Sardinia, Italy
Granite coves on the Costa Smeralda, Caribbean-clear water at La Pelosa and nuraghe stone towers inland.
A sample of the properties we quote here. Tell us your dates and we shortlist the right ones for you.
Costa Smeralda, on Cala di Volpe bay
The village-styled landmark of the Costa Smeralda, built in the 1960s to Jacques Couelle's design and still one of the most recognisable hotels in Italy.
Costa Smeralda, above Romazzino beach
A whitewashed low-rise hotel in gardens above its own sandy beach, one of the original Costa Smeralda properties.
Liscia di Vacca, near Porto Cervo
The smallest and most secluded of the original Costa Smeralda hotels, built as a group of granite villas around a saltwater pool.
Porto Cervo, above the marina and the piazzetta
Set in the middle of Porto Cervo village, a short walk from the marina, the boutiques and the piazzetta.
Baja Sardinia, facing the Maddalena archipelago
A cliffside resort of suites and villas looking across to the Maddalena islands, part of the 7Pines group.
Capo Ceraso, a short drive from Olbia
A seaside hotel on Li Cuncheddi beach close to Olbia and its airport, often used as a first- or last-night base.
Santa Margherita di Pula, southern coast
A large gated resort village made up of separate hotels on the south coast, long known for its sports academies and family programme.
Chia, south-western coast
A resort complex above the dunes and lagoons of Chia, on one of the most recognisable stretches of the southern coast.
We quote these and many more. Prices depend on dates and board — the quote is free and there is no payment on this site.
Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean and it does not behave like a resort island. It is roughly 270 kilometres from the top to the bottom, has an interior of granite mountains, cork oak and sheep that has almost nothing to do with the coast, and a population that speaks a language older than Italian and treats the sea with a certain suspicion. Historically Sardinians built inland, because everything that ever came from the sea came to take something.
What the visitor gets from that is a coastline that is far less continuously developed than the Costa Blanca or the Turkish Riviera, water that is genuinely the clearest in the Mediterranean, and a set of practical problems this page exists to solve. There are four of them: the north is expensive and the rest is not, the island is too big to see from one base, nothing works without a car, and the season is short.
The water deserves the claim. At La Pelosa near Stintino you can stand waist deep over white sand and see your own feet as if through glass. At Cala Mariolu and Cala Goloritzé on the Golfo di Orosei the sea goes from clear to a saturated blue over white pebbles in a way that makes photographs look edited. Tuerredda and Chia in the south do the same thing with a longer beach. If clear water is the single reason you travel, this is the right island.
In 1962 a consortium led by the Aga Khan bought a stretch of the north-east coast, wrote a strict architectural code and built Porto Cervo. Everything follows from that. The Costa Smeralda is roughly 55 kilometres of granite headlands, low-rise stone-and-stucco hotels in muted colours, superyacht berths and boutiques that are open for eight weeks a year.
It is beautiful. It is also, in July and August, one of the most expensive places in Europe to sleep and eat. A five-star there in high season is priced against Saint-Tropez and Capri, not against the rest of Italy. Restaurant bills follow. A sunbed at one of the famous beach clubs costs what a hotel night costs elsewhere on the island.
The important thing is that this is a strip, not a region. Twenty minutes inland, or an hour down the coast, the same island costs a fraction. Baja Sardinia and Cannigione are more moderate. San Teodoro and Budoni, forty minutes south of Olbia, are ordinary Italian seaside towns with good beaches, apartments and family hotels. If somebody tells you Sardinia is unaffordable, they went to Porto Cervo in August and generalised.
Sardinia has three airports and choosing wrongly is the classic mistake.
Olbia (OLB) is the northern one, the gateway to the Costa Smeralda, San Teodoro, Palau and La Maddalena. Porto Cervo is around 35 kilometres away, San Teodoro about 30, Santa Teresa Gallura roughly an hour.
Cagliari (CAG) is the southern one, serving the capital, Villasimius, Chia, Costa Rei and Pula. It is also the year-round airport, with the fullest winter timetable.
Alghero (AHO) is the north-west one, for Alghero itself, Bosa and Stintino, and it is heavily seasonal.
Olbia to Cagliari is about 270 kilometres and takes close to three hours on the SS131 even when the road is clear. That is the price of getting it wrong: a return day of driving out of a week. Decide which coast you want first, then book the flight, not the other way round.
Costa Smeralda at the top of the price ladder, Baja Sardinia and Cannigione one step down, Palau and Santa Teresa Gallura facing Corsica across the straits, and San Teodoro and Budoni to the south. The La Maddalena archipelago is the standout day trip — seven main islands, granite shaped by wind into odd forms, and Caprera where Garibaldi lived. The famous pink beach on Budelli is protected and you cannot land on it, which people discover on the boat.
The wildest coastline in Italy. From Cala Gonone a sequence of coves runs south beneath limestone cliffs: Cala Luna, Cala Mariolu, Cala Biriola, Cala Goloritzé. Most are reachable only by boat or by a serious walk, and several now cap daily visitor numbers. Behind them is the Supramonte, a limestone plateau with canyons and shepherds' country, and Sardinia's best hiking.
Alghero was Catalan for centuries and the old town still speaks Algherese; street signs are bilingual and the food shows it, especially the lobster. It is walled, honey-coloured and the most pleasant town on the island to spend an evening in. Nearby are Capo Caccia and the Neptune's Grotto stairway, and to the north Stintino and La Pelosa, whose beach now runs on a paid daily quota in summer to stop it being trampled. Bosa down the coast, with its coloured houses along a river, is worth an afternoon.
Cagliari is a real city — a fortified hilltop quarter called Castello, a Roman amphitheatre, markets, and Poetto, an eight-kilometre beach on the edge of town where people actually swim after work. East of it, Villasimius and Costa Rei have white sand and shallow turquoise water and a good spread of family hotels. West of it, Chia and Tuerredda have dunes, juniper and some of the best beaches on the island. This is the region that works best outside high summer, because the city carries it.
The least visited coast. Dunes at Piscinas that run to fifty metres high, abandoned mining villages, and the Sinis peninsula near Oristano with quartz-pebble beaches and the ruins of Tharros on a headland. Very little hotel stock and long empty roads. For a second visit rather than a first.
Sardinia is not an all-inclusive island. The stock is four-star hotels on bed-and-breakfast or half board, a strong agriturismo sector inland where you eat what the family cooks, apartments and residences aimed at Italian families who come for two weeks, and a concentration of five-stars in Gallura and around Chia. Package all-inclusive exists in a handful of large coastal villages, mostly in the south-east, but it is not the default and you should not expect the Turkish or Greek pattern.
The 85 EUR per person per night anchor is a shoulder-season figure for a good four-star with breakfast away from the Costa Smeralda. In August the same hotel might be half as much again; in Porto Cervo the number bears no relation at all. Agriturismi are the value option and are frequently the best food you will eat, though they are inland by definition and you will drive to the beach.
Eating out is reasonable away from the yacht harbours. A trattoria dinner for two with wine sits around 45 to 70 EUR. Order the culurgiones, the pane carasau, the fregola with clams, and if you are somewhere that roasts porceddu properly, that.
Flights from northern Europe to Olbia and Alghero are strongly seasonal and concentrate between June and September; Cagliari runs year-round with connections through Rome and Milan. Ferries cross from Genoa, Livorno and Civitavecchia to Olbia, Porto Torres and Cagliari, which is how most Italians and a lot of German visitors arrive, with the car.
You need that car. Sardinia has almost no useful coastal public transport, the beaches sit at the end of unnumbered roads, and the good places to eat are in villages. Book the car when you book the flight — in August the island genuinely runs out, and the walk-up price when it does is punishing.
We should be direct about our own role. We quote your accommodation through partner agencies. Transfers, ferries and car hire in Sardinia are arranged locally. Our own vehicles and drivers have run airport transfers in Turkey since 2016, and Turkey is the only country where we drive.
This is the detail that catches people. Large parts of the Sardinian coast are seasonal businesses. Hotels in the smaller resorts open in late May or June and close in the first half of October. Beach kiosks, boat operators and many restaurants follow the same calendar. A booking in the last week of October at Cala Gonone can find a village with three places open.
May is beautiful inland — green, wildflowers, walking weather — but coastal, it is early. The sea is around 18 degrees and a lot of properties are not trading yet.
June is the sweet spot. Everything is open, the sea is swimmable, prices are below peak and the beaches are not yet full.
July is hot and busy but manageable. August is the Italian holiday month: the whole country is on the road, prices peak, and the first three weeks are the most crowded of the year.
September is arguably the best month. The sea is at its warmest, the crowds evaporate after the first week and the light is superb.
October works for the first half, in the south especially. November to April is for Cagliari, hiking in the Supramonte, and not much else on the coast.
If you want an all-inclusive resort where you never move, this is the wrong island and Turkey, Greece or the Canaries will do it better and cheaper. If you will not drive, you will see a hotel and one beach. If you need budget certainty and a long season, look elsewhere. And if you are going in the last week of October expecting a warm open coastline, you will find shutters.
Sardinia has the widest internal price range of anywhere we quote. A June agriturismo week in the Ogliastra and an August suite in Porto Cervo are not the same holiday and are not the same order of magnitude, so a single published figure would mislead almost everyone reading it.
Tell us your dates, how many of you are travelling, which coast attracts you, and be honest about the budget — it saves everyone a round of guessing. A consultant comes back within one working day with two or three properties in the right region, the airport that actually suits them, and the reasoning behind each. The quote is free and commits you to nothing, and no payment is taken on this site; if you accept, you pay the partner agency that issues the booking and the voucher, and that agency is named before you decide.
The Costa Smeralda is, and it is priced against Saint-Tropez rather than the rest of Italy. The other ninety per cent of the island is not. San Teodoro, Alghero, Villasimius, Chia and the whole inland agriturismo sector cost a fraction of Porto Cervo, and the water is just as clear.
Olbia for the Costa Smeralda, San Teodoro, Palau and La Maddalena. Cagliari for the capital, Villasimius, Chia and Costa Rei, and for anything outside high summer. They are about 270 kilometres and three hours apart, so getting this wrong costs a full day of driving out of a week.
Yes, genuinely. Sardinia has almost no useful coastal public transport, the best beaches are at the end of unmarked roads and the good restaurants are in villages. Book the car with the flight, because in August the island runs out of vehicles and the late price is brutal.
It is a defensible claim. La Pelosa, Cala Mariolu, Cala Goloritzé and Tuerredda are as clear as the Mediterranean gets, helped by granite and limestone rather than river silt. The cost is that the water stays cooler than the Aegean into June, and it is fully warm only from mid-July.
Much of the coast is a seasonal business. Smaller resorts open in late May or June and close in the first half of October, along with the beach kiosks and boat operators. June and September are the best windows. May is beautiful inland for walking, but coastal towns can still be half shut.
In a handful of large coastal villages, mostly in the south-east, but it is not the norm and the choice is narrow. Sardinia works on bed-and-breakfast and half board, and eating out is a genuine part of the holiday. If all-inclusive is essential, say so early because it shapes the shortlist heavily.
Yes, particularly Villasimius, Costa Rei, San Teodoro and Chia, where the sand is white and the water shallow. The caveats are the driving, which is unavoidable, and the rocky coves on the east coast, which are gorgeous but not toddler terrain. Say the ages of your children and we will filter for it.
Send dates, party size and which coast interests you, and a consultant prices it with our partner agencies and replies within one working day. The quote is free and non-binding, and there is no checkout on this site. If you accept, you pay the partner agency that issues the booking and voucher, named in the offer beforehand.
Rates here move a lot between low and high season, so we quote each request individually rather than publish a number that would be wrong most of the year.
Free, non-binding, answered by a person.
