Andalusia's three great cities are closer to Malaga than most visitors assume. Granada is an hour and a half away. Cordoba, just under two. Seville, the furthest of the three, fits into two and a quarter hours. Each one works as a day trip, and you are back by the sea in time for dinner.
As long as you know where to leave the car and which sight to book ahead. That is the whole difference between a good day and three hours circling the centre, followed by a closed ticket office at the Alhambra. This guide gives you three ready-made day trips from Malaga by car. Each comes with the route, a car park with a real rate, ticket prices and a six-hour plan on foot. Prices correct as of 2026.
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The train from Malaga to Seville involves a change in Cordoba and takes longer than the car. The rail route to Granada goes the long way round. Buses do run, but they tie you to a fixed timetable and usually drop you at a single point in the city.
By car you are there at nine in the morning, with no changes, and you head back when you like. With two or three people on board it also works out cheaper than tickets. Fuel alone for Granada and back comes to about €28, for Cordoba €35 and for Seville €44. That assumes a compact car using 6 l/100 km and petrol at €1.77 per litre.
You can collect the car right at Malaga-Costa del Sol airport, or have it brought to your hotel as a paid extra. The whole pick-up process is explained in our guide to collecting a rental car at Malaga airport.
The nearest and most obvious day trip. Going from Malaga to Granada by car, you leave on the A-45 heading north. Near Antequera you join the A-92 eastbound, and the final stretch is the A-44 with the exit for the Alhambra. The route is toll-free all the way. It runs through hills and olive groves, and the last few kilometres give you a view of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada.
Drive straight to the Alhambra car park, not into the centre. Access is from the A-395. The car park sits on Camino Viejo del Cementerio and has more than 600 spaces in four sections, signed P1 to P4.
The rate is €3.25 per hour, with a daily maximum of around €22. For a full day of sightseeing that is not cheap. But you leave the car a few minutes from the entrance and lose no time getting in from town.
Tickets: general admission to the Alhambra costs €21 at the ticket office and €22.27 online (a service fee is added). Concessions are around €14.85. Children under 12 go free, but you still have to book a ticket for them.
The whole route is practically one road: the A-45, straight north through Antequera and Lucena. Toll-free, fast, monotonous. The last few kilometres before Cordoba run through the Guadalquivir valley.
Do not try to drive into the Judería, the old Jewish quarter. The streets there are two metres wide and covered by traffic restrictions. Leave the car in one of the car parks along the river or by the railway station and walk in. From the riverside car parks it is a 10 to 15 minute walk to the Mezquita.
Covered car parks in central Cordoba usually charge €1.50 to €2.50 per hour, with daily caps of around €15 to €20. On the street there is the “zona azul” (blue zone), paid bays marked with blue lines. In high season, finding a free one is a lottery.
Tickets: the Mezquita-Catedral costs €13 for adults, €10 for concessions (seniors 65+, students aged 15 to 26) and €7 for children aged 10 to 14. Children under 10 go free.
The longest of the three routes, and the only one with a toll section. You leave Malaga on the AP-46, a short toll motorway that bypasses the hairpins on the way out of the city. Then you join the A-92 and follow it through Antequera, Osuna and Écija all the way to Seville. The A-92 is toll-free for its whole length.
You can skip the AP-46 toll by taking the old road via Casabermeja. You save a few euros, lose a quarter of an hour and collect a dozen or so bends. How to tell a toll road from a free one is covered in our article on Spanish motorways, linked at the end.
Much of Seville's historic core is closed to traffic, with cameras at the zone entrances. Drive in without a permit and you get a fine, which arrives by post a few weeks after you get home.
The fix is simple: a covered car park on the edge of the old town. Reliable areas are around Plaza de Armas, Paseo de Colón along the river and the area by Prado de San Sebastián. Daily rates in these car parks usually run from €18 to €25. From there it is a 10 to 20 minute walk to the cathedral, or three stops on the tram.
| Granada | Cordoba | Seville | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance from Malaga | 130 km | 165 km | 205 km |
| Driving time | about 1 hr 30 min | about 1 hr 45 min | about 2 hr 15 min |
| Main roads | A-45 / A-92 / A-44 | A-45 | AP-46 / A-92 |
| Tolls | none | none | short AP-46 section |
| Fuel, there and back | about €28 | about €35 | about €44 |
| Parking (day) | about €22 at the Alhambra | €15 to €20 | €18 to €25 |
| Main ticket | Alhambra €21 | Mezquita €13 | Alcázar €15.50 |
| Advance booking | essential | optional | recommended |
If you only have time for one city, pick Granada. The shortest drive, the most impressive sight, the best ratio of time in the car to time on foot. Cordoba is the easiest logistically and the cheapest. Seville means the most driving, but you get the biggest city and the most to see.
Seville has a ZBE (“zona de bajas emisiones”, low emission zone), but it covers the island of La Cartuja, not the historic centre. The restriction runs Monday to Friday between 7:00 and 19:00. It applies to cars without an environmental sticker from the DGT, Spain's traffic authority. Cars with a B, C, ECO or zero-emission sticker drive in freely, and rental fleets are made up of exactly those categories. The fine for entering without authorisation is €200, and enforcement is automatic, by camera.
So the real problem is not the ZBE. It is the restricted traffic zones in the historic cores of all three cities. Cameras at the entrances, no warning from your sat nav, and a fine posted to you weeks later. There is one rule: park on the edge, walk into the centre.
Leaving Malaga between 7:00 and 7:30 gives you a comfortable margin. You arrive before the main sight opens, the car parks are still empty and the temperature is bearable.
Plan the drive back for 17:00 to 18:00. You travel in daylight, miss the rush hour coming into Malaga and still have an evening by the sea. In summer it is also the most pleasant time to drive, because the tarmac and the inside of the car have had time to cool.
Avoid setting off after 9:00. You lose the best sightseeing hours, walk into the crowds and drive back in the dark. Spanish main roads can be poorly lit at night.
Yes, with an early start. It is about 205 km and 2 hours 15 minutes each way on the AP-46 and A-92. Only the short AP-46 section out of Malaga is tolled, the rest of the route is free.
About 130 km on the A-45, A-92 and A-44. The drive takes roughly 1 hour 30 minutes and is toll-free all the way.
No, not into the historic core. Restricted traffic zones with camera enforcement apply there. Leave the car in a covered car park by Plaza de Armas or Prado de San Sebastián and walk in.
€3.25 per hour, with a daily maximum of around €22. The car park has more than 600 spaces in sections P1 to P4 and is a few minutes from the entrance.
Yes. General admission costs €21 at the ticket office and €22.27 online, and in high season it sells out up to a month ahead. At the gate, staff check your ID against the booking, so bring the passport you booked with.
Yes, Monday to Saturday between 8:30 and 9:30. Outside that window a standard ticket costs €13.
Yes, in theory: Cordoba and Seville are 140 km apart. But you would get two hours per city and eight hours behind the wheel. Better to spread them over two days or build them into a longer Andalusia road trip.
Three cities, three ready-made plans. All that is left is the car to do them in. At Car4Rent Malaga you rent with no deposit and no credit card, with service in English or Polish around the clock. We bring the car to the airport terminal, or to your hotel as a paid extra, and the paperwork takes 15 to 20 minutes. Mileage within Andalusia is unlimited, so the run to Seville and back changes nothing on your bill.
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