Costa del Sol

The Costa del Sol is not one place. It runs roughly 150 kilometres from Málaga down to Sotogrande, carries around seventy courses, and most operators sell it as though it were a single resort. Where you stay decides what your week actually looks like.

Mijas and Benalmádena sit closest to the airport — half an hour from door to tee, and the most golf per euro on the coast. Marbella is the middle ground: the widest choice of courses inside twenty minutes, and the only base where non-golfers are genuinely occupied. Estepona and Benahavís are quieter and greener, with the ground starting to rise behind them. Sotogrande, at the far end, is where the serious golf lives — Valderrama, La Reserva, the Real Club — and where a week costs what a week there costs.

The golf is mostly parkland cut into hillside, which is the thing to know before you book: this coast is not flat. Several of its best-known courses involve real climbs between green and tee, and a buggy is standard rather than optional. In return you get mountain and ocean in the same round, on courses maintained to the same standard all year rather than for one season.

It plays twelve months and it is at its best in the months northern Europe cannot: March to May and October to November, at 18–24 °C. Winter is properly playable and properly cheaper, with the occasional wet week. July and August are hot, busy, and the worst value of the year.