Five scooter routes from Playa de San Juan
Cabo de las Huertas, El Campello, Villajoyosa, Guadalest and Tabarca: five half-day rides starting in Sant Joan d'Alacant.
Alicante has a car problem nobody warns you about: in summer, finding a parking space at Playa de San Juan can take longer than the drive itself. On a scooter that problem disappears — and with it, a stretch of coast that is a chore to explore by car opens up.
These five rides all start in Sant Joan d’Alacant and are built for half a day. Times are door to door from here, with no traffic. None of them forces you onto a dual carriageway, and all of them fit comfortably inside the 300 km a day that come with our rentals.
1. Cabo de las Huertas: the biggest surprise
About 15 minutes, 7.5 km.
This is the rocky headland between Playa de San Juan and the city of Alicante, and plenty of people who holiday here never make it. It is worth it for the coves — Cala Cantalars, Palmera, La Almadraba — rocky, clear water, and none of the crowds of the big beach.
The point of going by scooter is that the coves have narrow access roads and very little parking: this is literally the place where two wheels save you half an hour.
Go at sunset and the lighthouse is where everyone takes the photo.
2. El Campello along the coast
About 10 minutes, 5.4 km — the closest of the five.
Heading north along the coast you reach Muchavista — four kilometres of unbroken beach — and then the town of El Campello, with its watchtower and fishing harbour. It is the classic evening plan: ride over, eat fish at the harbour, ride back.
Take the coast road rather than the dual carriageway. It is much better and barely slower.
3. Villajoyosa: the painted houses
About 25 minutes, 28 km.
This is the postcard shot of the Costa Blanca: the coloured façades of the old town looking out over the sea. They were painted that way so fishermen could pick out their own house from the water.
Worth a whole morning: the old town, the town beach and — if that is your thing — the Valor chocolate factory, which has been there since 1881.
4. Guadalest and the inland route
About 50 minutes and 56 km, and the best one to actually ride.
This one is not about a beach. You climb inland on winding roads to a village perched on a rock, with a castle above and a turquoise reservoir below. It is one of the most visited spots in the province, and you understand why when you arrive.
Two warnings: inland heat in summer is not coastal heat, so take water; and the village fills up by mid-morning, so an early start changes the experience completely.
5. Tabarca (not by scooter, but almost)
Scooter to Santa Pola, about 35 minutes and 36 km, then the boat.
The only inhabited island in the Valencia region. You obviously cannot ride there, but the combination works: leave the bike in Santa Pola and take the ferry across. The water around Tabarca is a marine reserve, which is a technical way of saying you can see the bottom.
Check the ferry timetable before you set off — especially the last one back.
Three practical things before you go
You cannot leave Spain. The equivalence between a car licence and 125 cc bikes is Spanish and only applies here. Everything on this list is within the province, so it is not an issue, but it is worth knowing.
The 300 km a day are pooled. Ride 400 one day and 100 the next and you pay nothing extra. None of these routes comes close to the limit, even there and back.
In summer, leave early. It is not only the heat: everywhere on this list fills up by mid-morning, and parking — even for a scooter — gets awkward.