Alicante airport to Santa Pola
It is 15 km, which is the good news. The bus is cheap and almost nobody knows it exists — but it runs three times a day and never on a Sunday, so read the times before you plan around it.
Santa Pola, the salt flats and Tabarca, from the plane. Our own photograph.
In one paragraph
Santa Pola is 15 km from the terminal, 15–20 minutes by car. There is a direct bus, €3.85, but only three a day on weekdays and none on Sundays. A taxi is around €30. Uber works, picking up on level 0. And there is no tram, whatever the search box suggested to you.
First: there is no tram, and no train
Enough people search for this that it deserves a straight answer. The Alicante TRAM does not go to Santa Pola. It runs north up the coast — El Campello, Benidorm, Dénia — which is the opposite direction. There is no train station in Santa Pola either.
If a page or an app tells you otherwise, it has confused Santa Pola with somewhere on the northern line. Everything below is what actually exists.
The bus: direct, cheap, and rarer than you think
Most guides tell you to get into Alicante first and change there. You do not need to. Vectalia line 8 — Santa Pola–Aeropuerto–San Vicente — stops at the terminal itself.
The catch is frequency, and it is a big one: three services a day Monday to Friday, one on Saturday, and nothing at all on Sundays and public holidays.
Airport → Santa Pola
Winter timetable, in force from 7 September 2026. It changes again in June.
| Leaves airport | Arrives Santa Pola | Days |
|---|---|---|
| 08:10 | 08:50 | Mon–Fri |
| 15:20 | 16:00 | Mon–Fri |
| 21:35 | 22:15 | Mon–Fri |
| 08:30 | 09:15 | Saturday only |
Santa Pola to Alicante airport: the return journey
| Leaves Santa Pola | Arrives airport | Days |
|---|---|---|
| 07:00 | 07:30 | Mon–Fri |
| 14:00 | 14:30 | Mon–Fri |
| 20:15 | 20:45 | Mon–Fri |
| 07:30 | 08:00 | Saturday only |
Flying out on a Saturday? The only bus is the 07:30. Flying on a Sunday or a public holiday? There is no bus at all — budget for a taxi, a transfer or a hire car.
Flying in for the half marathon? The race starts on a Sunday morning at 10:30 and there is no bus that day — the full logistics, including where to sleep and park, are in our race guide.
- 💶Fare: €3.85 single. Official tariff in force since 27 July 2026. Pay the driver.
- ⏱️Journey: 40 minutes, stopping at El Altet, Arenales and Gran Alacant.
Times from Vectalia’s own public notice 38/26 (winter, from 7 September 2026), fare from notice 10/26. Confirm on their site before you fly.
Taxi, Uber and private transfer
- 🚕Taxi: around €30On the meter, from the rank outside arrivals. A six or seven seater van is roughly €50. Both are estimates rather than fixed prices — they move with traffic, time and day. Split four ways, the taxi beats the bus on both cost and sanity.
- 📱Uber: yes, it works herePick-up is on level 0, in the arrivals area, following the directions in the app. Useful to know before you land, because the signage will not tell you.
- 🚐Pre-booked transferWorth it if you are a group, arriving late, or travelling with small children and car seats. The advantage is not the price, it is that someone is waiting whatever time you land — which on a Sunday matters.
Do you need a hire car?
For Santa Pola itself, no. The town is flat and walkable, the beaches are along it, and the boat to Tabarca leaves from the port in the middle of it. Plenty of people spend a week here without driving.
It changes the trip if you want the rest of the province — Elche, the salt lakes, the coves down towards Torrevieja, Alicante for an evening — or if you are staying in Gran Alacant rather than the town, or if you are arriving on a Sunday when the bus does not run.
One genuine warning: parking in Santa Pola in July and August is work. Out of season it is a non-issue.
The excess: three ways to cover it, and which one is cheapest
The excess is the most they can charge you if the car is damaged. You have three options, and they do not cost the same:
Accept the excess
You buy nothing and the rental company holds a deposit on your card up to the excess amount. If you have plenty of card limit and the risk is acceptable to you.
Reduce it at the desk
They lower it, sometimes to zero, when you pick the car up, at a price per day. Rarely: it is usually the priciest of the three, and it is decided in a hurry with a queue behind you.
Add cover when you book
You add it during booking, from home and with no pressure. When the total still comes out cheaper than the other two.
How to decide in two minutes: work out (daily rate × days) + cost of the cover and compare it with a low-excess rate without cover. The lowest total wins, even if it is not the cheapest-looking daily price. If cover does not bring the total down, the honest answer is to accept the excess.
Before you buy any cover, check four things
- Who you are buying from. The rental company or a third party? With a third party you often pay the excess at the desk and claim it back afterwards. It changes the paperwork, not the price.
- What is excluded. Wheels, tyres, glass, roof, underside, wrong fuel, lost keys. Many policies exclude one of these, and it is the first thing to look for in the terms.
- Whether it removes the deposit hold or only refunds you later. That matters for your card limit during the trip.
- How and by when you claim. If that is not clear, treat it as a warning sign.
And if your plan is to stay in Santa Pola and not much else, the advice above still stands: you may not need a car at all.
Compare rates and cover at Alicante airportSo which one should you take?
| If you are… | Take |
|---|---|
| On your own, and your flight lands near a bus time | The bus, €3.85 |
| Two or more people, any arrival time | Taxi or Uber |
| Arriving Sunday or a public holiday | Not the bus — there is none |
| Staying in Gran Alacant, or exploring the province | Hire car |
| Group, late arrival, or small children | Pre-booked transfer |
Once you are here
Some links on this page are affiliate links: if you book through them we earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. The bus times and fares above are free information and cost us money to tell you about — the €3.85 bus is the cheapest option on this page and we would rather you knew it existed.