Beaches in Serifos

Serifos has numerous beaches and very few of them have anything behind them. That is the whole shape of a beach day here, and it is a good deal if you arrive prepared and a poor one if you do not. The island is bare rock and low scrub with very little shade, so what you carry matters more than which beach you pick.

Livadi, by the port, is the convenient one. It is where the ferries land and where most of the island’s rooms are, so it is the beach you can use without organising anything, including on the afternoon you arrive and the morning you leave.

Psili Ammos is the sandy favourite. Its name means fine sand, which on an island of rock and scrub is the distinction that matters, and it is the one most people are actually looking for when they ask about Serifos beaches.

Ganema and Vagia are quieter again. Further out, less visited, and reached the way most of this coast is reached, which is down a dirt road.

The dirt roads are the real planning fact. Most of the beaches here need one, and that decides both what you hire and how you feel about driving it. Take the description literally rather than as colour, and if you would rather not drive a dirt track, base yourself near Livadi and accept a smaller list.

Facilities are thin almost everywhere, so bring water and shade. That sentence is carried straight from our island guide and it is the most practical line on the page. There is no assuming a taverna at the back of the beach, no assuming an umbrella for hire, and on an island with very little natural shade the sun is the thing that ends the day rather than the swimming.

When to go, given all of that. A bare, shadeless island in high summer is hard work in the middle of the day. That is an argument for the shoulder season here more strongly than it is for a greener island, and it is also an argument for early mornings. The shoulder season covers the wider case.

Reading the water. This is the western Cyclades, and the island has coasts facing several ways, so what is choppy on one side may be calm on the other. Read the sea when you get there rather than a description written months earlier. What the sea is like explains the mechanism.

Two or three nights suits Serifos, because the chora, the mines and the beaches are each a separate trip. Our Serifos guide has the island in full, and things to do covers the chora and the abandoned mining coast that is the other reason to come.