Mallorca

Mallorca is compact, superbly connected — its airport handled 33 million passengers in 2024, third-busiest in Spain — and that success has produced a genuine reckoning. Mass anti-tourism protests have run since 2024, with the July 2026 march in Palma the largest to date, aimed squarely at mass tourism, holiday rentals and the pressure on housing and water rather than at individual visitors. The grievance is the model, not the guest; what it means on the ground is a tourist tax, occasional protest days when local businesses close in support, and the measures in the table.

The concrete rules to know: a Sustainable Tourism Tax of roughly €1–4 per person per night (by season and hotel category, higher in summer, under-16s exempt and halved after the eighth night, dropping to low-season rates on 1 November — a proposed 2026 hike was ruled out); the 2020 alcohol decree still in force in the Magaluf and Playa de Palma party zones; and moves to curb cruise ships and cars — a plan to cut Palma’s peak cruise capacity phases in from 2027, and a Balearic vehicle cap passed its first parliamentary reading in September 2026, targeting 2027. Water scarcity is real in peak summer and a named grievance in the protests.

Time it for the shoulder — May–June or September–October — for warm water without the July–August heat, prices and crush. The catch travellers miss is the other end: outside Palma, much of the island closes from November to March, when coastal hotels, beach clubs and resort-town restaurants shutter, so a late-autumn trip can find the resorts dark while the capital carries on. The sea is warmest (around 27°C) in August and still swimmable (around 23°C) into October, though marine heatwaves have pushed recent summers hotter.

• you want the famous calas without the scrumSkiparriving midday in July–AugustGofirst thing in the morning, or in the May/September shoulder
• you’re travelling in late autumn or winterSkipbooking a coastal resort that will be shutteredGobasing in Palma or a Tramuntana village, which run year-round
• you want to drive out to Cap de FormentorSkipthe 10:00–22:00 daytime ban (15 May–18 Oct)Gothe park-and-ride shuttle from Port de Pollença, or going at dawn/dusk

For the calas, the Serra de Tramuntana and the Sa Calobra and Formentor roads, you really need a car — but it’s the island’s sore point, with severe summer traffic, pricey and scarce rentals, parking crackdowns at the popular coves, and a Balearic vehicle cap aimed at 2027. The lovely exception is the Sóller railway, a century-old narrow-gauge wooden train from Palma up into the mountains (€23 single, €30 return in 2026), with a connecting tram down to Port de Sóller. Palma is walkable and bus-served, so a city-only trip works entirely car-free.

A hire car still unlocks the Serra de Tramuntana and the far calas, but two changes are reshaping driving: a Balearic cap on rental and visitor vehicles (passed its first reading in 2026, effect expected 2027) and the summer daytime ban on the Cap de Formentor road (10:00–22:00, mid-May to mid-October), for which you take the park-and-ride shuttle from Port de Pollença. The vintage Sóller railway (€23–30 in 2026) is a scenic ride, not everyday transport.

The most-photographed coves are minute. Caló des Moro is about forty metres of sand reached down a steep, rocky ten-minute scramble with no facilities — and it draws thousands on a peak day, so the authorities have cut and reorganised the roadside parking and brought in residents-only access zones with fines nearby. Cala Varques and Cala s’Almunia are undeveloped and foot-access only. The lesson is the same everywhere: go early or off-season, and don’t count on parking.

The two famous drives are experiences in themselves and equally congested, both built by the engineer Antonio Parietti in the 1920s–30s: the Sa Calobra road spirals down through its 270° “nus de sa corbata” (tie-knot) bridge to the Torrent de Pareis gorge, and the Cap de Formentor road runs out to the 1863 lighthouse at the island’s northern tip — but in summer Formentor closes to private cars by day, with a park-and-ride shuttle from Port de Pollença and fines for driving up in restricted hours.

Palma is a genuine city, not a resort: the great Gothic cathedral of La Seu (which Gaudí worked on from 1903) presides over an atmospheric old town, the round Bellver Castle looks down from its hill, and the city lives year-round. Behind the coast rises the Serra de Tramuntana, a UNESCO cultural landscape of dry-stone terraces threaded by the GR221 and dotted with the villages of Valldemossa — where Chopin and George Sand wintered in 1838–39 — Deià and Sóller.

The Sóller railway, a century-old narrow-gauge wooden train from Palma, is the scenic way up into those mountains, and the Coves del Drac near Porto Cristo end their tour with a live classical concert played by musicians on boats across a vast underground lake. For all the island’s beach reputation, this is the Mallorca that keeps people coming back.

Beyond the resort buffets, Mallorca has a real island kitchen. The star is the ensaïmada (see the figure); the savoury staples are sobrassada, the soft paprika-cured pork spread, and pa amb oli, bread with tomato and oil. Look too for tumbet (the local ratatouille), the rustic frit mallorquí, and coca de trampó, an open vegetable flatbread. Local Binissalem wines and the herbal hierbas liqueur round out a meal, and the almond blossom turns the inland groves white in late winter.

Spanish and Catalan are both official, and the local variant, Mallorquí, is what you’ll hear and read — many signs and place names are in Catalan (Palma’s streets, the Tramuntana villages), though English is widely spoken in tourist areas. The daily rhythm is Spanish: a quiet midday inland, late dinners from about 20:30, and a strong café-and-plaça culture. The island has long drawn artists and writers — Chopin and George Sand at Valldemossa, later Robert Graves at Deià — and that cultured, unhurried side is the antidote to its party-strip caricature.

A note on identity: locals are proud of being Mallorcan first, Catalan-speaking, and distinct from the mainland image of “Spanish beach holiday.” A little Catalan (“bon dia”, “gràcies”) and an interest in the island beyond its beaches is genuinely well received — especially given the current feeling about mass tourism.

Mallorca is Schengen and eurozone. On borders, the EU’s biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) has been fully operational since April 2026, so expect fingerprint-and-photo registration on arrival; the separate ETIAS travel authorisation (around €20) is not yet required — it’s expected in 2027. Tap water is legally drinkable but hard and poor-tasting, so bottled is the norm, and water is genuinely scarce in peak summer — the island ran on drought alert in 2026, with restrictions in some towns, so use it sparingly.

The US rates Spain Level 2 (standard “increased caution” for terrorism and the occasional large demonstration); the UK FCDO gives only routine guidance. Neither flags the Balearics specifically — Mallorca is a thoroughly safe, mainstream destination, and the protests are political theatre aimed at policy, not a risk to visitors.