The Costa del Sol has been getting a great deal of positive coverage over the last few weeks and two surveys have placed Malaga City as the best place to be.

　　First of all, the Expat Insider survey by InterNations selected the capital as the best place in Europe for expats of all nationalities and this was followed up by a second survey by Idiliq Hotels and Resorts which also named Malaga City the Costa del Sol’s number one location.

　　Just a few days earlier, Estepona was the only candidate for Spain in the Academy of Urbanism European City of the Year 2023 competition and was runner up to Amersfoort in The Netherlands.

　　The criteria for the Idiliq survey took into account;

　　Number of restaurants and attractions (source: TripAdvisor)

　　Number of sunny days per year and happiness index score (source: Sonneil)

　　Instagram hashtags

　　Search volume (source: SEMrush)

　　based on the combined findings, the Top Five destinations on the Costa del Sol were announced as Malaga City, Torremolinos, Fuengirola, Marbella, and Benalmadena with Estepona in sixth place and Mijas in seventh with the other three in the top ten being situated in Axarquia.

　　Perhaps unsurprisingly, the larger the municipality the greater the choice of restaurants and the Top Three were Malaga, Marbella and Fuengirola but as far as sunshine is concerned the leaders were Malaga and Torremolinos which was also classified as the happiest place on the Costa del Sol.

　　The good news for businesses and visitors was that the survey suggested that wherever you went on the Costa del Sol you wouldn’t go wrong because the standards are so high due to the quality of restaurants, attractions, weather, beaches and general ambience.

　　Adding to all of this was the number of Instagram Hashtags and Google searches and although Torremolinos came second overall, it was actually very little searched or tagged but its other attractions brought it to the top.

　　Interestingly, the only ‘suburb’ which made it onto the list was that of San Pedro de Alcantara which came 11th and perhaps if its score had been added to Marbella’s, the order of the Top Five might have been quite different.

　　Councils and residents of those towns which were near the bottom of the list such as Manilva, both Alhaurins, Manilva, Coin, Casares and Ojen might disagree considerably with the result, but surveys are, by definition, a snapshot of a number of opinions and therefore whilst interesting, the results are not set in stone.

　　If you support these findings or think that they are far from fair, do feel free to leave a comment below.