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These are the 5 beaches in Almeria's Cabo de Gata you have to pay to visit

Almería’s protected natural park has placed restrictions on visitor numbers and activities to try and conserve the local environment

The Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park in Spain’s southeastern province of Almería is a beautiful, protected stretch of coastline that has mostly managed to fend off the mass construction of tourist apartments and resorts that have risen on much of the rest of the Mediterranean coast.

That’s why the beaches of Cabo de Gata are still so pure and have a feeling of wildness about them that is hard to find these days.

Even so, there are still lots of tourists – from both Spain and abroad – who visit these beaches every summer, which is why special measures are taken to protect them.

In order to conserve these special protected beaches, for more than 10 years now the Territorial Delegation of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy of the Andalusian Regional Government has charged people an entry fee for parking your car at some of these beaches.

These restrictions on accessing certain Cabo de Gata beaches by car are implemented during the summer months, from around June 21 until September 22.

The aim is to preserve the ecological, geological and scenic value of the Natural Park.

Which Cabo de Gata beaches have paid parking and how much is it?

The beaches that have this limitation are those located to the west of the town of San José, namely:

Playa del Barronal
Playa de Mónsul
Playa de la Media Luna
Cala Carbón
Playa de los Genoveses

On these beaches, there is a charge of 6 euros per car to park, but that is only allowed if there are free spaces.

Car park opening hours for Cabo de Gata beaches

The car parks at these 5 beaches have a combined total of 399 parking spaces.

The car parks have barriers to stop vehicles going in without paying, and the opening times for these car parks are from around 8am or 8.30am until 7pm or 8pm, depending on the beach.

In addition, the car parks are closed between 11am and 2pm and between 4.30pm and 6.30pm at the height of summer, from mid-July to mid-September.

The rest of the beaches along the Almería coast do not have these restrictions in place.

Other restrictions on Almería beaches

As well as parking on the aforementioned beaches, there are restrictions on how many people can go canoeing, kayaking and using similar non-motorised sea vehicles during this same summer period on ALL the beaches in the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park.

The maximum number of these vehicles that can be on the water of these beaches without express written authorisation from the Territorial Delegation of Sustainability is 5.

This is in order to preserve the protected marine ecosystem in the Natural Park.

You might also like: The 15 best nudist beaches to visit in Almería this summer

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