min | Free | Late September to May, start by 09:00 | | Polop castle and fountain | 12 km, 20 min | Free | Any morning | | Sella and the crags | 30 km, 40 min | Free | October to April | | Tàrbena and the Coll de Rates | 45 km, 55 min | Free | Any month, avoid Sunday midday | | Bocairent and Serra de Mariola | 80 km, 1 h 20 | EUR 3 to EUR 5 for the Covetes | April to June, September to November | Late September to early June is the season for everything involving walking. July and August work only at the two ends of the day, and the mountain routes turn dangerous in the middle. The CV-70 through La Nucía, Polop and Callosa is the single road serving most of this, so anything that leaves Benidorm between 10:00 and 11:30 in August queues. Motion sickness is a real consideration on the Guadalest and Tàrbena roads if you have children in the back. Fuel is cheaper in Benidorm and La Nucía than in the villages, and several of the inland places still prefer cash for parking. ## FAQ ### Can you do Guadalest and the Fonts de l'Algar in one day? Yes, and most people should. They are 12 km apart on the same road. The efficient order is Algar at 10:00 opening, lunch in Benimantell or Callosa, Guadalest from 15:30 once the coaches have left. Doing it the other way round puts you at the waterfalls at their busiest. ### Do I need a car? For most of these, yes. A limited bus runs from Benidorm up to Guadalest, usually one useful departure in the morning and a return in the afternoon, which covers the village and nothing else. Polop sits on the local bus network from the coast. Sella, Benifato, Tàrbena and Bocairent need a car. ### Can you swim in the Guadalest reservoir? No. The reservoir supplies drinking water to the Marina Baixa, and the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar enforces the ban. Licensed operators can still take you out by kayak. If you want to swim inland, the pools at the Fonts de l'Algar are the legal option, and the water is cold all year. ### Is the Aitana walk suitable for children? The full 11 km circular suits fit children of about ten and upwards, with the caveat that the Pas de la Rabosa is a squeeze and the ridge is exposed to wind. Younger children do better on the short out and back from Font de Partagat to the snow shafts, roughly an hour each way. ### Which of these are still worth it in August? Guadalest before 10:00, the Algar waterfalls at opening, and Bocairent, which sits high enough to stay bearable. Skip Aitana and Puig Campana. If the heat has beaten you, the coast is the better answer: see our guides to the [hidden coves of the northern Costa Blanca](/blog/hidden-coves-costa-blanca-north-2026-2026-06-13) and the [best beaches for families with children](/blog/best-costa-blanca-beaches-families-with-kids-2026). ## Next steps Drive one of these routes on your next viewing trip before you look at a single property. Then tell us what you liked. Our [Benidorm listings](/catalog?city=benidorm&deal=sale) sit closest to every road above, and you can reach the office through [contacts](/contacts).