Cyprus Road Trip Itinerary - How To See Cyprus By Car In 1 Day

Last Updated on 18th July 2024

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How To See Cyprus By Car In 1 Day - The Best Cyprus Road Trip Itinerary

Are you planning to explore Cyprus by car? Check out this ultimate Cyrpus road trip itinerary for 1 day!

Cyprus is one of the most popular holiday destinations for European travellers, although it’s technically classed as a Middle Eastern country due to its geographical proximity to countries such as Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.

Its culture and cuisine are hugely influenced by Turkey and Greece, so you’ll find myriad Greek Orthodox churches and cathedrals as well as mosques and plenty of ancient archaeological sites located throughout the country. Cyprus is also renowned for being the mythical birthplace of the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, and you’ll find plenty of homages to her around the island, too.

Thanks to its influences from both Europe and the Middle East, the cuisine in Cyprus is beyond delicious, with so many wonderful dishes inspired by so many different countries and cultures. Basically, if you’re planning a trip to Cyprus, you’re in for a real treat when it comes to the food, sights and its many beaches.

Matt and I spent one month in Cyprus in November/December 2022. We based ourselves in the southern city of Paphos in a little Airbnb apartment and while we were there, we hired a car for 1 day to explore more of southern Cyprus, so in today’s post I’ll be sharing our exact route and itinerary for exploring Cyprus by car.

If you’re planning the perfect day trip in Cyprus, I’ve got just the itinerary for you!

P.S. It’s important to note that you’ll be crossing various borders within Cyprus throughout this itinerary, although it doesn’t go over to the Turkish side of the island. You can read more about the “Cyprus problem” with regard to its borders here.

CYPRUS TRAVEL ESSENTIALS
Flights: Kiwi.com / Skyscanner / Expedia / Trip.com
Accommodation: Booking.com / Hostelworld / Agoda
Activities/tours: Get Your Guide / Viator / Klook / Manawa
Travel insurance: SafetyWing
Reviews: TripAdvisor
Luggage Storage: Radical Storage
My backpacking essentials: Amazon
Cyprus eSIM: Airalo

Find somewhere to stay in Paphos here!

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Cyprus by car itinerary – best places to see in Cyprus

Here are some of the best sights, attractions and tours to enjoy on an epic road trip route in Cyprus from Paphos!

Cyprus road trip map and itinerary – how long to drive around Cyprus?

Cyprus road trip map - Cyprus by car in 1 day

Despite looking fairly sizeable on a map, Cyprus is a pretty small island that can be mostly explored in just one day. Of course, you can’t possibly see everything Cyprus has to offer in just one day, so you will have to forgo places such as Mount Olympos, Nicosia and Limassol (unless you have more time to explore the entire island, of course), but if you follow my Cyprus road trip itinerary below, I promise that you’ll see and experience a lot of what the country has to offer!

This road trip route in Cyprus is also based on our time staying in Paphos for a month, but you could easily flip the route to begin in Ayia Napa if that’s where you’re staying instead.

The Cyprus itinerary below begins in Paphos, specifically in the Old Town and at the Tombs of the Kings site before driving along the coast to visit some of the best hotspots in Cyprus, such as Aphrodite’s Rock, the city of Larnaca, “Love Bridge”, and concludes in Ayia Napa in the east of the island, with the option to visit Cape Greco National Park if you have longer to spend on the island.

We managed to see all of the sights on the map above (apart from the activities based in Paphos as we did them over several different days during our month in Cyprus). We collected our rental car in Paphos at 10 AM and arrived back in the city at around 7 PM. It was a very long and busy day of driving, but it’s very doable if you only have one day in Cyprus, especially in the summer months when the days are much longer.

Hiring a car in Cyprus

The cost of a car rental in Cyprus depends on multiple factors, including how long you want to hire a car for, when you want to hire it and where you’re based in Cyprus.

As we were staying in Paphos for one month, we hired our rental car from a local Cypriot company just around the corner from our apartment in Paphos called Arenda Car Rentals which has an excellent Google review rating of 4.9*.

We paid €48 for 24 hours on a weekday in December for our car rental, plus a deposit of €500 (which was refunded immediately once we dropped the car off the next day).

We were pretty happy with how cheap it was for our hire car in Cyprus, but of course, we hired it in the middle of winter when Cyprus is super quiet, so you can expect to pay much more than that in the summer months, with some rental cars costing around €100 a day.

You will also likely benefit from a daily discount if you hire a car in Cyprus for a longer period of time. For example, if we’d hired the same car for two days instead of just one, we would have paid €60 in total for two days, instead of €48 for just one day.

If you plan to explore more of Cyprus than the below road trip itinerary suggests, it can definitely be worth renting a car for a longer period of time.

Paphos – Cyprus road trip itinerary

As we spent a month in Cyprus, we naturally didn’t do all these Paphos activities in one day. However, the map above shows the exact route that we took and most of the things we did on our one-day Cyprus road trip.

If you’re planning to base yourself in Paphos while in Cyprus, you’ll have the chance to see and do more things in Paphos; check out some of my top Paphos recommendations below!

Cyprus by car – Cyprus road trip itinerary summary

Paphos Old Town
Paphos Archaeological Park
Catacombs
Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos
Paphos Castle
Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite’s Rock)
Kourion Archaeological Site
Larnaca – Church of Saint Lazarus & Finikoudes Beach
Kamara Tou Koraka Stone Arch (Love Bridge)
Blue Lagoon
Ayia Napa – Sculpture Park & Nissi Beach

1. Old Town of Paphos

There are two main parts of Paphos that you’ll likely experience while you’re there; Paphos Harbour and the Old Town. The city of Paphos as a whole is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and thanks to its many ancient ruins and archaeological sites, it’s clear to see why it obtained this title in 1980.

I wasn’t particularly overwhelmed with the Old Town itself as it didn’t feel like it had too much going on. However, that’s likely because we were in Cyprus in the middle of December when the island was super quiet, so perhaps we just didn’t experience it in all its glory.

Some of the best things to see and do in Paphos Old Town include:

Check out the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (Αγία Σοφία)
Eat at Souvlaki Livadias (the best Greek food I’ve ever had anywhere in the world!)
Enjoy the view from Caffè Nero
See Paphos Town Hall
Stroll through Paphos Municipal Park

2. Paphos Archaeological Site of the Tombs of the Kings

One of the top attractions in Paphos, and in the whole of Cyprus for that matter, is the Archaeological Site of the Tombs of the Kings. It resides approximately 2km north of Paphos Harbour and you can easily walk to it or grab a local taxi if the heat is too much to bear walking in the summer months.

For an entrance fee of just €2.50, you’re transported back in time to the 3rd century BC to a fascinating necropolis site full of ancient underground tombs and ruins.

Despite the misleading name, no kings were ever actually buried at the archaeological site (it gets its name from the grandeur of the tombs themselves), but it’s still a truly intriguing place and there’s so much to discover and explore.

The tombs and ruins cover an area of more than 80 acres, so you could easily spend an entire day there and thanks to its location on the coast, you can also enjoy stunning views of the sea as you wander around.

3. Catacombs – Cyprus road trip itinerary

We stumbled across the various catacombs dotted around Paphos completely by accident, but these free-to-visit burial sites made for a fascinating discovery!

There are so many hidden underground caves to be explored, situated just before the roundabout near the King’s Avenue Mall and as it’s free to visit and open all day long, it’s a great attraction in Paphos to enjoy at any time.

4. Kato Paphos Bridge (walkway)

The Walkway (also known as the Kato Paphos Bridge) is another free sight in Paphos that offers lovely views and allows you to enjoy a different part of the city away from the busyness of the harbour.

5. Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos

As well as the Tombs of the Kings Archaeological Site, Paphos is also home to yet another collection of archaic ruins known as the Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos.

Situated on a small promontory in the very southwestern corner of Paphos, this archaeological site is home to several important monuments and sites such as the House of Dionysos, the House of Orpheus and the Villa of Theseus.

Entrance costs €4.50 per person and as well as the many ruins and preserved sites (the ancient mosaic floors are absolutely fascinating!), you can also leave the site at one of the exit gates along the sea where a coastal path awaits you.

6. Paphos Castle

I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Paphos Castle (so much so, I clearly didn’t even take a proper picture of it!), but for just €2.50 each, you can climb to the top of the ancient monument to enjoy spectacular views out to sea.

7. Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite’s Rock) – Cyprus road trip itinerary

Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite's Rock) - Cyprus by car itinerary

If you’re beginning your Cyprus road trip in Paphos, after checking out some of the best things to do in the coastal city, it’s time to head half an hour along the coast to Petra tou Romiou, also known as Aphrodite’s Rock.

It’s renowned for being the mythical birthplace of the Greek goddess of love and beauty and whether you believe the mystery shrouding this coastal attraction or not, you can’t deny just how beautiful it is.

You can park for free in the car park over the road next to the Touristic Pavillion and then it’s just a short walk down some steps and through a tunnel underneath the road to the beach and the rock.

8. Kourion Archaeological Site

Kourion Archaeological Site - how to see Cyprus by car on a road trip

Another 30-minute drive along the coast takes you to the ancient Kourion Archaeological Site. When we were planning our Cyprus road trip itinerary, this was the place that I was least looking forward to visiting, but it actually turned out to be one of my favourite stops of the whole day!

As you can tell, there’s quite a theme of ancient archaeological sites in Cyprus and the remains of Kourion are perhaps one of the best-preserved in the whole country.

Many of the remains here are thought to date back to the early 3rd century BC, but looking at some of the preserved artefacts and ruins, it’s hard to believe that they’re so old; many of them are in such pristine condition!

Entrance tickets cost €4.50 each which I think is excellent value for money as the site is absolutely huge; you could easily spend an entire day there if you had the time! My favourite part of the attraction was the Ancient Amphitheater which looks remarkable considering its age (of course, it’s been restored and renovated many times over the years, but the bare bones of it still remain!).

9. Larnaca – Cyprus road trip itinerary

An hour further along the coast takes you to the city of Larnaca. We didn’t spend too long there as there isn’t too much to see or do, but it’s worth driving through and checking out some of the attractions below if you have time.

10. Church of Saint Lazarus

The Church of Saint Lazarus is one of the top sights in Larnaca and the little square it’s located in is also beautiful, surrounded by bars and cafes and various souvenir shops.

11. Finikoudes Beach

We were quite disappointed by the beach in Larnaca, but again, this is probably because we visited in the middle of winter (the weather was still a very pleasant 20°C+ in December in Cyprus, but it’s worth noting that the island will be much quieter than the peak summer months).

If you’re planning a Cyprus road trip for the summer months, the beach will likely be much nicer, although you’ll have to prepare for everywhere to be much busier!

12. Kamara Tou Koraka Stone Arch (Love Bridge)

Kamara Tou Koraka Stone Arch, more affectionately known as Love Bridge, is a natural stone arch on the far eastern side of the island, just a few minutes drive from Ayia Napa.

While the bridge certainly does look impressive, and it’s hard to comprehend just how many years of erosion it’s taken for it to take the shape it has today, there’s not really much more to it than that.

If you have time while you’re in the area, however, you can explore more of Cape Greco, but we didn’t have much time left before sunset (as we were there in the winter when the sun sets before 5 PM), so we skipped more of the coast and headed to our next stop.

13. Blue Lagoon

A 3-minute drive or a 10-minute walk takes you to Blue Lagoon, which is a top spot to visit while you’re near Ayia Napa that’s largely sheltered by Cape Greco itself.

With remarkably crystal clear water in the most beautiful shade of blue, the sea looks somewhat tempting to jump straight into, but it was far too wavy and windy to go in the sea when we were there (I think it will likely be calmer in the summer months, but it’s worth checking local weather warnings before your trip just in case).

14. Ayia Napa – how to see Cyprus by car

Ayia Napa is renowned for being one of the top party destinations for European travellers, but as our trip was in the middle of winter, we found the city to be exceptionally quiet with very few things open.

This made it somewhat more enjoyable, however, as we didn’t have to worry about fighting the crowds or driving around trying to find a parking space; it was so quiet when we were there, we barely saw another soul!

15. Sculpture Park

Sculpture Park Ayia Napa - Cyprus by car

Aside from the stereotypical partying reputation that Ayia Napa has, it’s also home to the incredibly cool and quirky Sculpture Park that’s sat atop a hill overlooking the sea just outside of the city centre.

It’s free to enter (at the time of writing in January 2023) and it’s home to a collection of more than 260 works of art created by more than 133 artists. There are so many weird and wonderful sculptures to enjoy, as well as some truly beautiful creations and it’s definitely worth dedicating some time to strolling around the many masterpieces while you’re in the area.

16. Nissi Beach – Cyprus road trip itinerary

The final stop on our Cyprus road trip before we drove the 3 hours back to Paphos was Nissi Beach in Ayia Napa, just in time for the sunset.

I’d seen many pictures of Nissi Beach over the years, most recently from my little sister who visited in the summer of 2022, where the beach was packed with so many people that you could barely see the sand! On our visit, however, there was barely another person in sight, making it such a great place to watch the sunset in peace.

The sunset was also positively magical and it was such a great way to end our road trip in Cyprus!

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