Car transport
Car transport to Alicante
Your own car driven to Alicante or the Costa Blanca, one dedicated driver on the eastern route via Barcelona and Valencia, two days door to door.
Netherlands → Alicante
The coast with the most Dutch addresses
Between Dénia and Torrevieja lies the densest concentration of Dutch and Belgian second homes in all of Spain. Jávea, Moraira, Calpe, Altea, Benissa, Guardamar, Orihuela Costa, towns where the baker speaks Dutch and where the first winter residents arrive in mid-October.
What is usually missing is the car. Two weeks of renting is manageable; three months of renting costs as much as a second holiday, and every arrival starts again at a desk with a queue and a fuel clause you didn't read.
Alicante is 2,020 kilometres away, the shortest of my Spanish routes. Two driving days, one driver, and the car is at your door on the Costa Blanca while you simply flew.
Your route
Netherlands → Alicante
One direct drive from the Netherlands, your own car, one dedicated driver, from your door to the destination. Every other destination in Europe I drive just as readily.
direct route · 1 dedicated driver
Price indication — Alicante
One-way
~ 2020 km · ~ 2 driving days
- Driver fee
- € 800
- Travel expenses (calculated up front, no mark-up)
- € 1.160
- Total (indicative)
- ± € 2.380
incl. 21% VAT · ± € 1.960 excl. VAT
Return (combi)
~ 2020 km · ~ 4 driving days
- Driver fee
- € 1.500
- Travel expenses (calculated up front, no mark-up)
- € 2.150
- Total (indicative)
- ± € 4.420
incl. 21% VAT · ± € 3.650 excl. VAT
Prices may vary slightly due to variable costs such as hotel, fuel and tolls.
Who drives this route
Why cars go to the Costa Blanca
This route has the broadest audience of any destination I drive.
Second homes on the northern Costa Blanca
Jávea, Moraira, Calpe, Altea, Dénia and Benissa sit an hour north of the airport, with plenty of hill roads and urbanisations. That is exactly where a rental car is awkward and having your own is the difference between a holiday and logistics.
Winter residents around Torrevieja
Torrevieja, Guardamar and Orihuela Costa fill up from October to April. The car goes down in autumn and comes back in spring. Booked as one assignment, that is considerably better value per kilometre.
Long stays and semi-emigrants
Anyone spending most of the year in Spain while staying registered in the Netherlands wants their own car with its own service history. It drives down once and stays.
The route
Netherlands → Alicante on the eastern corridor
Unlike Málaga, this route doesn't go via Bordeaux but straight through France to the Mediterranean and then down the Spanish east coast. ± 2,020 km, two driving days.
- 01
Collection at your home
Your address · 30–45 min
360° condition report with photos, odometer and fuel level recorded, transport agreement signed. You keep a copy and receive the report digitally.
- 02
Netherlands → Lyon
Day 1 · ± 900 km
Via Antwerp, Reims and Beaune onto the French Autoroute du Soleil. This is the fastest part of the trip, and also the most toll-heavy.
- 03
Lyon → La Jonquera → Barcelona
Day 1/2 · ± 550 km
Past Montpellier and Perpignan across the Spanish border at La Jonquera. Overnight near Barcelona or Tarragona, in an enclosed or guarded car park.
- 04
Barcelona → Alicante
Day 2 · ± 550 km
The AP-7 and A-7 along the coast: Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia, Dénia, Benidorm, Alicante. A large part of this stretch is now toll-free, which keeps this route relatively good value.
- 05
Delivery on the coast
Your Costa Blanca address
Second 360° report, key handed over personally. Then I fly back from Alicante, direct to Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Rotterdam or Brussels.
What matters on this route
Recurring events
The Hogueras de San Juan, every year from 20 to 24 June. Monuments of wood and cork up to twelve metres high go up across the city, satirical scenes that burn at the close of the fiesta. It is designated a Festival of International Tourist Interest and the centre is largely closed to traffic during it. If you are taking delivery around that date, we agree an address outside the centre.
Much of the Spanish coast road is toll-free
On the eastern corridor a substantial part of the motorway between Tarragona and Alicante can be driven without tolls. That is noticeable in the travel expenses, which I calculate up front and include in the fixed price. You pay exactly what the receipts say.
French Saturdays in July and August
The southbound Autoroute du Soleil is one of Europe's busiest roads on summer Saturdays. I schedule this trip mid-week then; it saves hours and is markedly calmer driving.
The northern Costa Blanca is hillier than you'd think
Jávea, Moraira and Benissa sit partly in the hills, with narrow urbanisation roads and steep driveways. Do mention it if your house is hard to reach; then the last kilometre is planned rather than improvised.
A car that stands for months
On the Costa Blanca a second car often stands unused for most of the year, close to the sea. That asks something different from a car driven every week: a battery that drains, tyre pressures that sink and salt air that goes to work on brake discs. So I deliver with a full tank, note the tyre pressures and the odometer in the arrival report, and say so if anything struck me on the way. If you want the car left on a trickle charger or the handbrake off, I will do that, tell me at booking.
Return flights all year round
Alicante is one of Spain's best-connected airports for the Netherlands and Belgium. That makes a one-way trip efficient: I fly home rather than driving back empty, and that ticket appears as its own line on your invoice.
Two driving days, but shorter than Málaga
At 2,020 kilometres this is the shortest of my Spanish routes, some 250 to 500 kilometres less than the Costa del Sol or the Algarve. That translates directly into lower fuel and toll costs.
Compare your options
The same car from the Netherlands to Southern Europe, three ways, three price tags. With a trailer, watch which one you are comparing: riding along on a scheduled line from depot to depot is the cheapest there is, but a transporter making the run for your car alone charges per kilometre and bills the truck’s journey home as well. Between those two extremes sits a factor of five.
Trailer transport
€675 – 4,500 excl.
± 10 working days, or 2–3
- €675 – 850 if your car rides along on a scheduled line
- But then you take it to the depot yourself and collect it yourself on arrival, ten working days later
- If the transporter runs for your car alone, door to door, it goes per kilometre — open ± €0.95, enclosed ± €1.35 — and the truck’s journey home counts too. Utrecht–Marbella comes to ± €4,500
- Luggage in the car usually not allowed
Driving it yourself
± €0.25 per km + your time
± 2 – 3 days of your own
- You drive the whole route yourself
- Fuel and tolls come to roughly €0.25 per kilometre
- Plus a hotel night on the way and a flight back
- And two to three days of your own time
Monarch DriveDrive-it-Back
± €2,040 excl. for Utrecht–Marbella
± 3 days
- One dedicated driver drives your own car, door to door
- Half what a transporter charges to make that same run for your car alone
- On the day you choose, not the day the line departs
- Load the car with your own luggage
- 360° condition report + daily updates
Trailer prices, September 2026: the line prices from one large Dutch car transporter's own route pages, the door-to-door price from a Dutch specialist in exclusive car transport's own rate calculator. My figure is the indication from the calculator above for Utrecht–Marbella, one way. All amounts exclude VAT so they can be read side by side. Travel expenses are calculated up front and included in the fixed price, with no mark-up.
Frequently asked
About the route to Alicante
Via France and Barcelona. For the Costa Blanca the eastern route — Lyon, Montpellier, La Jonquera, Tarragona, Valencia — is shorter and faster than the inland route through Madrid. I only divert for extreme congestion or roadworks, and you'd hear about it en route.
Yes. The whole Costa Blanca is part of this trip, from Dénia and Jávea in the north to Guardamar, Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa in the south. I deliver to your own address, including inside an urbanisation or behind a barrier, just tell me how access works.
Two driving days, ± 2,020 kilometres, with one overnight stop near Barcelona or Tarragona. Collection on a Monday morning usually means delivery on Tuesday afternoon.
You can, if agreed in advance. Some clients come along because they enjoy the drive or want to stop somewhere. Practically little changes: the condition report, the overnight stop and the pace stay the same. Billing follows the same terms; only my return flight always remains part of the travel expenses.
For the transport itself, no. I bring it and you leave it there. What does deserve attention are the rules on registration and residence: once you are registered as living in Spain, deadlines apply for changing the plates. That varies per situation, so check it with your gestor or the RDW. I don't advise on it, but I'd rather mention it.
Yes. Booking the outbound and return as one assignment — say, down in October and back in April — is clearly better value per kilometre than two separate one-way trips. The return date can stay approximate at first.
How I safeguard your car
Clear about cover
Your own policy stays leading. Damage caused by me: I cover the excess up to €500. What I do not have is stated just as plainly.
Signed transport agreement
Every arrangement — excess, route, planning — recorded in writing beforehand.
360° condition report
Your car's condition fully documented with photos, before and on delivery.
Reply within 24 hours
A personal answer from one point of contact, not a call centre.
Further reading
Everything connected to this route, in one place.
The other direction
And if your car needs to come back from Alicante?
Bringing your car back from Alicante costs ± € 2.170. Going out is ± € 2.380, so the return works out cheaper: the last driving day ends at my own door, with no hotel night at the far end and no flight home. I fly out and drive it back to you.
Ready to have your car transported safely?
Request your indication with no obligation. Within 24 hours you will have a personal reply.