Beaches in Zakynthos

Zakynthos sells one photograph, and the honest version of this page starts by taking it away from you. The beaches here are governed by two things that are not scenery: a marine park across the whole southern bay, and a limestone cliff in the northwest that keeps coming down.

Start with the one everybody came for.

Navagio, which is a view rather than a beach day. The shipwreck cove is the one entry below with a page of its own, and that page exists because the position keeps moving. Access has been restricted by administrative decision since the cliffs above the cove began coming down in 2018, those decisions have been rewritten more than once, and the one in force carries an expiry date rather than a permanent answer. Under the decision our page cites by its Government Gazette reference, entry to the beach is prohibited, swimming across the cove is prohibited, and no vessel may approach or anchor within 50 metres of the shoreline. What is permitted is the view, from the clifftop platform or from a boat standing off, and trips along the coast are still sold and still run. So ask one question before you pay: does the trip land on the beach, and is landing permitted under the decision in force today.

The turtle bay. Laganas Bay, along the south coast, is the National Marine Park of Zakynthos, and loggerhead turtles, Caretta caretta, nest on its beaches: Gerakas, Dafni, Sekania, Kalamaki, East Laganas and the islet of Marathonisi. That is not a label on a map. The park sets real rules, and they cover the hours the nesting beaches open and close, how far back from the waterline your towel and umbrella may go, what may be set up on which beach, how far to stay from a turtle in the water, and how fast a boat may move in the bay. Not every nesting beach is open to visitors at all. Read the signs at the entrance, take the operator’s briefing seriously, and treat the rules as the reason the turtles keep arriving rather than as small print.

Gerakas, at the tip of the Vasilikos peninsula, is where most people meet that system, because it is both a nesting beach and some of the best sand on the island. A seasonal visitor cap with a kiosk at the entrance has been reported there, and mornings or late afternoons are the sensible arrival either way.

The resort sand. Tsilivi and Alykes on the east coast, and Laganas and Kalamaki in the south, are the package beaches: long sand with the resort built behind it. Kalamaki sits inside the nesting bay, so the park ropes stretches of it off through the summer and closes it overnight in season. Mornings on the sand, evenings somewhere else, and where those evenings happen is a separate question.

The west, which is rock rather than sand. Porto Limnionas is a rock-cut inlet where you swim off the ledges, and Xigia has warm sulphur springs running into the sea. Both are reached by road, and both are small enough that a few cars change the feel of them. Further round, the Keri caves, the Myzithres stacks and the Blue Caves at Cape Skinari are sea sights, reached from the water on boats out of Agios Nikolaos in the north or Keri and Porto Vromi in the southwest.

One planning note that costs people their best day. Boats on this coast are cancelled by swell rather than by rain, and the west side takes the open sea. Leave a spare day around anything that floats.

We print no fares, no boat times, no entrance fees and no opening hours anywhere on this page. The Zakynthos guide plans the bases and the days around all of it.