Quick answer:
Calpe is about 70 km up the coast from Alicante Airport, roughly an hour by road. There is no direct train and no direct airport bus, so the realistic choices are a private transfer at a fixed €125 for the whole car, a metered taxi, or a bus-and-tram combination that takes the best part of three hours.
Calpe is one of those places that looks deceptively close on a map. It sits just past Altea, before you reach Moraira and Javea, and the Peñal d’Ifac is visible from a long way down the coast. In practice it is a solid hour from the airport, and getting there without a car takes more planning than most people expect.
Here is every way to do it, with what each one really costs you in money and in time.
Private transfer: €125, around an hour
We run this route constantly, so treat this section as what it is: our own service, described plainly.
An Alicante Airport to Calpe transfer with Costanova is €125 one way. That is the price of the vehicle, not a price per person, so four people split it four ways. Your driver meets you in arrivals with your name on a sign and takes you directly to your address, whether that is a hotel on the Arenal beachfront or a villa up in the Maryvilla urbanisation.
Give us your flight number when you book and we track it. If you land two hours late at three in the morning, the driver is still there and the price does not change.
The return leg is the same price. You can book both at once or add the return later.
Taxi: no fixed price, and you may wait
There is a taxi rank outside Alicante Airport arrivals and you can certainly ask for Calpe. Two things to know.
First, it runs on the meter. A 70 km run is a long way for a meter, and your final figure depends on traffic, the time of day and whether the driver takes the toll motorway. You find out at the end.
Second, not every car in the rank is willing or equipped to do a long run with four passengers and four large suitcases. At peak arrival times you may wait, and you may be asked to split across two cars.
For a short hop into Alicante city a rank taxi is fine. For Calpe, the uncertainty is the problem, not the driver.
Public transport: cheap, but set aside the afternoon
There is no train station at Alicante Airport and no direct rail link to Calpe. Doing it by public transport means stringing together three legs:
- The airport bus into central Alicante, around 25 to 30 minutes.
- The TRAM from Luceros to Benidorm, around an hour and a quarter.
- A change at Benidorm onto the narrow-gauge line towards Dénia, which stops at Calpe.
Add waiting time between legs and you are realistically looking at two and a half to three hours door to door, for a total fare in single figures. There are also coach services along the coast; check the operator’s own timetable for the day you travel, because frequencies change between summer and winter.
If you are travelling light, on a budget, and arriving in daylight, this is a perfectly good way to do it. With children, luggage or a late landing, it stops being fun somewhere around the second change.
Hire car: worth it only if you will use it
Calpe is walkable once you are in it, and the old town, the port and both beaches are close together. Plenty of visitors hire a car at the airport, drive to Calpe, and then leave it parked for a week while paying for it.
If you plan to explore inland, visit Guadalest, or move between towns daily, hire the car. If you are going to Calpe to be in Calpe, two transfers usually work out cheaper than a week of rental plus fuel, tolls and parking.
How long is the drive, really?
Around an hour in normal conditions, taking the AP-7 for most of the way and dropping onto the N-332 for the final stretch.
In August, and on Friday afternoons generally, the coastal road through Altea and Calpe can crawl. Our drivers know when to stay on the motorway and when the N-332 is quicker, which on this route makes a real difference.
Other towns on the same road
If Calpe is not quite your destination, these are the neighbouring fixed prices from Alicante Airport:
Arriving by high-speed train instead of flying? The same price applies from the station, as we cover in our guide to getting from Alicante train station to the Costa Blanca.
Common questions
How far is Calpe from Alicante Airport?
Around 70 km by road, which is about an hour’s drive in normal traffic.
Is there a direct bus from Alicante Airport to Calpe?
Not a direct one running all day. Reaching Calpe by public transport means going into Alicante first and changing at least twice.
How much is a taxi from Alicante Airport to Calpe?
It is metered, so there is no published figure. That is the main practical difference from a pre-booked transfer, where the €125 is agreed before you travel.
Can you collect us from a villa rather than a hotel?
Yes. Give us the address when you book. Calpe has a lot of hillside urbanisations and our drivers know them.
Ready to fix your price? Book your Calpe transfer online in a couple of minutes, or see every route on our routes and pricing page.
