Day Trips from Alicante: Routes and Times
Six genuinely different day trips fan out from Alicante inside two hours of travel, and the right one depends more on whether you want a boat, a train or a rental car than on how much time you have.
By ferry: Isla de Tabarca
Cruceros Kontiki catamarans cross from Puerto de Alicante to Spain’s smallest inhabited island in 50 to 60 minutes, for about €24 round trip on an open return. Tabarca was fortified in 1768 to house 69 Genoese families ransomed from Tunisian pirates, and its walls, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, and a 19th-century lighthouse are still standing. The waters around it were declared Spain’s first marine reserve in 1986, and snorkeling is genuinely worthwhile, but the coves are rocky and urchin-studded: wear reef shoes, not bare feet. Finish with caldero tabarquino, a two-stage fish and rice dish, at a seafront place like Restaurante Gloria near the dock, or skip the planning entirely with a guided Tabarca cruise that includes lunch .
By train: Elche’s palm groves
Renfe’s Cercanías C-1 line reaches Elche’s Elx Parc station in 25 to 30 minutes for €2.05 to €2.60. Elche carries dual UNESCO recognition: the Palmeral, Europe’s largest date palm oasis with over 200,000 trees on Moorish irrigation, and the Misteri d’Elx sacred drama staged every August inside the Basílica de Santa María. The Huerto del Cura garden, home to the extraordinary seven-trunked Palmera Imperial, charges around €6.50 to €6.80 entry.
By TRAM: Villajoyosa and Altea
Line 1 reaches Villajoyosa’s rainbow of painted fishermen’s houses in 45 to 50 minutes for a two-zone fare of €2.80, with a free chocolate tasting at the Museo del Chocolate Valor factory tour waiting at the other end. Continuing on to Altea, with its blue-domed hilltop church, takes about 75 minutes total via a transfer to Line 9 in Benidorm. Note that Benidorm itself sits roughly 45 kilometers north of Alicante; it is a separate resort city, not a neighborhood, and the TRAM simply passes through it on the way to Altea.
By car or coach: mountains and caves
Guadalest and the Algar Waterfalls sit inland along the CV-70 mountain pass, about an hour by car, and are not reachable by TRAM at all. A Guadalest and Algar Waterfalls day tour covers both without the need to navigate mountain switchbacks yourself. The Canelobre Caves near Busot, a 70-meter karst cavern with some of Spain’s highest vaults, sit about 25 minutes north and are covered by a similar Canelobre Caves tour .
Confirm ferry departures the day before if the levante wind is forecast; Kontiki sailings to Tabarca are the first thing cancelled in rough winter seas, sometimes with only a few hours’ notice. For an overnight version of the Tabarca crossing instead of a same-day return, see our couple activities guide .