Getting there
The nearest airport is Alicante-Elche (ALC), about 98 kilometres from Jávea and roughly 70 to 75 minutes by car. Valencia (VLC) is further away, about 120 kilometres, which works out to just over an hour and a quarter to an hour and twenty minutes on the road.
You can also get here without a hire car: ALSA runs its regular line between Alicante and Jávea more than 13 times a day, and on weekdays it also goes direct from Alicante airport. An alternative is the bus to Dénia, with a connecting ride of about 40 minutes to Jávea's bus station. From Valencia Airport, ALSA runs direct to Jávea four times a day, a journey of about 2 hours and 50 minutes. Jávea has no train station of its own: the TRAM between Alicante and Dénia ends at Dénia's harbour, and while Gandía does have a train station towards Valencia, there is no train to Jávea from there either, only a connecting ALSA bus.
Within the town itself, the local Toscamarbus runs one fixed route between the old centre, the port and the Arenal, with an extension to Toscamar and Cala Blanca, for a flat fare of 1.65 euros a ride. Walking works too: the old centre is about 2.5 kilometres from the port, some 25 to 30 minutes along a mostly flat path, and the port is about 3 kilometres from the Arenal, roughly 35 minutes further on. For the more remote calas such as Granadella and Portitxol, and for most rural accommodation, a hire car is genuinely useful, but for getting between the town's three hubs, the Toscamarbus or simply walking is a real alternative.
Best season
The weather in the region is mild and sunny: the nearest official weather records (indicative for the area) show summer averaging around 25 degrees, spring around 16 degrees, autumn around 20 degrees and winter around 12 degrees. Rain is scarce, especially in summer: on average fewer than three rainy days between June and August, against just over ten days in each of the other seasons.
The sea follows the same rhythm: averaging around 25 degrees in the summer months with a peak towards 27 degrees in July and August, around 22 degrees in autumn, and somewhere between 15 and 16 degrees in winter and spring. The busiest time of year coincides with the period when the Jávea town council runs a paid, barrier-controlled access system at the calas of Granadella and Portitxol, from June to early September.
If you want less of that crowd but still pleasant weather, the numbers point the same way: late May and June sit between the cooler spring and the heat of high summer, the sea is already warming nicely on its way to the summer peak, and the barriers at the calas do not go up until early June. September sits on the other side of that same peak, with a sea that is still warm and calmer calas once the barriers come down again in early September. The annual festivals, from the Fogueres de Sant Joan in June to Moros i Cristians in mid July, fall right in the middle of that high season, so anyone who would rather avoid the crowds should plan a visit just before or just after.
With children
The Arenal, Jávea's only sandy beach, is also the most child-friendly of the town's beaches: shallow water, showers and lifeguards, wooden walkways down to the sand, and its own play area with swings for little ones and a climbing pyramid for children and adults alike, with shade and toilets with adapted tables nearby. There are even adapted wheelchairs available, and the Red Cross keeps watch over swimmers in the water.
Anyone after something more active will find Jávea's best-rated kayak operator among the activities, which also runs a family trip: three hours on the water for children aged 6 and up, in groups of up to three families, with double kayaks, life jackets, snorkelling gear and water shoes included.
For a day out on bikes there is a specific family route between the port and Cala Blanca: 11.4 kilometres there and back, flat (barely 10 metres of elevation gain), with the lowest difficulty rating and a riding time of about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Just right for all levels and ages.
Rainy day
A rainy day in Jávea is the exception rather than the rule, especially in the tourist season: summer averages fewer than three rainy days, against just over ten in each of the other seasons. If it does turn wet, there are plenty of indoor options nearby.
The Museo Arqueológico y Etnográfico Soler Blasco, in the historic centre on Germans Segarra square, is a proper indoor museum with thirteen rooms of finds, ranging from the Neolithic to underwater archaeology. As in many Spanish town museums, the doors close for a break in the afternoon and it is shut altogether on Mondays, so check the current opening hours in advance on the Jávea town council website.
The Mercat Municipal, which you will come across again under shopping and markets, is also a genuinely covered building: a neo-Gothic market hall from 1946 with a saddle roof on pointed-arch tufa stone construction, built on the site of a demolished convent building. For an afternoon at the cinema there is Cine Jayan in the old centre, and a short drive away in Dénia are two free indoor museums: the Museo Etnológico, dedicated to the nineteenth-century raisin trade, and the Museo del Juguete, the toy museum in the old railway station.