Mallorca Road-trip: The perfect 3 day travel guide for Mallorca

*** Disclaimer - This post containts affiliate links, and while booking through my links adds no extra cost to you, I do receive a percentage which helps fund my travels! I’ll love you forever, so it’s a win-win situation:) ***

Mallorca road trip, 3 days in Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain travel, one week in Mallorca

We’re nearing the end of the Sturgeon family road-trip 2019! At this point, my brother and sister left for home to start school. Two days later, my parents left for the Seychelles to celebrate their anniversary (I’m still jealous). And me? I needed to start making my way to Spain, where I would spend my semester.

To my ELATION, my other older sister, married and living halfway across the country from me, agreed to meet me in Mallorca for a 3 day road trip to continue the nature-instead-of-more-cathedrals vibe of the whole trip.

Now, there wasn’t a whole lot of info on road-tripping through Mallorca, the majority of people stay in super expensive resorts or stay in Palma to party. So we set off on our own! There were lots of bumps along the way (I’m looking at you, google maps), but we were able to essentially circumnavigate the island in just 3 days! Here’s a look into our whirlwind Mallorca road trip - it’s the perfect 3 day travel guide for Mallorca.

But first, Logistics.

Renting a car in Palma was a fairly straightforward, if lengthy, process. We asked at the airport about renting a car, and they pointed us to a bus that was ferrying people from the airport to the office. We ~ Patiently ~ waited for our number to be called, and they set us up with a fiery red fiat for our travels.

Which leads us to Google maps: Google maps has no IDEA how to get around Mallorca. we were constantly being led down staircases and through tiny irrelevant towns and on dirt roads. Apple Maps wasn’t much better. My best advice would be to be super patient, maybe grab a paper map, and stay very alert. The roads are extremely narrow and there are lots of one-ways. Tara really stepped up to the plate and handled it much better than I would’ve. (Thanks Tara!)

We rented Vrbo’s instead of staying at resorts to save money, but if you’re not balling on a budget, the hotels in Mallorca are INCREDIBLE; we spent 1 night in Soller, 1 night in Alcudia, and 1 night in palma.

Mallorca road trip, 3 days in Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain travel

Immediately after obtaining the car, we drove out of Palma and headed to Soller, which is on the north side of the island (don’t worry, we’ll come back to Palma soon!). The north of the island is chock-full of adorable hillside villages that don’t have ~ too ~ much to offer besides being cute AF, so instead of spending the day in just one, we decided to hit them all.

After checking in to our Airbnb in Soller, we decided to explore a bit before heading to Valdemossa. In city center, there’s windy streets, a beautiful cathedral (it was built by Gaudi’s apprentice I believe so that makes it super-worth your time, I promise), and the BEST bakeries (which we discovered the next morning). After taking a lap around city center, and since we knew we’d wake up in that town, we hopped in the fiat with our plantain chips and trail mix and headed to our next stop: Valdemossa.

Now, there isn’t too much to do in these small villages besides eat delicious food and wander the cute alleyways, but after a day of travel, I was perfectly content with doing just that.

One stop we did make sure to hit, however, was the Chopin museum! Tara and I are big piano nerds, so even though it might not be the most riveting things we’ve ever seen, we both still fangirled over the piano he used to compose his music, his handwritten letters, and his little corner of the monastery where he holed up during his long stays in Mallorca.

The picture above with the greenery/terrace situation is the view from the museum, so if you only go for pretty gardens and a nice look-out point, i support it.

After having our fill of wine, tapas, and historic pianos, we hopped back in the Fiat and zoomed over to Deia. We didn’t know much about Deia other than the restaurant scene from the night manager was filmed there, and it’s DREAMY.

There’s also a cute little beach where you can camp out and swim for the day. The restaurant isn’t as dressy as we had originally thought, they definitely decked it out for the movie. This honestly worked to our advantage though, we were just wearing jean shorts and tank tops, so come as you are! The food is good, but you definitely pay for the view. I’ve never eaten at a restaurant quite like this one so I would highly recommend!

After a fabulous dinner or fish croquetas and climbing on the rocks (spot me in the picture above!), we made the trip back to Soller to spend the night in our Airbnb. After waking up the next morning and hunting down napolitanas for the road, we hopped back into the fiat to continue the road trip towards the east side of the island.

Our next airbnb was located in Alcudia, but to be honest its a very commercial, touristy area that didn’t seem like much fun to us. After taking a lap through town and deciding it wasn’t for us, we headed to Pollenca and hiked down to a popular Cala (which is the word they use to describe a little cove). The hike down was about an hour, and when we got arrived, armed with our baguettes, cheese and sausage, we were greeted with lots of naked men and aggressive goats. Despite our initial shock, we ended up having a fabulous time.

The water was so warm and blue, but watch out for sea urchins! They really ruined my life for a little while there and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone omg.

We swam until we realized it was way later than we thought! Mildly panicked that we would miss the sunset at the eastern-most tip of the island, we BOOKED it back up the mountain, hopped in the trusty fiat, and whipped it to the lighthouse of Formentor (nearly taking out a few bikers on the way, who I later officially MET because they were on my study abroad program and also road-tripping Mallorca before flying to Madrid. WHAT?? I love this world).

While sunset was beautiful, it was very cloudy, and something tells me that sunrise would be even more magical. If you’re not into the early bird kinda lifestyle while traveling, sunset will be just fine:)

While sunrise at the Formentor Lighthouse might not have been worth it for us, what WAS worth getting up early for was spending the morning at Calo Des Moro. All of the itineraries that I found for road tripping around Mallorca either focused solely on the Western and Southern beaches, OR on the fairytale towns in the North. Determined to see it all in an unreasonably short amount of time, we made the ambitious choice to drive all the way to the southeast before turning around and heading allllll the way back to Palma in time to explore before our early flights out. I thought it might be a poor choice, but we still took the chance because Calo Des Moro was a non-negotiable.

As it turns out, it worked out perfectly and I would recommend that you do the same! While I could’ve spent the whole day at this pristine cove, we just didn’t have the time and managed to make it work anyways. Behold:

I’m sorry, is that the sea or a swimming pool?

I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been blessed enough to have seen a LOT of beautiful things in my life. After swimming and floating for the majority of the morning, making friends and suntanning, we reluctantly realized that if we wanted any time at all in Palma, we would have to leave this little slice of heaven on earth :’)

And so we packed our things and began the hike back to the car. Thankfully, Mallorca is a fairly small island, and we were there in a little less than two hours.

We dropped the car, once again, at our Airbnb before heading out to explore on foot (I’m sure you get the routine by now). We grabbed a gelato on the way to the cathedral, where we took lots of self timer pictures, listened to street performers, and shopped the stalls that lined the streets.

After Tara got all the shots she wanted (she’s the ACTUAL photographer and my blog inspiration) we set out to explore the streets! There is so much more to do in Palma that we didn’t get to, and it was definitely one of my favorite stops out of the whole road trip. Strangely enough, and this may be a stretch, the tree-lined streets reminded me of Paris and the city just felt so inviting. Catch me back here sometime soon.

If I didn’t have a flight the next morning at the butt-crack of dawn, I 100% would have ventured out the experience the nightlife, I’ve heard it’s fabulous!

And that wraps up our 3 day Mallorca road trip! I think we managed to see all the best parts of the island in a very short amount of time. Thank you Tara for coming with me and adventuring through the Mediterranean! I love you <3