Adra
Adra is a town in the west of Almería province, fifty-three kilometres from the provincial capital. The Phoenicians founded it in the eighth century BC as Abdera, which makes it the oldest town in the province and one of the eight oldest in Spain.
Little of that antiquity is visible today. Adra is an ordinary working town on the edge of the Poniente greenhouses, where vegetables are grown for export all year. Housing here is among the cheapest anywhere on Spain's Mediterranean. There is almost no tourism, few foreign residents, and the town runs on itself all year. The drawbacks are the region's: 18 minutes to the hospital in El Ejido and about an hour to an airport, no international schools, and a landscape of greenhouse plastic rather than pines.
- Almería · 53 km — the provincial capital, hospitals and the airport
- Almuñécar · 55 km — the neighbouring Costa Tropical
- Roquetas de Mar · 35 km — the bigger resort neighbour
Adra sits in Poniente Almeriense, Almería, right on the water. Winter here is livelier than in most towns on the Costa de Almería: our rating is 5 out of 5, one of the few on this coast that does not empty out. Fast internet at a median of 400 Mbps: remote work is not a problem here.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · OpenStreetMap · ratings for car-free and hospital minutes are ours.
Adra sea temperature by month
5 months above 20 °CsourceAverage sea surface temperature, °C, for 2015–2024 — NOAA OISST satellite series, grid cell 16.6 km from the centre.
Tourist load
Adra beaches and water quality
sourceAdra has 7 beaches tested under EU bathing water rules, at 7 sampling points. In the 2025 season, all 7 were graded excellent. No beach here has been graded “poor” since testing began in 1990.
The grade is bacteria in water samples over the last four seasons — not sand, views or crowds. “Poor” means bathing there is advised against.
| Beach | From the centre | Grade 2025 | “Excellent” in a row | Last “poor” |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playa Carboncillo | 0.6 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa San Nicolas | 0.7 km | excellent | 35 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa Sirena Loca | 0.8 km | excellent | 19 seasons | none since 1991 |
| Playa Censo | 1 km | excellent | 8 seasons | none since 1992 |
| Playa La Caracola | 1.2 km | excellent | 36 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa El Lance de la Virgen | 2.7 km | excellent | 23 seasons | none since 2003 |
| Playa Guainos Bajos | 3.5 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1992 |
Where from: European Environment Agency, bathing water register, seasons 1990–2025, licence CC BY 4.0. Distance is from the centre in a straight line. Every place in one table
On the map
What tenants actually pay
sourcedThis is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 259 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 520 € for a two-bedroom.
The point of the 75th percentile: it is closer to what is being signed now than the median. The gap between them shows how much a new tenant overpays relative to long-standing ones.
Where from: SERPAVI, Ministerio de Vivienda · municipality: Adra
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 400 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 520 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 680 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 379 €/mo | SERPAVI · 92 m² |
Asking prices are what long lets are advertised at today; the registry is what tenants pay on signed leases, including old ones. The gap between them is your negotiating argument.
Schools nearby
estimateInternational schools counted in the base: 0. Names and curricula for this place are not verified yet — the school registry covers the thirty most-requested places so far.
Renting without a Spanish contract
How realistic a long lease is without a nómina — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.
- —Nothing notable either way: an ordinary market where the individual landlord decides
This is our model, not a measurement: demanding a nómina is an individual landlord's practice and nobody publishes it. The rating is derived from the share of foreign residents, the presence of a community with services, price growth, seasonality of the stock and the size of the town.
Who lives here
INE 2025- Morocco1 931
- Romania713
- Ukraine306
- Senegal249
- Colombia131
- Russia112
- Peru64
- Venezuela28
- No notable foreign-language community with services recorded.
Where from: INE, Censo Anual de Población · the register-based census counts padrón registrations by citizenship on 1 January, not everyone living here: seasonal owners and the unregistered are outside it, and naturalised residents count as Spanish.
Winter direct flights from LEI
January 2026/2745 min to the airport- United Kingdom2
- other countries1
Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.
Paperwork and practicalities
From OpenStreetMap — an open map filled in by volunteers. Something missing there may still exist: read this as «we found this many», not «there are no more».
Articles that include this place
- Winter sun in Spain: 30 towns that stay open all winterWinter-sun lists usually rank the weather. This one ranks what stays open: January against the summer peak from Spain's social security data, plus sea months, rent and the drive to the airport.
- What a month on the Spanish coast costs, town by townOne identical scenario costed across all 132 places. The spread between towns is wider than between countries, and nearly as wide within a single coast.
- Andalusia's beaches by water quality: five provinces, the Bay of Algeciras and the sea from the Strait to MojácarGrades from the European register for every sampling point on Andalusia's coast since 1990: where the water was not excellent in 2025, Huelva's bad first year, the bay against the ocean in Cádiz, eight clean seasons in Málaga and Almería, and the sea on five coasts.
- Best places to live in coastal Spain: five lists, not one rankingAlive in winter, longer swimming, no car needed, cheaper, with children — five sorts of the base by measured fields. A single ranking does not exist.
- Where property is cheapest on the Spanish coast, on a single price basisThe housing ministry's appraised value, ranked by coast and by town, with the price of a 70 m² flat and local incomes alongside. Asking prices get a list of their own: the two bases never share a ranking.
Where to look next
- Roquetas de Mar1 706 €/m²
- Almería1 769 €/m²
- Mojácar2 651 €/m²