Paphos to Ayia Napa: the one daily bus, the change at Larnaca, taxi and driving

There is one direct bus a day from Paphos to Ayia Napa and one back. Intercity Buses leaves the Karavella terminal in Paphos at 16:00 and, in the other direction, leaves Paralimni at 07:30, calls in Ayia Napa about twelve minutes later and reaches Larnaca at 09:00 before running on to Paphos. The fare is 10 euros one way or 19 euros return. At any other time you change at Larnaca, which costs 15 euros and takes most of a day. Driving is 182 km and about two and a half hours on motorway the whole way, and a taxi or transfer is a fixed-price quote rather than a metered ride.

The two resorts are the furthest apart you can be on the south coast while still being in a resort, which is why the search results for this journey are a mess. One aggregator says the bus takes 1 hour 50 minutes (it does not), another says there are two departures a day (there are, but one goes each way), and a flight-comparison site offers tickets to Ayia Napa, which has no airport. This guide gives the operator’s own published times and fares, the connection nobody works out, and what the drive and a taxi actually involve.

Which option fits your trip

Your situation	Best default	Why
Changing base, light luggage, can travel at 07:30 or 16:00	Direct Intercity bus	10 euros, one vehicle, stops in Kato Paphos and along Nissi Avenue
Changing base at any other time of day	Bus with a change at Larnaca	15 euros, two tickets, four to five hours, weekdays only on the Paphos leg
Family, several cases or a fixed arrival time	Pre-booked transfer	Door to door, no terminal at either end
You want Aphrodite’s Rock, Kourion or Choirokoitia on the way	Hire car	The stops are on the road and nowhere near the bus
Flying into Paphos for an Ayia Napa holiday	Change the flight if you still can	Larnaca Airport is 60 km from Ayia Napa; Paphos Airport is 172 km

The direct bus: one departure each way

Intercity Buses runs a single service each way under the name “Paralimni, Ayia Napa and Larnaca to Paphos”. The operator’s route page, taken from its archived copy of 26 February 2026 because the live site blocks automated access, gives the following:

Direction	Departs	Days	Fare one way	Return
Paralimni and Ayia Napa to Paphos	07:30 from Paralimni, Ayia Napa Monastery about 07:42, Larnaca Nicolaides Building 09:00	Daily, same time at weekends and public holidays	10 euros	19 euros
Paphos to Larnaca, Ayia Napa and Paralimni	16:00 from the Karavella terminal	Daily, same time at weekends and public holidays	10 euros	19 euros

The operator lists the journey as “2 hours approximately”. That figure can only describe the Larnaca to Paphos leg, because the bus is already an hour and a half into its run when it reaches Larnaca at 09:00. From Ayia Napa, allow about three and a quarter hours to Paphos. From Paphos at 16:00, expect Larnaca around 18:00 and Ayia Napa in the early evening.

Singles are paper tickets from the driver, cash only; returns and weekly tickets are motion cards sold at points of sale, not on the bus, so if you want the 19 euro return you need to have bought it before you board. A personalised motion card gives a 50 per cent discount, but it is aimed at residents.

Where it stops in Ayia Napa

This is the part the aggregators cannot tell you. Heading west towards Paphos, the bus leaves Paralimni, runs through Protaras (Fig Tree Bay stop near the Capo Bay Hotel at about 16 minutes), then into Ayia Napa with stops at the Marina Hotel on Kryou Nerou Avenue, Ayia Napa Monastery, then along Nissi Avenue at the Plus supermarket, Carina Hotel Apartments, Sunwing Sandy Bay, the Nissi Beach Hotel opposite the Aeneas, the Olympic Hotel by Makronissos Beach and finally WaterWorld on Ayias Theklas Avenue, 23 minutes after the Paralimni start. If you are staying anywhere on the Nissi Avenue strip you can board without going into the centre. The reverse service uses the same stops in the opposite order.

Where it stops in Paphos

Unlike the Paphos to Limassol service, which never comes down to the sea, this route serves Kato Paphos. The published stops are the New Terminal at Pervola Karavella in the upper town, Apostolou Pavlou Avenue at the Kato Paphos port, opposite the Stelios Kyriakides stadium and opposite McDonald’s at the Blue Cross Clinic on Dimokratias Avenue. The port stop is a few minutes’ walk from the harbour and the Archaeological Park, which makes the day-trip arithmetic below work.

The change at Larnaca: the version for every other hour

If 07:30 and 16:00 do not suit, the published timetables let you build the journey yourself, and both legs start at the same place: the Finikoudes stop at Larnaca marina, by the palm-lined promenade of Larnaca’s old town.

Leg one, Paphos to Larnaca. The Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos route runs three times a day from Karavella at 05:45, 10:00 and 20:00, Monday to Friday only on the published page (archived 30 January 2026), with a stop in Limassol and at Choirokoitia. The operator gives 2 hours 45 minutes and a fare of 10 euros one way, with no return ticket available.

Leg two, Larnaca to Ayia Napa. The Larnaca to Ayia Napa and Paralimni route leaves Finikoudes sixteen times a day, from 05:55 to 21:30, with departures at 09:30, 13:30 and 17:15 among them (archived 2 March 2026). It takes about 1 hour 15 minutes and costs 5 euros one way or 9 euros return. It uses the same Ayia Napa stops as the direct bus.

Put together, the 05:45 from Paphos reaches Larnaca around 08:30 for the 09:30 onward bus, and the 10:00 from Paphos reaches Larnaca around 12:45 for the 13:30. The 20:00 from Paphos arrives after the last Ayia Napa departure has gone, which means a night in Larnaca; treat it as a Larnaca bus, not an Ayia Napa one. Total cost 15 euros, total time four and a half to five hours.

Going the other way, Paralimni departures at 05:55, 08:00 and 12:30 (Ayia Napa roughly twelve minutes later) connect with the 10:15 and 15:45 Larnaca to Paphos buses, which arrive in Paphos around 13:00 and 18:30. Our public transport in Cyprus guide explains why these are separate services with separate tickets rather than one network, and why none of them serves the airports.

The two things people search for that do not exist

There is no ferry. “Paphos to Ayia Napa ferry” is a recurring search, and there is no passenger sea route between them, nor any coastal ferry along the south of the island. The only scheduled passenger sailings from the Republic are the seasonal Limassol to Piraeus crossings covered in our Cyprus ferry guide.

There is no flight. A flight-comparison page ranks on page one for this journey offering fares “from 43 pounds”. Ayia Napa has no airport. The nearest is Larnaca, 60 km away, and the island’s other airport is Paphos, so a “flight from Paphos to Ayia Napa” cannot exist. If you have booked Paphos Airport for an Ayia Napa holiday, the practical answer is the section after next.

Driving: 182 km of motorway with the good stops in the first half

The road distance from Paphos harbour to the centre of Ayia Napa is 182 km, which the open-source OSRM routing engine times at about 2 hours 30 minutes without stops. It is motorway almost the whole way: the A6 from Paphos to Limassol, the A1 round Limassol and on to the Larnaca junction, then the A3 east past Larnaca Airport and Pyla to the Ayia Napa turn-off. There are no tolls, the signs are metric and Cyprus drives on the left, so a UK driver has very little to adjust to beyond the heat and the speed limit of 100 km/h. Our driving in Cyprus guide covers the rules, and the car hire guide covers one-way rentals, which exist between the two towns but usually carry a drop fee worth checking before you assume a car beats the bus.

Leg	Distance	Driving time
Paphos harbour to Ayia Napa centre	182 km	about 2 h 30
Paphos Airport to Ayia Napa centre	172 km	about 2 h 25
Coral Bay to Fig Tree Bay, Protaras	about 198 km	about 2 h 50
Paphos harbour to Larnaca Airport	138 km	about 1 h 55

Distances and times from OSRM, 26 October 2026, with no allowance for traffic through Limassol.

The stops worth building the drive around are all in the western half, so leave Paphos early and have lunch somewhere after Limassol.

Stop	From Paphos harbour	What it adds
Aphrodite’s Rock	28 km, about 30 minutes	A photo stop on the old B6 coast road before you join the motorway
Kourion	58 km, about 55 minutes	The theatre and mosaics; allow two hours
Governor’s Beach	96 km, about 1 h 25	A swim and a fish taverna, one junction off the A1
Choirokoitia	105 km, about 1 h 30	A Neolithic village beside the motorway; an hour is enough
Larnaca Salt Lake	138 km, about 1 h 55	Flamingos from November to March, the Hala Sultan Tekke mosque all year

Two stops is the sensible maximum on a day you are also checking out and checking in.

Taxi and transfer: what the official tariff tells you

The People Also Ask box wants a taxi price, and no page on the first page gives one with its working shown. A journey of this length is normally sold as a fixed-price private transfer rather than run on a meter, so the honest answer is a quote for your exact addresses. The official tariff is still useful as a yardstick. The Deputy Ministry of Tourism’s transport page lists urban taxis at 3.80 euros initial charge plus 0.95 euros per kilometre between 06:01 and 20:30, rising to 4.80 euros plus 1.10 per kilometre at night, with 1.40 euros per piece of luggage and a 2 euro public holiday supplement.

Run over 182 km, that meter would come to roughly 177 euros by day and 205 euros after 20:30 before luggage, and 20 per cent more for five passengers. A quoted transfer for a standard car normally lands in a similar range, which is why a taxi only makes sense for a group: four people paying 40 euros in direct bus fares are not far from the per-head cost of a car that collects them at the apartment. Our Cyprus taxi guide explains the difference between the urban meter, the cheaper rural per-kilometre tariff and a pre-booked transfer, and why the all-in quote should name the supplements.

If you have booked the wrong airport

Paphos Airport to Ayia Napa is 172 km and about two hours twenty-five minutes by road. There is no scheduled coach for it. The intercity bus does not serve Paphos Airport, and the airport’s own shuttle, the Limassol Airport Express, goes to Limassol, from where you would need two more intercity buses. The only workable public route is the local bus into Paphos, covered in our Paphos Airport to Paphos guide, then the 16:00 direct service, which only works for a morning arrival.

For everyone else the choice is a pre-booked transfer or a hire car collected at the airport. If the booking is still changeable, moving the flight to Larnaca is worth the fee: the Larnaca Airport to Ayia Napa guide covers a 60 km transfer with a scheduled shared shuttle, which is the journey this one should have been. And if you are still deciding between the two resorts rather than moving between them, our Paphos or Ayia Napa comparison settles the weather, the beaches and the season with figures rather than opinions.

The short answer

Take the direct Intercity bus if 07:30 from the Ayia Napa end or 16:00 from the Paphos end suits you: 10 euros, one vehicle, and stops that actually serve Kato Paphos and the Nissi Avenue hotels. Change at Larnaca if it does not, for 15 euros and the best part of a day, remembering that the Paphos to Larnaca leg is published Monday to Friday only. Drive when you want Kourion or Choirokoitia in the middle of the journey, and book a transfer when there are four of you or a flight time to meet. Whatever you do, check the live timetable the day before: these are the operator’s published times as archived in early 2026, and a once-a-day service is exactly the kind that gets retimed.

Sources for changing details: the Intercity Buses route pages for Paralimni, Ayia Napa and Larnaca to Paphos (archived 26 February 2026), Larnaca to Ayia Napa and Paralimni (archived 2 March 2026) and Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos (archived 30 January 2026), all with fares from the operator’s 1 April 2025 price list, read through the Internet Archive because the live site blocks automated access; the Deputy Ministry of Tourism transport page for the taxi tariff; OSRM for road distances and driving times.

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Hero photograph: “A3 motorway, Cyprus 2026” by Ssu, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped for this page.