The holiday resort of Camp de Mar, along with the towns of Andratx, Port d’Andratx, S’Arraco, and Sant Elm, are the principal developments of the municipal district of Andratx on the extreme south west corner of Majorca.

As far as the distance is concerned, the 32km or 20 mile journey west from the Son Sant Joan International airport on the outskirts of Palma, to the centre of Camp de Mar is a fairly short one.

The journey, for those who have chosen to drive, is also fairly straightforward for the most part, although a slight complication certainly worth mentioning is that in recent years the local Government on the island has re-numbered most of the roads on Mallorca, so please make sure that you have an up to date map before setting out!

The basic route for this journey is from the roundabout leaving the airport grounds take the 1st exit onto the Ma-19 Autovia de Levante heading west towards Palma, before then joining the Ma-20 Circunvalacion de Palma.

Continue along the Ma-20 Circunvalacion de Palma as it arcs around the northern residential and industrial suburbs of the city to merge with the Ma-1 Carretera de Palma - Palmanova.

Continue west along the Ma-1c to the junction with the Carretera de Andratx - Paguera. Continue along this road to the junction with the Ma-1010 Via de Francisca Capllonch Plomer which will then take you to within a few hundred metres of the resort centre.

A more detailed version of this route, complete with links to maps where appropriate, is available from the Route Map link on the left hand frame of this page.

All things considered the resort transfer should usually take between 30 to 45 minutes, but can and often does vary, depending upon the time of day and the volume of traffic on the Palma motorways.

A point that should be taken into account when planning this journey, is that although many tour operators now consider resort transfers to be an "optional extra", for which you are expected to pay for in addition to your flight and accommodation costs, at least one of the major tour operators is also known to make prior transfers into the resort of Paguera, before then making the short trip into Camp de Mar, which can effectively add another 45 minutes to the overall transfer time.

This unscheduled "island tour", although very scenic I'm sure, is however forcing many visitors to actively consider making their own arrangements for the journey by either pre-booked hire car, or alternatively by one of the many taxis from the ranks outside of the arrivals hall.

Although taxis from the airport do operate on a fixed price basis, typically charging around 45 euro for the journey to Camp de Mar, this "fixed price" can, and often does, vary slightly depending upon the number of suitcases, the time of day or night of the journey, and of course the number of passengers carried.

It's also worthwhile mentioning that as a rule, taxis do not normally carry child seats, so very small children will have to sit on their parents knees for the journey.

If this is a cause for concern, we strongly recommend that you make arrangements for a pre-booked taxi to be waiting for you, and clearly specify at the time of booking that a child seat is needed for the journey.

Pre-booked taxis are often a little more expensive, although as with all things in life, you only get what you pay for.

Once you are in the resort, and have settled in to your accommodation, the journey back into Palma for shopping or sightseeing is then surprisingly easy by public transport, as throughout the year the local bus operator runs a regular service along most of the south west coast.

On a number of occasions, visitors to Mallorca ask us for details of bus timetables, however bitter experience has shown us that the term "timetable" is sometimes too generous a term to best describe the time the buses actually run, although these are published each year on the bus stop in town, and on the Transport de les Illes Balears web site, however, in both cases clearly no responsibility can be accepted as to either the content or accuracy of information provided by these external sources.

Overall the municipal district of Andratx covers an area of 82km2, and is home to a resident population of around 8,000 people. However, during the summer months this figure can grow to around 24,000, illustrating the importance of the area to the islands tourist industry.

Most of the visitors to Camp de Mar don't as a rule tend to be on a traditional package holiday, and many of the major tour operators in the UK don't as yet even include the resort in their summer sun offerings. Instead, most if not all, of the visitors here are independent travellers who either prefer to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, or own holiday homes in the area.

Many of the impressive villas in and around the resort, are either Spanish or German owned holiday homes, and if you are very lucky, you may even catch sight of either Claudia Schiffer, Tom Cruise or Michael Schumacher who all own property in the area.

Camp de Mar is certainly no stranger to the rich and famous. Over the years the town has had a reputation for attracting celebrities of the era, one of which being the wife of Rudolf Valentino who lived in the area during the 1930's.

Despite the aggressive tourist developments that have gone on at many of the other more well known south coast resorts, Camp de Mar has somehow managed to maintain the image of a small and exclusive beach resort that has remained somewhat isolated from most of the other tourist areas on the island.

The half dozen or so hotels to be found here are predominantly of a 4 or 5 star standard and, in the main, cater for both German and British guests looking for a peaceful beach holiday.

Other than the restaurants and bars to be found in these hotels, the range of amenities in the resort is however surprisingly limited. Evening entertainment here is also generally hotel based, but to be honest, the prospect of dancing in clubs until the early hours is not what would attract you to Camp de Mar.

If however, the prospect of lying on a sunbed for 2 weeks doesn't hold to much of an appeal to you, or should you wish to experience a more typical Mallorcan family resort, then Paguera is around 3km away to the east, and the more lively Santa Ponsa a little further around the bay.

For the more active visitor, the south west of the Mallorca around Camp de Mar has no less than 6 championship standard golf courses, the nearest being the Golf de Andratx who's 18th green is adjacent to the grounds of the very exclusive 5 star Royal Dorint Hotel.

This development is Mallorca's newest course, and was only opened to the public in 2000 following a design credited to the Gleneagles Golf Development and Rodney Barr.

Also certainly worth a brief mention here is the very exclusive harbour at Puerto de Andratx which, with the provision for over 300 moorings, is widely recognised as being one of the best known yachting marinas on the island.

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This website was launched on 1 May 2002

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