Where to live – Alicante or Valencia?
When we did our tour of Spain in search of a future base, two of the cities high on our list were Alicante and Valencia.
What many people don’t realize is that the two cities are very, very different. Chances are, if Valencia appeals to you then you probably won’t find Alicante of any interest. Similarly, those who settle in Alicante most likely won’t be interested in what Valencia has to offer. It’s no surprise then that the foreigners who settle in these two cities are very different.
This post covers the differences between Alicante and Valencia and the kind of people that are attracted by each city.
Valencia
Valencia is a “real” city, Spain’s 3rd largest city with a diversified economy hinged on services, manufacturing and agriculture. It is also a beautiful and historic city with an attractive old town. The closest comparison I can think of is Seville, another beautiful metropolis.
It is a rich, cultural city and if the amenities of city life attract you then you’ll likely fall in love with Valencia. You’ll live among palaces, churches, marble-paved plazas, winding backstreets, museums and galleries. Valencia’s Central Market is one of Europe’s best food markets. Valencia is also a green city, with a huge park (the Turia) that winds around the old town. It is pedestrian-friendly and we were surprised by all the bike paths that cut through the city (something we haven’t seen anywhere else in Spain).
Valencia’s airport is just 8 km away and is the 8th busiest airport is Spain. It is served by all the major European airlines and there are connections to about 20 European capitals. It can easily be accessed by metro and bus, which all makes Valencia a great base.
Related: What’s it like living in Valencia?
Alicante
Alicante’s greatest asset are its beaches. In Valencia the beaches are several kilometers away from the city center – but in Alicante you have easy access to the beach everywhere including in the center of the city. If you find those crowded, you can take Alicante’s modern tram up the coast and have it drop you off right at the feet of some of Spain’s most beautiful beaches.
Alicante has an old town (and its own Central Market) and a looming fortress, the Castillo de Santa Bárbara. I’ll be honest though – Alicante is not very attractive. The old town is the least impressive of the old towns we’ve seen in any of Spain’s major cities and, although you have a few boulevards lined with palm trees, most of Alicante’s neighbourhoods feature tight streets lined by unattractive apartment blocks (the unattractive apartment blocks that remind us so much of parts of the Costa del Sol).
As far as beauty goes, Alicante doesn’t compare to Valencia.
Alicante’s airport is 12 km away from the city center and is the 5th busiest in Spain. Like Valencia’s airport, it has connections all over Europe. Even more so. For now there is no rail line to the airport, you can access the airport by bus.
Valencia or Alicante – so which is for you?
Alicante is laid-back and expats who do settle here are older and looking for proximity to beaches. It is on the Costa Blanca, regarded by most as the most beautiful stretch of beaches in Spain. Valencia is a more attractive, dynamic, more cultural place and most people choosing Valencia are of working age. It has beaches but they’re about 30 minutes from the city center.
As far as the provinces of Alicante and Valencia? Almost 41% of buyers of property in Alicante province are foreigners. It is the province with the highest percentage of foreigners in Spain. Most stay not in Alicante itself but in the nearby cities of Javea and Torrevieja (where foreigners make up over 40% of residents). In Valencia province just 11% of buyers of property are from abroad. In real numbers, there are about 5 times more purchases of property by foreigners in Alicante province as there are in Valencia province.
As I say, these numbers are reflective of the overall numbers in Alicante and Valencia provinces, not so much the provincial capitals (which have roughly the same percentage of expats). But it does reflect on what expats buying/moving to these two provinces are looking for in terms of lifestyle.
Our personal opinion
We spent 11 days in Alicante and 2 weeks in Valencia.
After a day in Alicante we realize that it was definitely not the city for us. It left us feeling very uninspired. More here (including a video).
Valencia on the other hand blew us away. We wrote about that here (also including a video). In fact we thought Valencia would be our future home – then Covid hit and changed our priorities (which I wrote about here).
So for us there was absolutely no contest. But again, that depends on who you are and where you are in life.
What do you think? Alicante or Valencia?
Related: Where to live as a retiree in Spain? Places…and comparing Theory vs Reality
Related: The Best Places to live in Alicante Province
Related: How to Get a Spanish Non-Lucrative Residence Visa (a step-by-step guide)
I live right in the middle of both towns in Javea.
I like living outside the big city better. Especially in the high season, but it’s unbearably crowded everywhere.
Another option is to choose some pretty towns near those cities. Valencia and Alicante have a lot of towns in their provinces.
Thanks for mentioning the bicycles paths in Valencia. It was truly impressive to see a city with this level of commitment to protected bike/scooter lanes. That plus the underground subway, the trams and the buses made it a very easy to move around this medium-sized city. There’s a lot to love about Valencia.
Totally agree!
Hello from Belgium! I do agree with the fact that Alicante is not very impressive except the beach…
We are couple that want to buy a flat in Spain at Mediterranean & the first city to visit was Alicante, but I did not find that “charm” to make us stay, so next trip will be in Valencia – considering the advice of some friends who moved there. Haven’t visit Malaga yet, so we might consider it…also Costa Brava really impressed me with it’s beauty, but I think the summer does not last long there… Wish everyone best of luck in finding their happy place!
Thank you for your comment Lora. Good luck with the search!
I live midway between Alicante and Valencia and visit Valencia regularly. Think I’ve been to Alicante twice in almost twenty years of living here. It just doesn’t hold the attraction for me that Valencia does. Valencia is easy to get to by train, it’s easy to get around with beautiful architecture and a fabulous Mercado.
Thanks Susan. Yes, I wholeheartedly agree!
Hard to judge a place that you’ve only been to twice in twenty years but do agree that the city of Valencia is more attractive and interesting to visit. Alicante has a great metro that takes ones up the coast, hop on hop off, and in Valencia one has to go to the train stations and take much longer trips to get to other towns down the coast. And for those that like to walk, bike, scooter, next to the sea Alicante wins since the sea is next to the city. Anyway, all opinions are interesting to read and mine is different than yours. Only when visiting can one really decide which place is best for them.
Funny after 22 years in espana having lived in Alicante Valencia Barcelona Bilbao Tarragona
Plus a host of smaller citys and towns.
I find it strange that you limit yourself to citys . When Espana is far far more than its citys in fact sometimes health infrastructure and social spending is far healthier in smaller conurbations
Some With a superior financial base .
Plus the difference in community’s and provinces in the degree of corruption tolerated varies widely
We were initially looking at mid-sized cities simply because we’ve always lived in cities and we like the liveliness and culture of a city.
In the end, because of Covid, we ended up in a small town (pop 25,000). There’s +/- with each, depending on what you like.
Hi Noel, from your extensive experience, out of the cities mentioned by you, how would you rank Tarragona? For retirement, vs. Valencia or Alicante. Seems nice, cheaper and close enough to Barcelona…There is some chemical plant nearby but I haven’t found info that this pollutes more than nearby Barcelona…
Many thanks in advance for your thoughts,
Jan
I have lived in Tarragona for the last two years and I love it! It has easy access to Barcelona, impressive Roman ruins and history, a beautiful old town and Rambla and is big enough to have a lot of activities and events. Let me know if you have questions!
Hello
I live in Lanzarote and took a week’s holiday to Alicante and a ten day trip to Valencia, both this year and apart 2 months apart. First time for me in both cities. Alicante city was spoiled for me by the huge cliffs that border the coastline. It meant long walks around them to return to the coast.
I really loved Valencia. I stayed in the old town not far from the station. The metro and the bus services and also the trams are just wonderful. A very easy city to get around on foot or using their transport systems.
Both weekends were noisy up until midnight and beyond but then I had expected that. Very vibrant and wonderful city. I will go back again. I won’t revisit Alicante.
We spent several months considering where to move in Spain, including a month in Valencia and two in Alicante, and, for us, Alicante won hands down. As to “what do you do if beaches are not your primary interest” — Alicante has loads of cultural institutions and live performance spots, in addition to year-round street festivals. Valencia is gorgeous architecturally, for sure, but it was simply too big and loud (and, we felt, far less friendly). Your data is a bit messed up, too. While Alicante province has several British ghettos, the city has only around 13% expats (almost exactly the same percentage as Valencia), and very few of them are British. (The largest numbers are from places like Romania, and latin America).
Thanks Reho. A couple of links Here and here about foreigners and Brits buying property in Alicante province. Foreigners actually accounted for over 50% of house purchases in Alicante in the years prior to Covid…since then they’ve bounced around in the 39 – 45% range.
As for Alicante city specifically, you are right about expats being about 13% and the largest numbers being from places like Latin America (the numbers I cited were from Alicante province). Expats mostly live outside the city in places such as Javea and Torrevieja where over 40% of residents are expats.
Totally agree. I’ve spent time in both and bought in Alicante in 2019. If I want a “big” city, and beach access I’d go to Barcelona or Malaga. Valencia has lovely things to do and is gorgeous but it left me cold. It’s a bit sprawling and the airport doesn’t have the same access to the world. I just found Alicante to be a lot more fun and easier to find a sense of community as an expat.
Great information and very helpful. We are heading to Spain in February to check out Valencia and areas down to Alicante for relocating in the future. We are presently US Expats living in Colombia writing about our travels around Colombia and South America.
Have you used a relocation company to help you with your move?
Cheers,
John and Susan Pazera
Thanks for the kind words. We initially had all our furniture moved from Canada to Croatia using AGS (wrote about it here on our other blog). They were very good. Later, when moving to Spain, they trucked our things from their warehouse in Zagreb to Spain.
They have offices all over Europe.
Good luck!
Hello,
So we did visit Alicante and Valencia areas all the way down to Cartagena in February. We loved both Valencia and Alicante. Alicante ticked off all the points for us: A smaller compact city, lots of parks and pedestrian-only streets, easy to get around on foot, awesome beaches, and a modern light rail system. The nearby train station and International airport. Many marinas, nearby hiking, a bit more affordable than Valencia and without all the traffic.
Cheers!
I agree with all your points about Alicante – except that we found it generally unattractive. What do you do in Alicante if beaches aren’t at the top of your criteria list? In the end it just didn’t hold any attraction for us. VS Valencia which is much more cultural and attractive, a city that we could live in.
Hello I am from Colombia, live in the US and currently I am doing a marketing study about the value of properties, lifestyle, etc in Alicante, I find fascinating the information you provide and definitely Spain has too much to offer.
Thanks, Frank! Totally agree with your comments on Alicante. We haven’t been to Valencia yet, but spent a month, twice, in Alicante, once in the Spring, then in the fall (of another year). And yes, while we liked visiting–and the beaches are great–we didn’t find it particularly engrossing. We’re now living in the south of France, but pre-pandemic we made it a point to spend a month or more around Christmas in Seville, a truly impressive city and a fun place to be during the holidays.
I’d say we’re done with Alicante, but we most certainly looking forward to visiting Valencia!
Thanks Paul. I hope life is good for you guys on Montpelier. Maybe one day our paths cross.
If you loved Seville I know you’ll also enjoy Valencia.
I have never been to Alicante, so can’t really comment. I have been to Valência and loved it. From the very first day I could imagine myself living there. Although we have no plans of moving from the South of England, I often think Spain would be a great country to live and enjoy a more outdoors lifestyle. I love England, but the winter here is long and miserable.
It is a beautiful city Gilda. And you’re right about weather – Canada was great to live in while we worked, but to be retired and living through 6 months of winter? No thanks.
We have a Valencian student living with us and he’s so enthusiastic about his home that we, now, would like to visit for a few weeks first, then may want to live there for 2-6 months of the year.
We live in Parksville on Vancouver Island, Canada. It is called the Riviera of Canada because of the lack of rain and most sun on the Island than any other place here. I chose to retire here because my students science projects on Vancouver Island weather taught me this fact. However, the winter cloudy and rainy periods can be a ‘downer’ at times so why not visit Valencia? We’re hoping to visit in February or March for a month before we decide but any information and advice would be appreciated especially about how to locate a relocation agent.
Cheers,
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn. Valencia IS a beautiful city and the size is very manageable. Very lively and cultural. I’m sorry I don’t have any info on agents there. You might want to join the Valencia expats page. But a good idea also to join any Spanish expat page for more general info and tips, you’ll sometimes see people threads on Valencia and experiences moving/living there.
Hope that helps 🙂
PS lived in Vancouver/Vancouver Island as a child. Beautiful area…but I also remember the rain so I can relate.