Hotels in Santa Pola
Six areas, and they are not the same holiday. But before any of that, there is one question that decides most of it.
If the answer is no —and for a lot of people flying into Alicante it is— stay in the town itself. The old town, Playa de Levante, Gran Playa and Playa Lisa are all walking distance from each other and from the port where every Tabarca boat leaves.
Gran Alacant and the coves need a car. Gran Alacant especially: the bus into town is three a day on weekdays and none at all on Sundays. That is not a detail you want to discover on arrival.
The old town and the harbour
no car neededWalking everywhere, and being where the Tabarca boats leave from
The narrow streets behind the castle. You are five minutes from the fishing port, which is where every boat to Tabarca goes from, and in the middle of the evening life of the town.
Playa de Levante
no car neededSand on the doorstep and everything within fifty metres
The busiest beach and the busiest area. Bars, board hire, sunbeds and noise. If your idea of a holiday is walking out of the door onto the beach, this is it.
Gran Playa
no car neededSmall children, and quiet
West of the centre, and this is where the shallow water is: you walk out tens of metres before it reaches your waist. Quieter than Levante and a much easier day with toddlers.
Playa Lisa and Tamarit
no car neededWind sports, or mornings without crowds
Further west again. The wind picks up here reliably in the afternoon, which is why it is the local centre for windsurfing and kitesurfing — and why the mornings are the calm part of the day.
We have not checked anywhere here one by one yet — mostly apartments rather than hotels in this stretch.
Santa Pola del Este and the coves
car neededSnorkelling, and rock rather than sand
Under the cape, and the only part of the municipality with rock. It is the one place where a mask is worth packing. Further from the centre, so a car helps.
We have not checked anywhere here one by one yet — mostly apartments rather than hotels in this stretch.
Gran Alacant
car neededSpace, and El Carabassí
Up on the plateau, closer to the airport than to Santa Pola itself, and at the foot of the Carabassí dunes. More space for your money — but you are not in the town, and the bus is three a day with none on Sundays.
Or skip the mainland entirely
You can sleep on Tabarca. There are only a few dozen rooms on the whole island, it costs noticeably more than the equivalent on the mainland, and it is the one thing on this page that most people never consider. At 20:50 the last boat leaves with the day trippers on it, and what is left is a walled village, the sound of the sea and a sky you do not get from the coast. What there is on the island and what it costs (in Spanish).
Santa Pola is a small town, and this is a short list on purpose. There are around eight hundred properties on the booking sites and we have looked at eight. We would rather name the ones we can say something real about than list everything and tell you nothing about any of it.
And if none of those fit
Apartments, larger groups, specific dates in August — for that you want a search rather than a list.
The airport bus times and the fact that it does not run on Sundays come from Vectalia's own published timetable. Everything else — which areas you can walk between, where the shallow water is, where the wind finds you in the afternoon, and what each of these eight places is actually like — comes from living here and from checking them one at a time. Some links are affiliate links: if you book through them we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Nobody has paid to be on this page, and the order is by area, not by what pays best.