The best beaches in Greece, sorted by the day you want

The short answer

The best beaches in Greece are not one list but a few kinds of coast. Naxos, Paros, Skiathos, Kos and Crete are the sand islands. Kefalonia has white pebble under cliffs, Lefkada has the cliffs and the colour, and Milos has volcanic rock and boat days. And in the Aegean summer, the meltemi decides which coast you swim on.

The best beaches on the Greek islands, and on the mainland, sort by the day you want:

The beach day you want	Where to look	Start here
Long soft sand you can reach easily	The Naxos west coast, the Skiathos south coast, the Kos north coast, Crete’s north coast	Naxos beaches
Sand that shelves gently a long way out	Agios Georgios at Naxos Town, Koukounaries on Skiathos, Tigaki on Kos, the west coast of Sithonia	Agios Georgios
Shelter when the meltemi blows	The south coasts of Mykonos, Paros and Samos, the east coasts of Rhodes and Karpathos	Mykonos beaches
White pebble, cliffs and colour	Kefalonia’s north-west, Lefkada’s west coast, Paxos	Kefalonia beaches
Rock and volcanic shapes	Milos, and Santorini’s black and red coast	Milos beaches
A boat day for the water	Kleftiko on Milos, Antipaxos, Lalaria on Skiathos	Kleftiko
Beaches with little built behind them	Limnos, Kythira and Serifos, with a car	Limnos beaches
A beach you drive to on the mainland	Sithonia, Messenia, the Parga coast, Elafonisos, the Athens Riviera	Sithonia beaches

This page does not rank Greece’s beaches. None of the rankings we read says how its order was made, and the same beach is a different beach in a different wind. Every beach named here is described on one of our pages.

Sand or pebble is set by the island’s rock, so it is the first thing to choose

Whether you get soft sand, white pebble or bare rock is mostly settled by the island you book, not the beach you pick on arrival. Sand, as our guide to what the Greek sea is like puts it, is a feature of specific places rather than a national default.

Greece’s sandy beaches cluster on a few islands. Naxos has one long west coast of sand that changes name as it runs south. Paros has long sands on the east and sheltered sand in the south, though its famous Kolymbithres is granite. Skiathos is widely reported to have more than sixty beaches, nearly all sandy and pine-backed. Kos has more sand than most islands, and Crete lines its north coast with sandy city beaches. On Rhodes the east coast is the sandier side, with Tsambika the soft-sand bay locals name, and Limnos has long sand almost nobody is on.

The pebble islands are just as clear. On Kefalonia the drama is pebble and the comfort is sand, around Skala and Lassi. Paxos is pebble and shingle coves, with its sand across the water on Antipaxos. Skopelos and Spetses are pebble under pine, and Ithaca’s small coves shelve straight into deep water. On Hydra you swim off flat rocks and concrete platforms, with Mandraki the sandy exception. On Kalymnos, steep limestone makes the shore drop rather than shelve, which is why its coves are small and pebbly.

The volcanic pair are different again. Santorini is black and red, coarse volcanic grit and pebble that holds the heat, and our Santorini pages say it has no pale sand. Milos adds the white rock of Sarakiniko and long sweeps of sand under red and ochre cliffs at Firiplaka and Paliochori.

Pebble and rock mean a step into the water rather than a wade, and swim shoes, on our packing list, fix most of it.

White sand, and why the water turns that colour

The white sand beaches in Greece are pale for a reason, and the reason tells you whether the entry is soft. On Koufonisia the seabed is white sand rather than rock, which is what turns the water pale turquoise and makes the entry soft. At Saliara on Thassos the white is ground marble, at the end of a rough track. Simos on Elafonisos is pale soft sand behind dunes. Elafonisi on Crete runs from white to patchy pink, and the pink is crushed shell.

Pale is not always soft. Myrtos is white cobble and Lalaria is smooth pale pebble, and both photograph like sand.

In the Aegean summer the meltemi picks the coast, so book an island with a sheltered side

The meltemi chops up the exposed side of an Aegean island while the far side sits in its shadow, so the question to ask is whether an island has a sheltered coast you can reach. This dry summer wind is strongest in July and August. The National Observatory of Athens’ meteo.gr puts its greatest strength between mid-June and early September, usually peaking at midday and in the afternoon and easing in the evening.

Its direction is what the beach guides we read leave out. According to meteo.gr, the meltemi blows from the north-east in the north Aegean, from the north in the central Aegean and from the north-west over the Dodecanese, bent by the country’s mountains. The coast facing the wind gets chop, blown sand and cooler water, and the coast facing away sits in the island’s wind shadow, as the sea guide explains. So the sheltered side is usually a south or south-west coast in the north Aegean, a south coast in the Cyclades, as on Mykonos, Paros and Ios, and an east or south-east coast in the Dodecanese, as on Rhodes and Karpathos. The rule fits in one line: swim on the coast the wind leaves.

Diagram by Greece Trips. Free to reuse with credit - CC BY 4.0.

On a windy day, the Cyclades’ best beaches and their neighbours sort like this:

Island	Coast the meltemi hits	Coast to try instead	Our page
Mykonos	The north coast	The south coast, in the wind shadow	Mykonos beaches
Paros	The east, around Golden Beach	Aliki and Faragas, on the south	Aliki
Naxos	The north side of Mikri Vigla	The town end, and the south side of the same headland	Mikri Vigla
Ios	The exposed coasts	Manganari’s bays, across the south	Ios beaches
Tinos	The north and east	A leeward cove on the south	Tinos beaches
Andros	The north- and west-facing beaches	A south- or east-facing cove	Andros beaches
Samos	The north, around Kokkari	The south and south-west	Samos beaches
Kos	The north coast	The south and east, including Therma	Kos beaches
Rhodes	The west coast	The east coast	Rhodes beaches
Karpathos	The south and much of the west	The east coast, in the lee of the mountains	Karpathos beaches

On Astypalaia, geography does the work: the isthmus at Steno is barely a hundred metres wide with a beach on each side, so you walk across to the other wind. Koufonisia, small and low, has no far side to escape to, as our page says, and a July 2023 Mumsnet thread on the Cyclades in the meltemi found none of its beaches totally sheltered, though most islands had south-facing or cove beaches that were.

Crete does not take a one-line rule. Our Plakias page describes a south-facing bay that takes wind and swell, and Falassarna faces open sea on the west, so read each Cretan bay by its shape and exposure. Crete’s beaches sorts them.

The wind builds through the day, so an exposed beach is often a morning beach. The method also needs a way to cross the island, which is why our Samos, Andros and Tinos pages all argue for a car, and which islands need a car has the rest. Sheltered describes which way a coast faces, not what the sea is doing that morning.

The windward beaches belong to the boards

The beaches the meltemi spoils for a swim are the ones board riders cross Greece for, so on a windy afternoon they are the places not to spread a towel. Our pages name Prasonisi at the southern tip of Rhodes, the north side of Mikri Vigla on Naxos, Golden Beach and Pounta on Paros, Kalafatis and Ftelia on Mykonos, Marmari on Kos and Keros on Limnos. Kolymbithra on Tinos has a surf reputation, and Messakti on Ikaria turns into a surf beach when the swell rolls in. Vasiliki on Lefkada is known for a dependable afternoon wind. The sports themselves are in surfing and windsurfing in Greece.

West of the mainland the wind changes, and the Ionian’s sheltered water is on its east-facing coasts

West of the mainland, the Ionian has a different wind, and its sheltered water is on the east-facing coasts. Our sea guide describes the Ionian as facing Atlantic weather rather than the meltemi, and meteo.gr’s entry gives the meltemi’s directions for the Aegean alone. The Ionian still has wind: an afternoon breeze from the north-west is the usual pattern, according to our sailing guide, and the famous cliff beaches sit on west coasts that face the open sea.

• Corfu: the north-east faces a narrow channel and runs bay after bay, while the west and north-west take the open sea and a swell from far off. Paleokastritsa’s water has a reputation for running cooler. Corfu beaches
• Lefkada: the west has the white cliffs and the swell, and a bay that looks like a swimming pool at ten in the morning can be rolling surf by four. The east is low, green and screened by islets, which is why our Lefkada page tells families to start there.
• Kefalonia: Petani opens due west, which explains both its sunset and its afternoon wind.
• Zakynthos: the west takes the open sea, and boats on that coast are cancelled by swell rather than rain.
• Paxos: small sheltered pebble coves on the east, and a west of cliffs and caves that most people see from the water.

So an Ionian cliff beach is a morning plan, and a flat-water day is an east-coast plan. Cyclades or Ionian weighs the two seas as a whole trip.

Shallow sand for small children is a seabed shape, and it sits on particular coasts

Water that stays shallow a long way out is a fact about a bay’s sand shelf. It describes the ground, not the day, and our pages find it on a short list of coasts:

• Agios Georgios, the Naxos town beach, walkable from the port
• Koukounaries, on the sheltered south-west corner of Skiathos, with pine behind it and a bus to it
• Tigaki, on the Kos north coast, which also catches the meltemi, so the boards share it
• Xi on Kefalonia, with orange-red sand, and Tsilivi on Zakynthos
• Bonatsa and Aliki on the south of Kimolos, and the east-coast coves of Paxos
• Diakoftis, near the southern tip of Karpathos
• The west coast of Sithonia, the bay at Vourvourou, and Simos on Elafonisos

The lagoons carry a catch. Balos and Elafonisi are shallow and each is a full day out, and the Region of Crete’s records, as our pages report them, show no natural shade at either. Our Elafonisi page adds that the channel’s depth and pull change with the wind from day to day.

As our sea guide explains, lifeguard cover in Greece is an obligation on designated busy beaches for part of the season and part of the day, so most beaches have nobody watching most of the time. Supervision is yours. A Blue Flag is a facilities signal, not a reading of the sea on the day. The island choice belongs to the family guide, with Greece with a baby and a 10-day route with kids for the detail.

Some beaches have Seatrac, a ramp-and-seat system that lets a wheelchair user into the sea. Our Skiathos page names four and says to check each one’s live status before you travel, and accessibility in Greece has the wider picture.

The famous beaches are a boat, a track or a staircase away, and that is the day you are booking

We have not ranked these. None of the rankings we read says how its order was made, and the claim repeated most often, that Myrtos has been voted the best beach in Greece many times, failed our Myrtos page’s check. What separates the prettiest beaches in Greece on most lists is what reaching them costs, so here they are by access.

By boat, when the sea allows

• Kleftiko, Milos: a boat from Adamas, with a spare day behind it
• Lalaria, Skiathos: the boat lands only when the sea allows
• Vrika and Voutoumi, Antipaxos: a small boat or water taxi from Gaios on Paxos
• Islet days: Kato Koufonisi, Polyaigos off Kimolos, Despotiko off Antiparos, Moni off Aegina

Down a track

• Balos, Crete: a track and a path down, or the boat from Kissamos; many hire agreements exclude that road (renting a car)
• Saliara, Thassos: a rough track
• The south and west coves of Milos, and the east lobe of Astypalaia

Down steps or a steep path

• Porto Katsiki, Lefkada: a long flight of steps and almost no shade
• Seitan Limania, Crete: a steep, rough, unmaintained path
• Kaladi, Kythira: steps down a cliff
• Tsigrado, Milos: a rope-and-ladder descent
• Myrtos, Kefalonia: a hairpin road down, with the famous view from above

By road, then a short walk

• Elafonisi, Crete: close to two hours each way from Chania, into a protected reserve
• Falassarna, Crete: open sand with no boat and no track
• Sarakiniko, Milos: a sealed road and a car park, so the busiest, on rock that takes no umbrella
• Vai, Crete: a palm forest at the far eastern tip
• Voidokilia, Messenia: a walk in over protected dunes, with nothing built on it
• Simos, Elafonisos: a short car ferry off the Peloponnese

Check four first. Navagio on Zakynthos has been under access restrictions by administrative decision since its cliffs began to fall, and the decisions have been rewritten more than once: treat it as a view, not a beach day, and read our page for the decision in force. The municipality prohibited access to Red Beach on Santorini after a 2013 landslide, and the position has changed repeatedly since: read the signs in front of you. The 2015 earthquake cut the staircase to Egremni on Lefkada, and access has kept changing, so check locally. The cliffs above Myrtos shed rock too, and its current position is posted on site.

Gerakas and Dafni are nesting beaches inside the National Marine Park of Zakynthos, where the park sets the rules, and Elafonisi is a Natura 2000 site. Check the island before the name: Sarakiniko is on Milos, Ithaca, Elafonisos and Gavdos, and near Parga; Agia Anna is on Naxos and Amorgos; Aliki on Paros, Thassos and Kimolos; and Golden Beach on Paros and Thassos.

Organised, free or shadeless: the coast’s economy decides what you carry

What the beach hands you, a lounger and shade or nothing at all, decides what goes in the bag. At the organised end, the Mykonos bays are laid out wall to wall in rented beds in high season, often with a minimum spend, and the party bays are a nightlife question. So are the Santorini black-sand strip and the middle of the Naxos west coast, and the Athens Riviera sets paid concessions beside municipal free beaches. Serifos, Kythira, Kimolos, Koufonisia, much of Karpathos and Limnos have little or nothing behind the sand. Syros and Sithonia sit between: tavernas, but no beach-club economy.

Shade follows the trees: pine on Skopelos, Spetses, Skiathos and the wooded half of Poros, salt cedars at Otzias on Kea, tamarisks at Psaraliki on Antiparos. Expect little or none at Sarakiniko, Porto Katsiki, the Cretan lagoons, most of Serifos or the deep Mani.

Most of every beach is meant to stay free of loungers, and an official app shows the limits: sunbeds and free beaches. A Blue Flag certifies management and water quality, not beauty, and nude beaches in Greece explains where nudity is customary. Resort-seekers want all-inclusive Greece or luxury Greece. We print no prices and name no business: concessions are retendered, and bars change hands between seasons.

Mainland Greece has driving coasts, and Greek families fill them in August

The best beaches in mainland Greece are a road trip rather than a ferry, and a car is assumed on every coast below (driving in Greece).

• Sithonia: one ring road, sandy and shallow on the west, sculpted pale-rock coves on the east facing Mount Athos. It is where Thessaloniki goes, and August brings Greek families. Sithonia beaches
• Messenia: Voidokilia, a near-perfect semicircle of sand with a protected lagoon behind it; Navarino bay at Pylos, near-enclosed by Sfaktiria; Methoni and Koroni, where a castle comes with the swim; and the four-kilometre city front at Kalamata.
• The Mani: the outer Mani around Kardamyli and Stoupa has the beaches, and the deep south is bare rock with little shade. Mani beaches
• Epirus: Parga‘s town beaches, where the water taxi is ordinary transport, and the islet bays of Sivota, mostly reached by boat.
• Elafonisos: Simos, a short car ferry off the south-east Peloponnese.
• Evia: the island you drive to, whose sheltered west coast faces the mainland and fills with Athenians at weekends. Evia beaches
• The Athens Riviera: the tram reaches Glyfada, and Lake Vouliagmeni is a separate place with its own ticket.

Pelion’s east coast has several long, pale beaches below the villages that Volos is the base for, and a Peloponnese road trip strings the southern coasts together.

Without a car, sleep in a beach town or on a coast the bus runs along

A beach trip without a car works where a town sits on its own sand, or where a bus, a path or a water taxi runs along the coast. The best beach towns in Greece are the ones you walk from: Naxos Town, with Agios Georgios minutes from the port; Rethymno, whose sandy strip runs out of the old town; Chania, with Nea Chora a short walk west of the harbour; Kamari, with a promenade behind the black sand; Parga, with Kryoneri in front of the town; Skiathos Town, near Megali Ammos; and Glyfada, on the tram from Athens.

Buses run the Naxos west coast, the Skiathos south coast, the Rhodes east coast, Kos and Syros, and our Paros page counts it among the few Cyclades islands where they genuinely reach the beaches. On Mykonos, town buses meet the sea bus at Platis Gialos. Sifnos has marked stone footpaths to its bays, Koufonisia has its coast path, and water taxis do a bus’s job on Hydra, Spetses, Parga and Symi. The Saronic islands are a boat from Piraeus, and our Aegina page sends swimmers to the islet of Moni. Getting around Greece and backpacking Greece go further.

Choose the base by the beach it puts you on, then book the room. Plan this trip: the planner lays the route out and books nothing.

June and September are the beach months, for the wind as much as the water

June and September are the months for a beach holiday in Greece, and the wind matters as much as the water. The sea runs weeks behind the air: it turns late in June and holds its warmth into September, as our sea guide explains. July and August bring the strongest meltemi and the biggest crowds, as our best-time guide sets out. The fortnight around 15 August is when Greece itself goes on holiday, and on Tinos the date brings a pilgrimage that fills the island; Greek Easter and August has the detail.

May gives you warm air over a sea still recovering from winter. In October the south, off Crete and the Dodecanese, holds its warmth longest. The shoulder season covers what is still running, and every temperature lives on Greece weather by month.

So which island should you book for beaches?

If you want one island for a beach week, we’d book Naxos: a west coast of sand running south from the town beach, a bus along it, and a walkable town. Skiathos is the Sporades alternative on the same terms. For cliffs and colour with a car, take Kefalonia or Lefkada and swim the west coast in the morning. For rock and boat days, take Milos, with a spare day behind the Kleftiko boat. For a week that survives a windy spell, pick an island with two coasts and a way to cross them, such as Rhodes, Paros or Samos, or Astypalaia for its isthmus. For beaches with little built behind them, Limnos; from the mainland, Sithonia or Messenia. Matched to the beach vacation you want, those are the best Greek islands for beaches. Compare all the islands, read Naxos in full, or head for the quiet islands.

The best beaches in Greece: short answers

What are the best beaches in Greece?

The names that recur on the lists we read are Navagio on Zakynthos, Elafonisi and Balos on Crete, Myrtos on Kefalonia, Porto Katsiki on Lefkada, Sarakiniko and Kleftiko on Milos, and Koukounaries on Skiathos. Several need a boat, a track or a staircase, and Navagio has been under access restrictions since its cliffs began to fall. Which of the best beaches in Greece suits you depends on the day you want, and our Navagio page carries the decision in force.

Which Greek islands have the best beaches?

For long sand, Naxos, Paros, Skiathos, Kos and Crete. For white pebble under cliffs, Kefalonia, and for cliffs and colour, Lefkada. For volcanic rock and boat days, Milos, and for very clear water with a boat hop, Paxos and Antipaxos. In the Aegean summer, choose an island with a coast facing away from the meltemi, and a way to reach it. All the islands are compared side by side.

What is the most beautiful beach in Greece?

No list we read measures it. Navagio, Elafonisi, Balos and Myrtos turn up on nearly all of them, but none explains its order, and the often-repeated claim that Myrtos has been voted Greece’s best beach many times failed our check. The most beautiful beach is the one on the coast the wind leaves on the day you go, which is why this page sorts rather than ranks. Our Myrtos page shows the check.

Are Greek beaches sandy or pebbly?

Both, and the island decides. Naxos, Paros, Skiathos, Kos and Crete’s north coast are mostly sand. Kefalonia’s famous beaches, Paxos, Ithaca, Skopelos and Hydra are pebble or rock. Santorini is black and red volcanic grit and pebble. Swim shoes make pebble and rock entries easier, which is why they are on our packing list.

Where are the white sand beaches in Greece?

On Koufonisia, whose white sand seabed turns the water pale turquoise; at Simos on Elafonisos, pale soft sand behind dunes; at Elafonisi on Crete, which runs from white to patchy pink; and at Saliara on Thassos, where the white is ground marble. Myrtos and Lalaria look white too, but they are pebble, not sand. Koufonisia’s beaches explains the colour.

Which Greek beaches are sheltered from the meltemi?

The ones facing away from it. According to the National Observatory of Athens’ meteo.gr, the meltemi blows from the north in the central Aegean and from the north-west over the Dodecanese. So the sheltered side is usually a south coast in the Cyclades, as on Mykonos, Paros and Ios, and an east coast in the Dodecanese, as on Rhodes and Karpathos. Samos keeps its lee on the south and south-west. Sheltered describes a direction, not a promise; the sea guide explains the mechanism.

What are the best beaches in mainland Greece?

Voidokilia and the Messenian coast around Pylos, Sithonia’s two coasts in Halkidiki, Simos on Elafonisos just off the Peloponnese, Parga and the Sivota islets on the Epirus shore, and the outer Mani around Kardamyli. All of them are road-trip beaches, and all are at their busiest in August, when Greece itself is on holiday. Sithonia’s beaches is a good first read.

When is the best time for a beach holiday in Greece?

June and September. The sea turns late in June and holds its warmth into September, while July and August bring the strongest meltemi and the biggest crowds, peaking in the fortnight around 15 August. In October, the south, off Crete and the Dodecanese, holds its warmth longest. The best time to visit Greece weighs every month, and no temperature appears on this page by design.