Beaches in Skopelos

Set one expectation before you pack and the rest of this page makes sense. Skopelos is the most densely forested island in Greece, pine covers most of it and runs right down to the waterline, and the beaches are therefore white pebble under dark green rather than sand under scrub. Sand is scarce. Water shoes are common. That is not a warning, it is a description, and once you have accepted it the swimming here is as good as anywhere in the Sporades.

What the pine actually gives you. Shade at the back of a beach is rare in Greece and normal here, which changes the shape of a beach day: you are not driven off the sand at two in the afternoon, and you do not need to have booked an umbrella to survive the middle of the day. It also means the water reads a particular colour, because there is dark green standing behind it rather than pale scrub.

Kastani, on the west coast, is the one people come looking for, because it appears in the Mamma Mia film alongside the chapel. It is a good beach on its own terms and it is busier than its size for a reason that has nothing to do with the beach.

Milia is the long one, a broad sweep of pale pebble with the forest behind it, and it is the beach most people end up rating highest once the film has stopped mattering to them.

Panormos sits in a sheltered bay on the same coast, which makes it the calm-water option and the one to aim for when the sea is doing something the open beaches do not like.

Stafylos, on the south, is close to the main town, which makes it the one you can reach without organising a day around it.

Limnonari is the small enclosed one, a pocket bay that feels private out of season and fills quickly in August precisely because it is small.

How to choose on the day. The island is compact enough that changing coast is a short move, and with beaches on the west, south and north you can almost always find a sheltered side. Read the water when you arrive rather than a description written months earlier. What the sea is like covers how wind and season change it.

Getting to them. There is no airport, so everyone arrives by boat, and the island is large enough that reaching the spread of beaches wants wheels. A day-tripper off the Skiathos boat will see the chapel and one beach; anyone staying can have the coast properly. Which islands need a car is the general question.

How long to give it. Four nights, because Skopelos is large enough and green enough to reward a real stay rather than a stop, and because the beaches here are spread rather than concentrated. Our Skopelos guide has the island in full, things to do covers the town, the forest and the rock, and Skiathos to Skopelos covers the crossing most people make.