A Relaxing Summer Holiday To Mojacar Playa, Andalusia In Spain

I’ve been a little quiet on the blog front over the past couple of weeks as we have been recharging our batteries in the lovely resort of Mojacar Playa in Andalusia, Spain.

We actually managed to go before the schools broke up for the summer holiday (with schools permission ;)). It was a lovely way to celebrate the end of my eldest son’s GCSE exams. We chose Mojacar as we had heard of it’s charm and beauty from my sister in law, who has holidayed there for the previous couple of years. We were also surprised how much cheaper the flights were to Almeria airport compared to the larger more popular airports in Andalusia.

We flew from Leeds Bradford Airport with Jet2. This year to keep costs down we decided to book everything separately rather than a package holiday. This definitely lowered costs considerably.

Our first step was to choose our flights, as our dates were flexible we chose the cheapest flights out and the cheapest flights home, we were not worried about travelling at a weekend and we were happy to find that going for 10 days rather than the traditional 7 days worked out a lot cheaper! We then chose our accommodation through Holiday Lettings. In total our flights and accommodation for 10 nights came to around £1500, which we thought quite reasonable for six people.

The accommodation was lovely too, a town house in the resort centre with a pool (shared with a few other houses). The only issue we found with sticking to a budget was hiring a car, this is because we needed a 7 seater. If we had hired a smaller car, there was a lot of choice and different budgets. In all honesty I think it would have been cheaper to hire 2 smaller cars, but I’m not overly confident driving abroad.We decided to hire one though, as this meant we didn’t need to pay for transfers and also meant we could explore the area. A car also allowed us to find the supermarkets that the locals use rather than the very expensive supermarkets in the tourist areas.  

Driving from the airport was easy (or so my husband says!) as the roads are not crowded, they are smooth and straight forward. We met and found the office to collect the keys and arrived at our house at around 10.30pm. We were starving at this point and we were slightly worried that we would struggle  to find somewhere to eat.  We needn’t have worried as Mojacar is a Spanish resort and families really don’t eat until at least 10pm so the restaurants were buzzing. 

As the holiday progressed our body clocks soon adjusted to getting up just before lunch, going for a drive to places of interest in the area, returning at around 4pm to swim and sunbathe. we then headed off around 9pm in the evenings. It was so hot during daytime that we were thankful of our air conditioned car and house!

Mojacar is a beautiful area of Spain and has a lovely old town with the most amazing views. A lot of the restaurants were in stunning settings looking down at the playa area. The beach is huge, stretching for miles. There are lovely beach bars and a few clubs and bars that are very popular with the Spanish “cool” set. We avoided these as I felt decidedly frumpy and old! There are plenty of other bars and restaurants to visit as well as a waterpark and bowling alley. There is a natural park if you drive further along the coast, which again is stunning, with beautiful beaches. It’s easy to find “hidden gem” restaurants off the beaten track, with amazing menu’s.

Would I return to Mojacar again? Most definitely, my only reservation being that my eldest son found it a little too quiet and a little too “Spanish”. I think being a teenager he would have preferred more English people to meet. This however wasn’t a problem for the rest of the family! I was also impressed that everything was reasonably priced, not being a British holiday resort.

So now we are home and the holiday feels like a distant dream. Back to saving up for next summer!