The Short Version
Valencia is one of the easiest cities in Spain to get around, and the reason is simple: it's flat as a tortilla and small enough that most of what you want is inside a 4 km circle. Within the old town and the central neighbourhoods — Ruzafa, El Carmen, Cánovas, Eixample — you will almost always walk or cycle faster than any vehicle. Save public transport for the longer hops: the beach, the airport, the City of Arts, the outer barrios. The backbone is run by two operators: Metrovalencia (metro and trams, regional) and EMT (the orange city buses). Both now sit under one travel card and one zone system, which makes life much easier than it used to be.
Step One: Get a SUMA Card
If you are staying more than a day or two, the single best thing you can do is buy a SUMA card (it replaced the old Móbilis card). It's a rechargeable smart card that works on the metro, the trams and the EMT buses — one card for the whole network. You buy it from any metro station machine for a small deposit (around €2) and then load it with either money (pay-as-you-go) or a bono (a discounted bundle of trips). The pay-as-you-go option, SUMA 10, gives you ten journeys with free transfers within 60-90 minutes, and it works out far cheaper per ride than buying single tickets each time. A whole group can travel on one card — just tap it once per person.
Single paper tickets exist but they're the tourist tax: you'll pay roughly double per trip versus a loaded SUMA card, and you can't share transfers. Buy the card, load €10-15, forget about it for the week. Top it up at any station machine (English menu, takes cards and cash).
The Metro & Trams (Metrovalencia)
The metro is the workhorse for crossing town and reaching the suburbs. Ten lines, colour-coded, clean and rarely crowded outside rush hour. For visitors the lines that matter most are Line 3 (red) and Line 5 (green), because they connect the airport, the central Xàtiva station (right by the bullring and Estació del Nord) and Colón, the shopping heart of the city. Line 5 also runs out to the marina and the port. Trains run roughly every 5-10 minutes in the day, from around 05:00 to 23:30, with extended hours on Fallas and Fira nights.
The trams (lines 4, 6, 8 and 10) are above ground and are how locals get to the beach. Take Line 4 or 6 towards Les Arenes / Eugènia Viñes / Doctor Lluch and you step off a few metres from the sand at Malvarrosa and Cabanyal. Line 10 is the newest — a sleek modern tram that links the centre (Alacant) with the City of Arts and Sciences and Natzaret. The trams are slower than the metro but pleasant, and the beach run on a summer evening with the windows open is one of the small joys of living here.
One note on zones: the city and beaches are all Zone A, which is all most visitors need. The airport is also covered by the standard fare with a small supplement (see below). You only hit Zone B/C/D for places like Sagunto, L'Eliana or the wine country.
The Airport: Metro, Not Taxi
This is the one tip that saves you the most money. Valencia airport (Manises) sits directly on metro Lines 3 and 5, and a ride into the centre takes about 25 minutes for roughly €4.80 (a standard Zone A fare plus the airport supplement — cheaper still on a SUMA card). Trains run from before 06:00 until around 23:30. You arrive straight into Xàtiva or Colón in the dead centre of town. A taxi for the same trip is a flat €20-25. The metro is faster than the taxi in rush hour and a quarter of the price. Only take the taxi if you have heavy luggage, a very early flight, or you're in a group of four splitting the fare.
EMT Buses
The orange EMT buses fill in everywhere the metro doesn't reach, and they're how you get to corners like El Cabanyal, the inner ring of barrios, or across the Turia gardens. Your SUMA card works on them exactly the same way. Two routes worth knowing: the line 95 runs from the centre out to the City of Arts and Sciences and on to the beach, and is the scenic way down the old riverbed; and the EMT night buses (the búho, "owl", lines prefixed with N) run when the metro has stopped — essential for getting home from a late one in El Carmen or Ruzafa. Bus stops show live arrival times, and the EMT València app gives you the same on your phone. Tap your card on the reader as you board through the front door.
Valenbisi: The Bike Share Everyone Uses
Valencia is genuinely a cycling city — flat, with proper segregated bike lanes, and a 9-kilometre green spine in the Turia Gardens (the old riverbed, drained and turned into a park) that lets you ride from the City of Arts almost to Bioparc without meeting a car. Valenbisi is the public bike-share: hundreds of docking stations all over the city, bright red bikes, and a system designed for short hops. You buy a weekly pass (around €13) or an annual one through the Valenbisi app or website; the first 30 minutes of every ride are free, so the local move is to dock and re-grab if you're going further. It's the fastest way across the centre, full stop — faster than the metro for anything under 3 km, and you see the city while you do it.
If you'd rather a bike to yourself for the day, plenty of shops in El Carmen and near the beach rent decent ones for €10-15 a day. But for living-here-style daily movement, Valenbisi wins. Just respect the bike lanes, use lights at night, and don't ride on the pavement — the local police do fine for it.
Taxis & Apps
Valencia taxis are white with a blue diagonal stripe, metered and reasonable. You can flag one in the street, find a rank (Estació del Nord, Plaza del Ayuntamiento, Colón), or book through the app — the local fleet uses several, and both Cabify and FREENOW work well across the city. Uber operates here too but the supply is thinner than the licensed taxi fleet. A typical cross-town ride is €7-10; the airport flat rate is €20-25. There's a small night and holiday surcharge. For Fallas, San Juan and Fira nights, do not count on flagging a taxi at 4am — book ahead or take the night bus.
What You Don't Need
A car. Parking inside the centre is a paid-zone headache (the blue-and-orange ORA zones), the old town is largely pedestrianised, and everything worth doing is reachable by metro, bus or bike. If you're day-tripping out of the province, rent for the day and return it; otherwise a car is pure liability here. The AVE high-speed train is for Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla, not local trips — for towns within the province (Xàtiva, Sagunto, Cullera, Gandía) use the Cercanías commuter trains from Estació del Nord instead.
The Apps to Download
Three and you're sorted: Metrovalencia (metro and tram maps, live times, ticket prices), EMT València (bus routes and live arrivals), and Valenbisi (find a free bike and an empty dock). Google Maps covers public transport routing reliably across all of them, and for the airport-to-centre leg it'll tell you the next train. Add the Renfe Cercanías app only if you're heading out of the city by regional train.
The One-Paragraph Plan
Land at the airport, take Line 3 or 5 to Xàtiva or Colón for under €5. Buy a SUMA card at the station and load €15. Walk or grab a Valenbisi for anything in the centre. Take the tram (Line 4 or 6) to the beach. Use the EMT bus for the gaps and the búho night bus to get home late. Keep a taxi app on your phone for the 4am exceptions. That's the whole system — flat, cheap, and built so you never need to think about it again.