What You Need To Know About Travelling To Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a strange place. You may be scratching your head right now wondering where exactly in the world Gibraltar actually is. Gibraltar is located on the Southern part of what looks like it should be Spain.

The country only has about 30,000 residents, all located within a 2.6 square mile. Basically the entire rock that you can see looming over as you drive into the country, is the country. This tiny piece of land has been fought over for decades by the U.K. and Spain. This may seem odd that the U.K. would want to hold onto to such a tiny piece of land so forcefully but when you consider its location it makes sense.

Gibraltar is a trading hub. Apparently if you stand on the rock of Gibraltar on a clear day you can actually see Africa. Being an important trading post and port you can also see quite a few transport boat sailing in and out of the straight.

There are quite a few things that make this little country unique, but I’ll get to that in a minute. As I’ve been on the hunt trying to tick off 30 countries before I turn 30 (I may give myself leeway to 31), a quick trip to Gibraltar when we were visiting Seville only seemed natural.

The drive from Seville to Gibraltar is about 2.5 hours. It’s an easy drive on well-paved and well-maintained highways. Be aware you will have to pay some tolls on your way down though. You will drive through a beautiful looking national park. If you have the chance, take a stop here. It wasn’t great weather for us when we were travelling through but it looked like a cool place to stop.

Originally we had planned on renting a car from Lisbon and doing the whole drive into Spain and Gibraltar in one go. After doing quite a bit of research we realized it would have been far too expensive. Instead we rented a car out of Seville and dropped it off as close as we could get to the border; La Linea.

La Linea is basically a street away from Gibraltar. There are a few little shops you can pop in for a bite to eat or a quick drink before you cross the border. Other than that, there’s not much there.

Crossing the Border

This was one of the weirdest things for me. With luggage in tow, we walked along the main road to a small building. We had to enter inside and almost immediately you’re greeted with passport scanners. Once you’re approved you move through the metal-detector looking structures, past a few officers, a hall with Gibraltar information and then you’re out.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I crossed the border into Gibraltar. I knew it was small but it just felt so regular. No one really cared, it was if they were scanning passports out of historical protocol and no other reason.

As soon as you walk through the last set of doors and are ‘in’ Gibraltar you’re greeted with an iconically British telephone booth. I honestly think I laughed out loud when I saw it because it seemed so out of place.

Everything is so … English

This is another thing that caught me off-guard. I knew that the residents of Gibraltar would speak English but it was perfect English. I’m not sure why I expected them to have a weird English / Spanish mix but everyone I spoke to almost sounded American. Okay, maybe not American but I would say closer to that than Spanish or English.

Not only did everyone speak English but they also dealt with pounds. Luckily we had taken out pounds before we left for the trip because England was our last stop. Not to worry though, there were enough banks and money exchange shops around that you could easily survive.

You can’t walk everywhere

I say this as someone who truly believes you can walk everywhere. Seriously, I walk at least 12km a day when I’m travelling. That could be why I usually end up loosing weight on vacation instead of gaining. Anyway, Gibraltar is not walkable. Looking at it on a map you may think it looks small enough to maneuver around, it’s not.

If you want to go somewhere on the other side of the island you’re going to have to take a Taxi, unless of course you feel like walking for 45 minutes to an hour. In reality it’s not worth the time or the effort. However, I could be saying that because we had horrible weather the day we were there.

You also should not walk up to the top of the rock. On one of our excursions we thought it would be a good idea to try and at least walk up to the Moorish Castle. It took us at least half an hour to do that along. As we reached the castle a few locals informed us it was another 9km until we got to the top of the rock. A very steep 9km walk uphill.

Everyone is so pleasant

Let me give you an example of how nice people in Gibraltar are. As we tried to trek to the Moorish Castle a young man on his way home from school saw we were lost. He offered to walk us in the right direction as it was on the way home for him anyway. He walked with us the whole 20 minutes. As we walked up he pointed out buildings his family owned, told us about the school system and about life in general in Gibraltar.

As the young boy left us and pointed us in the right direction (or so we thought). As we walked a bit further we realized we were at a dead end. As we turned around, a woman leaning out of her window saw we were lost and pointed us in the right direction.

When we finally got to the castle, a group of locals returning home from work saw how tired we were. Thinking that we intended to climb the whole rock, they kindly pointed out how far of a trek it was and advised in the bad weather it wouldn’t be wise.

People were willing to help everywhere!

Call your taxi’s

As previously stated, it’s likely you’re going to need to get a taxi if you want to travel around the area. What I noticed though was that they don’t really stop for you on the street. I think it’s because there are so few of them and they are often so busy they are just travelling back and forth to calls.

If you’re going for a night out, the only place we could find a taxi (after waiting for so long and finally asking the police), was in the city square. We had walked quite a distance and didn’t see any until we got there.

Make sure to get the name of a taxi driver and his phone number or get your hotel to call if you plan on going anywhere. As a side note, the taxis are a lot cheaper than I had expected them to be.

Nightlife

The nightlife in Gibraltar takes place in one of two spots; Ocean Village or Castemates Square. Neither are too far from each other. If one spot happens to be dead, you can quickly run over to the other to check it out.

Ocean Village has a number of restaurants and bars to choose from. There’s also a casino if you’re into that. Castemates Square is more laidback but a few of the bars happened to be quite happening when we were there.

Gibraltar Airport

So the airport runway is located on either side of the main street getting into Gibraltar. When a plane is landing, traffic is stopped on either side for several minutes before landing and several minutes after. It’s actually one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while.

Make sure you give yourself plenty of time before travelling to the airport though. The day that we were meant to fly out there was a ‘rock fall’ and so they had blocked off the entire road on our side. That meant we basically had to go around the entire island before reaching the end. As you can imagine the taxis were also backed up so it took quite some time to get one as well.

What do you think? Have you been to Gibraltar? What tips do you have for potential travellers?

Additional Notes

ACCOMMODATION

• Airbnb stays are not easy to find in Gibraltar but there are a few. For tips about booking Airbnb check out my post here.
• Booking.com is another great resource if you’re looking to book a hotel instead of an apartment.

*This page contains affiliate links, to learn more read my disclaimer. Hey, a girl’s got a coffee addiction to take care of!