Top 10 Islands In Europe For Sailing
Ten archipelagos, a few hours from home, and no two of them offering the same week.
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Top 10 Islands In Europe For Sailing
You do not have to cross the Atlantic to find island hopping that works. Europe has more coastline broken into more islands than almost anywhere on earth, and a great deal of it sits within a few hours' flight of home. The difficulty is not finding somewhere good. It is choosing between places that are all good for entirely different reasons.
What follows is our top 10 islands in Europe for a sailing holiday, grouped the way we actually talk about them with clients: by the sort of week each one gives you. There are party islands here and there are places where you will not see another yacht all day. There are archipelagos built for a first charter, and one or two that will properly test a confident crew.
We have advised on charters since 2011 and we are tied to no operator, so nothing is on this list because somebody paid to put it there. Where cost or difficulty matters we will say so, and we will give you the honest all in number for a week rather than a headline rate with the extras quietly stripped out.
Quick Navigation
- 1 The Ionian Islands, Greece The Gentlest Island Hopping In Europe
- 2 The Dalmatian Coast, Croatia Seventy Nine Islands And Short Hops Between Them
- 3 The Sporades And The Dodecanese, Greece Marine Parks In The North, Sunshine In The South
- 4 The Amalfi Coast And Corsica The Tyrrhenian At Its Most Theatrical
- 5 The Balearic Islands And Malta Spanish Coves And The Oldest Harbours In The Mediterranean
- 6 The Azores And Bornholm Atlantic And Baltic, For Crews Who Have Done The Med
1.The Ionian Islands, Greece
The Gentlest Island Hopping In Europe
Off the west coast of the Greek mainland, the Ionian behaves as though somebody laid it out for island hopping on purpose. Corfu in the north has Venetian alleyways and arcades that look more Parisian than Greek. Zakynthos in the south has sea caves and the kind of water that makes people stop mid sentence. Between them sit Lefkada, Kefalonia, Ithaca and Paxos, close enough together that a day's sail is a morning's sail whenever you want it to be.
The history runs back to around 1,000 BC and you can read most of it from the deck. Castles, temples and four different occupying architectures stack up on the same hillsides, which is unusual even by Mediterranean standards, and it gives the week a spine beyond the swimming.
It is not only for the history minded. Lefkada has the finest turquoise beaches in Greece, Kefalonia has vineyards with real mountains behind them, and Kythira in the far south is quiet enough to get properly lost on for a day. The winds are reliable afternoon breezes rather than anything that needs managing, and the anchorages are forgiving, which is why we send more first time crews here than anywhere else in Europe. Our Ionian yacht charter guide works through the bases and the routes in detail.
2.The Dalmatian Coast, Croatia
Seventy Nine Islands And Short Hops Between Them
Croatia has been the fashionable choice for a decade now and it has earned it. The feel is the French Riviera in the late fifties, before the money arrived: stone villages, pine down to the waterline, long lunches, and a great many places to tuck into for an afternoon where nobody will bother you.
There are 79 islands and roughly 500 islets, so the real problem is editing rather than finding. Vis is the one people come home talking about, a former military island closed to visitors until 1989 and still noticeably itself, with the cave at Biševo just off its shore. Kornati and Mljet are national parks and close to empty by Mediterranean standards, which is the whole point of taking a boat rather than a hotel. Hvar carries the reputation and deserves it: pebbly coves, lavender fields, vineyards, and the only serious nightlife on this list outside Ibiza. It manages to be genuinely family friendly by day and something else entirely after dark.
The sailing suits any level. Distances between islands are short, the wind in the southern Dalmatian is manageable, and there is shelter within reach of almost everywhere. That makes it a sensible place to sail it yourself if you hold the tickets and the recent miles, and an easy place to add a skipper for the first few days while the geography settles into place. Adding one does not change the boat, only who is responsible for it. Budget for the tourist tax and the permit fees before you compare quotes, because Croatian operators are not consistent about which of them sit inside the headline rate.
3.The Sporades And The Dodecanese, Greece
Marine Parks In The North, Sunshine In The South
Two Greek archipelagos that get overlooked because the Ionian and the Cyclades take all the attention, and both are better than their billing suggests.
The Northern Sporades sit off Greece's east coast and are mostly about wildlife and empty anchorages. The National Marine Park of Alonissos covers 2,200 square kilometres and protects the Mediterranean monk seal, one of the most endangered mammals in the world. Dolphins and loggerhead turtles are routine rather than remarkable. Skiathos takes the crowds, so drop into one of the bays either side of it and you will often have the water to yourself. Ashore, the villages are narrow stone alleys with flowers spilling off the balconies and a taverna at the end of most of them. Skopelos is where Mamma Mia was filmed, if that matters to anyone aboard, and our Sporades sailing itinerary builds a full week around it.
The Dodecanese, down in the south eastern Aegean, is the sunniest corner of Greece and a different proposition altogether: 12 large islands, Byzantine and medieval monuments, and archaeology that keeps turning up in inconvenient places. Leros has wreck diving over its old shipwrecks, Kalymnos is one of the best rock climbing destinations in Europe, and Patmos has a monastery and a stillness that people either love or find slow. Rhodes is the cosmopolitan one, and its medieval old town is the rare set piece that still works despite the visitor numbers. Beyond the inhabited islands there are enough secluded bays and uninhabited islets to fill a week and see almost nobody.
One thing worth planning around: the meltemi blows hardest in the Aegean through July and August, and it is the main reason a Dodecanese week can feel like more work than an Ionian one. It is nothing a competent crew cannot handle, but it is a conversation worth having honestly before you book August rather than after.
4.The Amalfi Coast And Corsica
The Tyrrhenian At Its Most Theatrical
The Amalfi Coast is a stretch of Italian mainland famous for a road, and it is considerably better from the water. The islands off it are the reason to bring a boat. Capri is exactly as advertised: elegant villas, manicured gardens, museum grade jewellery shops, designer boutiques and restaurants priced for people who fly in for lunch. Sailing around it is the free part and the best part, past dramatic limestone cliffs, the Faraglioni rocks and a run of sea caves including the Grotta Azzurra, where the water is a blue that photographs badly because nobody quite believes it.
Ischia, a short hop north, is the opposite in almost every respect: volcanic, rustic and old world, with thermal springs, a medieval castle on its own islet and local wine worth staying an extra night for. Between the two you get the entire range of the Italian coast inside about 20 miles. Our Amalfi Coast yacht charter guide has the anchorages and the mooring costs, which in this part of Italy are high enough that they belong in your budget from the start rather than as a surprise at the end.
Corsica sits north west of there and stayed the Mediterranean's best kept secret for about as long as a place with 200 beaches reasonably can. It rises straight out of the sea into sawtooth ridges, so you get glittering bays at the bottom and serious mountains directly behind, and the best coves along the west coast are only reachable from a boat. Snorkelling, hiking, canyoning and a food culture that is neither French nor Italian but firmly its own thing. It is a clear step up in exposure from the Amalfi islands, with real passages and weather that deserves respect, which makes it a strong week for a crew that wants to sail rather than potter.
5.The Balearic Islands And Malta
Spanish Coves And The Oldest Harbours In The Mediterranean
The Balearics answer a question most sailing destinations cannot: what if you want remote coves and proper nightlife inside the same week. Off eastern Spain, the archipelago runs from Mallorca down to Formentera and hands you a genuinely different island each day.
Mallorca is far larger and far quieter than its reputation, with ancient villages and hidden hamlets inland and the Serra de Tramuntana behind them, a World Heritage mountain range that drops straight into the north coast. Ibiza has the clubs if that is the trip, and it also has Cala Comte, Cala Salada and a UNESCO listed old town that most visitors never bother to walk up to. Menorca is the low key one, all postcard beaches and prehistoric archaeology. Formentera is small, boho and entirely horizontal, which is either the point or it is not.
Malta is the overlooked one, skipped because Sicily and the Balearics shout louder. It should not be. Malta, Gozo and Comino carry 2,500 years of nautical history between them, and Valletta is often described as an open air museum because there is no sensible way to separate the city from its fortifications. The east coast has sandy beaches and wide bays with good holding. The north and south are sharp rock and high cliffs, spectacular to sail past and short on shelter, so the anchorages need reading properly rather than picking off a chart. The Blue Lagoon at Comino is as good as the photographs if you get there before the day trip boats do.
6.The Azores And Bornholm
Atlantic And Baltic, For Crews Who Have Done The Med
Two places that are nothing whatsoever like the rest of this list, and both are here on merit.
The Azores are nine Portuguese islands spread across 370 miles of open Atlantic, unspoilt by mass tourism largely because getting there takes commitment. The landscape is volcanic and almost lunar in places, green and dripping in others. Whales and dolphins are not a lucky sighting here, they are most of the reason people come. Sail the south west coast of Faial for the volcanic rock walls at Capelinhos. Angra do Heroísmo is one of the most historic cities in Portugal and worth losing an afternoon in. Go underground into the Algar do Carvão lava caves, give Pico a couple of days for the high lagoons at Capitao and Caiado, and if the timing works, take a night sail to watch the water light up with bioluminescent algae. This is ocean sailing with real passages between islands rather than a coastal potter, and it is the one destination on this list where we would push most crews towards adding a skipper or taking a fully crewed boat.
Bornholm goes the other way entirely. A Danish island in the middle of the Baltic, closer to home than anything else here, with white sand beaches, rocky cliffs and leafy forests, and a food scene that includes a Michelin starred beach shack, which is a sentence we did not expect to write either. Condé Nast Traveler readers have voted it one of the best islands in the world. The sailing is cool water, very long summer daylight and a completely different rhythm to the Mediterranean, with windsurfing, sea kayaking and fishing on the side. Worth it for anyone who has done the Med twice and wants a week that does not feel like the same holiday in a different bay.
Ten islands and no single right answer, which is the honest position rather than a hedge. What decides it is who is coming, what they want out of the week, and what you are actually prepared to spend once mooring fees, fuel, provisioning, the tourist taxes and a skipper are inside the number instead of left out of it. We have advised on charters since 2011, we are tied to no operator, and we will give you the all in cost of a week in any of these places before you commit to it, not after.
Somewhere on this list is your next week. Tell us who is sailing, roughly when, and how much of the sailing you want to do yourself, and we will come back with the honest all in cost.
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Christopher Lait
Chris founded Drake Academy, a sailing company that provides leadership training to businesses. Now the CEO of SailChecker.com you will find him handling many of your enquiries as he attempts to drive SailChecker.com forward as the company of choice for yacht charter and sailing by focusing on quality advice and great customer service.
