Car Rental Cala d'Or: Palma Airport Pick-Up and Driving Tips

If your plan is a fortnight of pool, beach and harbour dinners, you can manage without one: a package holiday with Jet2holidays, TUI, loveholidays or On the Beach usually bundles the flight, hotel and transfer, and the run from Palma takes around 40 minutes. You can compare those package deals on this page too.

The case for wanting to rent a car in Cala d'Or is that the area's interest is scattered in small pieces. Caló de Sa Torre is about 2 miles away, Cala Barca Trencada and Cala Marçal roughly 2.5 miles, s'Algar nearer 4 miles, and the archaeological sites of Closos de Can Gaià and l'Hospitalet Vell sit 3 and 7 miles off respectively. None is far, but stringing several together in a day is much easier with your own wheels.

A sensible middle path many British travellers take is to book the package with its transfer, then pick up a car locally for two or three days of exploring.

Palma de Mallorca airport (PMI) is the main pick-up point and the only airport in the facts with direct flights from the UK. Collecting there means you skip the transfer coach and drive straight to the resort in about 40 minutes; Portopetro and Portocolom are a similar 40 to 41 minutes from the terminal.

If you arrive by sea rather than air, the ferry port at Alcúdia is about 30 miles away and Palma's port about 34 miles. The live comparison on this page lets you check Cala d'Or car hire options against airport collection, so you can see which suits your arrival.

Most journeys from the resort are short hops along the coast. Portopetro is about 2 miles away, Portocolom about 3, and the Porto Colom lighthouse and the Far de Cala Figuera lighthouse near Santanyí sit around 3 and 4 miles out. Mondragó Natural Park is a protected area roughly 4 miles south, so expect to park and continue on foot to its coves.

The sites a little inland, Closos de Can Gaià and the Talayotic town of l'Hospitalet Vell, reward an early start, particularly in July and August when daytime highs reach 31 to 32°C. Small cove beaches such as Caló de Sa Torre and Cala Barca Trencada tend to have limited space nearby, so a compact car is the practical choice.

Look for a full-to-full fuel policy, where you collect the car with a full tank and return it the same way; it is the simplest arrangement to check at drop-off. Read what the excess is on the basic cover and decide before you travel whether you want to reduce it, rather than at the desk after a flight.

If you are travelling with children, reserve child seats when you book, as numbers at the desk can be limited in peak weeks. School-holiday periods are when demand is highest, so booking early for the summer and Easter holidays gives you more choice. Our comparison shows live Cala d'Or car rental prices from several suppliers side by side, so you can weigh fuel policy, cover and extras in one place.