Caminito del Rey Tickets in 2026 – €10 If You're Early, €55 If You're Late

The official Caminito del Rey ticket costs €10 in 2026 – €18 with an official guide – and is sold at caminitodelrey.info. The catch: the year's roughly 220,000 tickets went on sale in three big batches, the last on 8 April, and the popular dates vanished within days.

There are no tickets at the gate, and no, cancellations are not quietly re-released on Tuesday mornings – that is a blog myth. If your dates show sold out, the realistic way in is a guided tour that holds its own entry allocation. Every price on this page was checked against the official site on 21 July 2026.

Caminito del Rey ticket prices in 2026

Every figure below is the current 2026 price. If a site quotes you €11.50 entry, a €1.55 shuttle or a children's discount, it is recycling old information.

There is no child, senior or student rate. From age 8 upwards everyone pays full price, and under-8s are not admitted at all – a child judged under 8 at the control cabin is turned away even with a valid ticket. Purchases are capped at ten tickets per person.

For scale: comparable guided day trips from Málaga run €70–95 on GetYourGuide and about the same on Viator. The €55 tour above is currently the cheapest full package on the route, not a budget compromise – it is the top-rated operator's own departure, discounted from €60.

How the official ticket system actually works

The official site does not sell on a rolling calendar. The Diputación de Málaga releases tickets in a few big batches a year, announces each one in the press, and that is the entire supply until the next batch.

The 2026 releases have all happened:

• 17 September 2025 – visits from 2 December 2025 to 22 March 2026
• 4 December 2025 – visits from 24 March to 28 June 2026
• 8 April 2026 – visits from 30 June to 6 December 2026 (~220,000 tickets)

So if your date shows sold out today, refreshing the page tomorrow changes nothing – there is no drip of new stock. The 2027 release dates are not yet announced; going by the pattern, expect the first one in autumn 2026, announced by the Diputación rather than on the booking page itself.

A few more rules worth knowing before you buy. Official tickets cannot be changed or refunded – the single exception is when the operator closes the path for weather or safety, in which case you get four calendar days from the announcement to rebook or claim a refund through your account. Everyone must carry photo ID at the entrance, and visitors aged 8–17 need proof of age plus an accompanying adult.

The path opens Tuesday to Sunday and closes on Mondays, plus 24, 25 and 31 December and 1 January. Entry slots run roughly 08:30–17:00 in summer and autumn, moving to about 09:00–16:00 on the winter timetable – go by the exact time printed on your ticket. Heavy rain or strong wind can close the path at short notice; scattered showers normally do not.

Sold out? Here is what still works

From May to October, "no availability" is the default state of the official calendar – you are not unlucky, you are just late to a batch. Work down this list until one line matches your situation.

1. If your date still shows available on the official site

   Book it now – €10, and it will not hold.

   Popular dates sell through in days once a batch drops, there is no waitlist, and no refunds once bought. Sort the ticket before flights, hotel or anything else.

   Official site
2. If your dates show sold out but can move

   Shift to a weekday – it often unlocks a slot.

   Monday to Thursday sees far less demand than weekends, and November to March is rarely full. Moving one or two days sideways beats any refresh-the-page ritual.

   When the path is quietest
3. If your date is fixed and the official calendar is empty

   A guided tour from Málaga is the realistic way in.

   Tour operators hold their own entry allocations, so tours stay bookable long after the official site shows full. €55 covers the ticket, return transport from Málaga and a live guide in English – with free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

   Check tour availability
4. If you have your own transport and only need entry

   Resellers hold small entry-only allocations.

   GetYourGuide sells the same self-guided entry with free cancellation, at a small markup over the official €10 – often the only source with slots inside two weeks.

   Check entry-only slots

The hardest dates to rescue are Saturdays and Sundays in July and August, Spanish holidays such as Semana Santa, and the few days after a weather closure reopens, when rescheduled visitors pile in. If even the tours are full – it happens on peak weekends – El Chorro has a second gorge walk, the Desfiladero del Tajo (a few euros, booked at desfiladerodeltajo.info), which does not sell out the same way.

On self-guided versus guided: the walk itself needs no guide – it is one-way and impossible to get lost. The €18 official guided visit adds history and geology; the Málaga tours are really about the transport and the guaranteed ticket. Groups of four or more who want hotel pickup can price up the private version instead.

Getting there without losing the day

The gorge sits about 60 km north of Málaga. Three ways in, honestly compared – and remember the walk is strictly one-way, entering at the north end (Ardales side) and exiting at El Chorro in the south.

By tour. Pickup in central Málaga, drop-off at the entrance, walk, coach home – 6.5 to 7 hours door to door with the ticket handled. This is the answer if you are not renting a car. Staying on the coast instead? The Caminito from Marbella guide covers those pickups.

By train. Renfe runs Málaga María Zambrano to El Chorro in around 50 minutes, roughly 11 services on weekdays and a couple more at weekends – a few euros each way, so check times and current fares on renfe.com before committing to a slot. From El Chorro station the €2.50 shuttle takes you to the north entrance; the walk then finishes back at El Chorro, a short stroll from your return train. Do not miss the last one – the taxi alternative is painful.

By car. About 60 minutes from Málaga on the A-357. Park at the Visitors' Reception Centre car park on the Ardales side (€2 per day, reservable with your ticket), walk the route, then ride the shuttle from El Chorro back to the car. The shuttle runs roughly 07:40–19:00, is valid in either direction all day, and takes cash only – the official FAQ says in capital letters that cards are not accepted, and there is no ATM nearby.

The walk: what you are signing up for

Is it worth it? For almost everyone, yes – 7.7 km and 3–4 hours of boardwalks bolted to a limestone gorge 100 metres above the Guadalhorce, wide, railed and physically easy. It is the single best half-day out from Málaga, and the spectacle does the work without a hard climb.

The honest caveat: the exposure is real. Drops of up to 100 metres, see-through grille sections and a bridge that moves underfoot. Confident walkers and older kids are fine; someone with a genuine fear of heights will spend three hours suffering, and there is no early exit once you are on the boardwalks. This is the one case where we would say skip it – no view is worth that.

On safety: the path you walk today dates from the €5.5 million rebuild that reopened in March 2015 – new boardwalks, steel anchors, railings throughout and mandatory helmets, with no deaths on the rebuilt walkway since. The accidents people half-remember happened on the abandoned 1905 service path, which is exactly why it was rebuilt.

The route runs in three acts: a riverside warm-up through pine forest, then the gorge itself – the suspended boardwalks and the long drops you came for – then a gentler descent through the Hoyo Valley to El Chorro. Watch for griffon vultures riding the thermals (you will almost certainly see several), ibex on the far cliffs, and fossilised shells in the limestone.

New for 2026: Spain's longest pedestrian suspension bridge

Since 10 June 2026 the final stretch has a new option most guides have not caught up with: a 110-metre suspension bridge – the longest pedestrian one in Spain – hung up to 50 metres above the gorge floor and just 1.2 metres wide.

It is an alternative, not a replacement. The bridge cuts almost a kilometre off the steepest downhill section near the railway bridge and El Chorro tunnel, while the classic path stays open for anyone who has had enough swaying for one day. No ticket change, no price change – the €1.5 million build was paid for entirely out of ticket revenue.

If you found the older boardwalks thrilling rather than terrifying, take it: 110 metres of open air on a 1.2-metre deck is the new signature moment of the walk.

What to wear – and what gets you turned away

Closed shoes with grip are effectively mandatory: flip-flops and sandals are refused at the entrance, where footwear is checked. Helmets are provided and compulsory, so leave yours at home.

Carry at least a litre of water per person, sun protection and a light layer – the gorge holds shade and a breeze even in summer. There is no food, water or toilet after the control cabin, and the last reliable toilets are at Restaurante El Kiosko by the shuttle stop. Large rucksacks go into lockers at the entrance, so bring a small daypack you can wear for the full 7.7 km.

Your day, hour by hour

The rhythm below assumes you drive and park on the Ardales side; train users join at the shuttle.

With a car, add a swim: the Conde de Guadalhorce reservoir and its pine-shaded shores are ten minutes' drive from the car park.

Caminito or Ronda?

If you have one free day from Málaga: Caminito is the better single spectacle and by far the harder ticket – book it first and plan the rest of the trip around it. The Ronda day trip is the fuller day out – clifftop town, gorge bridge, wine – and can be arranged the night before.

Do Caminito for the walk, Ronda for the wandering, and both if you have the time. Andalusia's other must-book day trip, the Alhambra from Málaga, needs planning just as far ahead; the day trips guide ranks the rest.

A short history

1. 1
   1905

   Built for dam workers

   A concrete service path for the El Chorro hydroelectric works – a metre wide in places, no railings.

2. 2
   1921

   The King walks it

   Alfonso XIII crosses the path to inaugurate the Conde del Guadalhorce dam, and it becomes the King's little path.

3. 3
   1990s

   Collapse and closure

   Decades of neglect leave gaping holes; after fatal accidents it is closed, and becomes notorious among climbers.

4. 4
   2015

   The €5.5m rebuild

   New boardwalks above the crumbling originals, helmets, railings and a daily visitor cap. Reopens March 2015.

You still walk above the ruins of the 1905 path for much of the route – the best reminder of why the daily cap and the ticket scramble exist at all. The rest of your trip is covered in the Málaga guide.

FAQ – Caminito del Rey tickets