Beaches in Evia

Evia is the second-biggest island in Greece and you drive to it, which changes what its coast is for. This is the sea Athens can reach without a ferry, and the beaches fill accordingly at weekends and empty midweek. That single fact is worth more than any list of names.

The gentle west coast, facing the mainland. This is the sheltered side, and it is where the low-key beach towns are. Eretria sits on it, filling with Athenian weekenders in summer, which tells you both what the swimming is like and who you will be sharing it with. If you want easy Athens access and a swim, this is the area to look at.

The east coast, facing the open Aegean. A different proposition: more exposed, less developed and quieter, with Kymi standing on its green balcony above the sea. The trade is the same one every Greek island makes between a sheltered side and an open one, and on an island this long the two are genuinely far apart.

The north, around Loutra Edipsou. Here the coast comes with something no other Greek beach does: geothermal, mineral-rich hot water surfacing along the shore, used since antiquity, with sea-front bathhouses and open-air pools by the water. Because the springs run hot in winter as well as summer, this is one of the few Greek coasts that works year-round.

The Lichadonisia, off the northwestern tip. A scatter of tiny islets reached by small day boats in summer. A place, and a pretty one, rather than a resort.

Why this page names no individual beach. Evia is enormous, its coast runs for a very long way, and our own island guide names beach towns rather than beaches. Rather than supply names that sound right, this page gives you the two coasts and the north, and leaves the specific bay to a map you check on the day. That is the same rule applied on every beaches page in this batch whose hub gives no names.

Reading the water. A long island with a sheltered western side and an open eastern one will nearly always have a calm coast somewhere, and crossing between them is a real drive rather than a hop. Read the sea when you arrive, and plan the crossing rather than assuming it. What the sea is like covers the mechanism.

And the thing that makes Evia different from every other island here. You can bring your own car without a ferry, so the whole coast is available to anyone who drives. That is why Evia works as a weekend from Athens when the Cyclades do not, and it is the strongest practical reason to consider it at all.

One caution about the north. The 2021 wildfire burned across the pine forests around Istiaia and the inland villages, and the recovery is a matter of decades. Expect a landscape in the middle of that process. Coming and spending here is part of the recovery, and sustainable travel in Greece covers the idea.

Our Evia guide has the practicalities and things to do covers the reversing strait, the springs and Eretria.