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Are you looking for a winter getaway to somewhere warm but don’t want too long flight with small children? Why not consider flying to Malaga in the south of Spain and rent your own place! If you also rent a car at the airport then you will save a lot of time when doing the food shop or driving to a restaurant in the evening. With the rental car you can also do small day trips nearby.

If you decide to rent a car in Malaga or other parts of Spain always read up on useful tips and information about car hire in Spain. Gather knowledge about traffic rules, insurances and how to find the cheapest rental car.

Here are a few things to have in mind:
– Make sure to book the car in advance before you arrive at your destination. The cost is lower and you can easily compare prices and find the car that fits your needs easy online.
– Choose the insurance you want before you arrive at the destination and don’t buy the extra insurances that you are offered at the desk.
– You can either bring your own child car seat or rent it through the rental car company, but make sure to check with the airline company in advance.

We decided to bring one child car seat for our 3-month-old baby and rent the other one for our 4-year old. Always reserve before since the rental car companies normally only have a certain amount of child car seats available.

Where to stay around Malaga?

After we had booked the flight, I looked for a good place to stay. My two main requirements were firstly that the place needs to have an outdoor balcony or a small garden and secondly a nice playground or park nearby. I have learnt when travelling with small kids that there needs to be entertainment for them. We decided to stay in Torremolinos west of Malaga. This was within one-hour drive of the airport which was great.

In Torremolinos there is a nice walking promenade next to the beach with great restaurants and I also found a beautiful park named “Parque La Bateria” close by. We found a house within walking distance to the park and this was a great decision. The park had an awesome playground. My son named it “Best playground ever!”. We visited the playground at least once a day and during the other time of the day we normally had at least one other activity planned.

Visiting the mountain village Mijas

With the rental car we did a few small trips during the day and our favourite was driving up to the beautiful mountain village Mijas only 20 min by car from us. Here we wandered through the narrow streets, got a magnificent view, and could rest on a bench at the big square. Here I also made sure we added a playground visit in the village. This was a great day trip!

Beautiful view from Mijas

Final advice

In Spain there is a high standard and variety of playgrounds. What we also noticed when visiting Andalusia is that you can find good Indian restaurants which is our family’s favourite. A lot of restaurants are used to kids in Spain and some restaurants also have a small play area inside the restaurant.

If you have the possibility to bring someone along on your trip, do it! We asked Grandma to join, and we all loved it. Our oldest could sometimes play with my mum and me and my husband could get a few hours here and there for ourselves when our youngest was sleeping.

And finally, having a rental car really added flexibility and made us explore much more around Malaga than we would have otherwise done.