Getting to Mijas Pueblo by Bus: Two Towns Are Direct, One Is Not

Mijas Pueblo is reachable by public bus from most of the western Costa del Sol, and the useful thing to know before you plan a morning around it is which towns get there on one bus. Fuengirola, Benalmádena and Torremolinos do. Marbella does not – it needs a change at Fuengirola, which turns a 30km trip into roughly an hour and a half.

Two lines do almost all the work: the M-122 from Fuengirola and the M-121 running Torremolinos–Benalmádena–Mijas. Both are CTMAM services operated by Avanza, and both run on timetables valid from March 2025 through 2030, so anything you find quoting pre-2025 schedules is stale.

Every route at a glance

From Fuengirola: the shortest approach

This is the one most visitors use, and it is genuinely easy. The M-122 runs from Fuengirola bus terminal up to Mijas Pueblo in about 25 minutes, with departures roughly every 30 to 60 minutes and an operating window running from around 07:20 to 21:30.

A taxi covers the same ground in 12 to 15 minutes, which is the sensible option with small children, luggage or a fixed lunch reservation. The Mijas from Fuengirola guide covers the half-day from that direction in detail.

From Benalmádena and Torremolinos: one line, two very different journeys

Both towns are served by the M-121, which runs Torremolinos–Benalmádena–Mijas and calls at Benalmádena Costa, Arroyo de la Miel, Benalmádena Pueblo and the Estupa Tibetana on the way. No change, either way.

From Benalmádena it is about 31 minutes, roughly hourly. That is a straightforward morning out.

From Torremolinos the picture is less tidy. Every source agrees the service is direct; none agree on how long it takes. CTMAM's own timetable shows a departure at 08:45 arriving 09:57, which is 72 minutes. Other tools give 51 to 70 minutes depending on the variant, and one gives 57 minutes from Puerto Marina.

The honest range is roughly 51 to 72 minutes, and the variation is real rather than a data error – the line runs variants that take different paths through Benalmádena.

Plan on the longer figure. Frequency runs from about every 20 minutes to hourly, with an operating window of roughly 08:45 to 19:40.

From Marbella: there is no direct bus

This is the one that catches people out, because Marbella feels close and the map suggests it should be simple.

There is no through service. The route is L-60 from Marbella to Fuengirola – about 30 minutes, hourly, run by Avanza – and then the M-122 up to Mijas Pueblo, about 25 minutes. With the connection, budget about 1h26 in total, each way.

That is nearly three hours of travelling for a village you can see properly in three. If you are based in Marbella and set on Mijas Pueblo, drive or take a taxi.

And if the point is a white-village day out rather than Mijas specifically, Ronda is roughly 45 minutes from Marbella on the A-397 – a better use of the same day. The Mijas and Ronda comparison sets out how differently those two work.

What it costs, honestly

CTMAM moved to a new zone-based fare table on 1 July 2025, priced by saltos – the number of zone boundaries you cross:

• 0 saltos: €1.60
• 1 salto: €1.75
• 2 saltos: €2.50
• 3 saltos: €3.75
• Transfer supplement: €0.39

What we cannot tell you is which band the Fuengirola–Mijas Pueblo hop falls into, because no published table maps that specific route to a saltos count. So the honest answer is somewhere between €1.60 and €3.75, almost certainly at the lower end for a 25-minute local run, and confirmed at the machine or on the bus rather than here.

Any page quoting an exact euro figure for this route is either using a pre-July-2025 fare or guessing. Both are worth less than the range.

Arriving from the airport, or driving

The airport is a different problem with a different answer, and we cover it separately in the Málaga Airport to Mijas transfer guide rather than repeating it here.

If you are driving, the village is a short climb inland from the coast road and everything funnels to the same place: the car park under the main square, free for the first hour and €1 for up to nine. The Mijas parking guide has the full tariff and the free roadside options, including the hour on a summer weekend when they run out.

FAQ – getting to Mijas Pueblo