Skiathos hotels: which part of the island to book
The island is twelve kilometres end to end and has more than sixty beaches, so nowhere is far. What changes between one area and the next is whether you need a car, whether you can walk to dinner, and whether an aircraft passes over the roof at seven in the morning.
Almost everything worth knowing about Skiathos hotels follows from one fact that trips people up before they book: Skiathos is not in the Cyclades. It belongs to the Sporades, a small group lying off the coast of Thessaly in the western Aegean, close enough to the mainland to be reached by ferry from Volos or Agios Konstantinos rather than from Piraeus. It catches the rain the Cyclades miss, so it is covered in pine rather than scrub, and the market that has come here for fifty years is overwhelmingly British.
The areas of Skiathos, and who each one suits
Every hotel on the island sits on the south coast, along the single road that runs from the harbour out to Koukounaries. The north is cliffs and no road at all. So the choice is not really between forty resorts, it is a question of how far west along that one road you want to be, and what you give up by going there.
Set the trip profile to place your base
What is the trip built around?
You want dinner, a beach and the ferry quay inside walking distance, and you would rather not negotiate a hire car for four days.
Skiathos Town
Around the old harbour, eastern end of the island
- Port
- on the spot
- Airport
- 5 min
The only base on Skiathos where you can land, walk to the room and never get into a vehicle again. Buses to every south coast beach leave from the seafront, they run every half hour or so in season, and the last one back is late enough to have dinner at the far end of the island. Rooms here are small and old town streets are steps, so check what floor you are on before you book.
Megali Ammos
First bay west of town, a walk along the shore
- Port
- 20 min on foot
- Airport
- 10 min
Close enough to town that the walk in is the evening's first pleasure, far enough that the noise stays behind you. A sandy town beach with sunbeds and a couple of tavernas, and every bus passes the top of the road.
The island
The zones side by side
Driving times are outside July and August, when the road out of town moves slowly in the mornings. Prices are given as a position relative to the rest of the island rather than as figures, because rates on Skiathos move by a factor of three between May and August and any number printed here would be wrong within a year.
| Area | From the port | From the airport | The beach | Car | Price, relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skiathos Town | on the spot | 5 min | Town beaches only, sand and shingle | No | Mid, and wide |
| Megali Ammos | 20 min walk | 10 min | Sand, organised, sheltered | No | Mid |
| Achladies | 10 min | 15 min | Sand, gently shelving | Helpful | Mid |
| Kanapitsa | 15 min | 20 min | Small coves, sand and rock | Yes | Mid to high |
| Vromolimnos | 20 min | 25 min | Sand, watersports, lively | Yes | Mid |
| Troulos | 20 min | 25 min | Wide sand, pine shade behind | Helpful | Mid |
| Agia Paraskevi | 25 min | 30 min | Sand, big hotels on the front | Helpful | The highest on the island |
| Koukounaries | 30 min | 35 min | Pale sand, lagoon and pines behind | Helpful | High |
| North coast | Boat from the harbour | No road | Lalaria, white pebbles, boat access | No use at all | Nowhere to stay |
Hotels in Skiathos Town: the case for the port
The town wraps around two harbours separated by the Bourtzi promontory, the wooded spit with the old fortress on it. Ferries and hydrofoils use the new harbour on the west side, the fishing boats and the excursion caiques use the old one on the east, and the lanes climbing behind them hold most of the small hotels and pensions on the island. This is the only base on Skiathos where a car is a liability rather than an asset, because the streets are narrow, half of them are steps, and parking near the front is a competitive sport from June onwards.
What you get in exchange is a place where the whole day works on foot. The bus for the south coast leaves from the seafront and stops at every beach as far as Koukounaries. The water taxis for the coves and for the island of Tsougria go from the old port. Papadiamantis Street, the pedestrian spine, has the tavernas and the shops, and the bars around the old harbour run late in high season. That last part is the reason to read a room description carefully: a balcony over the old port in August is a seat at the party rather than a view of it.
Koukounaries, Agia Paraskevi and the pine coast
The south-western end of the island is where the pine forest reaches the water, and it is where the larger hotels are. Koukounaries closes the road: a long crescent of pale sand with a freshwater lagoon behind it and the Aleppo pines coming down almost to the beach, the one that turns up on every list of the best beaches in Greece, and busy enough by mid-morning in August to prove the point. Agia Paraskevi, the next bay east and signposted as Platanias on half the maps, is the address of the beachfront hotels with pools and gardens that most British families book.
Troulos and Vromolimnos sit between that coast and the town, which makes them the compromise most people end up taking. Troulos has the wide sandy bay and the pine shade without the price of the western end. Vromolimnos, on the Kalamaki peninsula, has the watersports and the music. Neither is more than twenty minutes from the harbour, so an evening in town is a taxi rather than a decision.
The north coast has no hotels and never will, and that is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon looking for one. Lalaria, the white pebble beach under the cliffs at the northern tip, sits on a shore with no road to it. Boats leave the old port each morning for it and the sea caves along that side, and come back in the afternoon.
The runway is next to the town, and you will hear it
Skiathos airport occupies the flat strip immediately north of the harbour, on a narrow neck of land between the sea and a lagoon, and there was never room to put it anywhere else. The result is the shortest airport transfer in the Aegean and one of the most photographed approaches in Europe: arriving aircraft cross the public road a few metres above it at the eastern threshold, and people fly in specifically to stand on the beach at the end of the runway and watch.
Why the runway is where it is
For a holiday it cuts both ways. Landing and being in your room twenty minutes later is a genuine luxury on an island. Sleeping through a summer Saturday, when the charter arrivals from the UK come in one after another, is not. The properties that suffer are the ones on the airport road and at the eastern edge of town, within a few hundred metres of the threshold. Elsewhere in town it is background noise, and past Achladies it disappears. Check the position of the room against the runway before you book anything near the port, and treat a description that mentions the airport as a selling point with the scepticism it deserves.
A short season, and what that means for booking
Skiathos lives from April or May to October and then stops. The seasonal flights end, the beach hotels on the south-west coast shut for the winter, the buses drop to a skeleton timetable and a large share of the tavernas in town close along with them. A February trip is possible and will not be the island anyone describes to you.
The practical consequence is that everyone is trying to book the same handful of months on an island with a limited number of beds. June and September are where the arithmetic works: the sea is warm, everything is open, and both prices and beaches are noticeably calmer than in the fortnight either side of the first of August. If you are tied to school holidays, book early and expect the town rooms with a harbour view to go first.
One more thing that shapes a Skiathos week: the island is a hub rather than a dead end. Skopelos and Alonnisos are a short hop by hydrofoil from the same harbour, and the mainland ports at Volos and Agios Konstantinos make an island-and-mainland trip straightforward in a way the Cyclades rarely are. Our maps of the Greek islands lay out where the Sporades sit relative to everywhere else if you are still deciding.
Questions people ask about staying on Skiathos
What is the best part of Skiathos to stay in?
Skiathos Town if you are not hiring a car, because it is the only base where the ferries, the buses, the restaurants and a beach are all within walking distance. The south-west coast around Agia Paraskevi and Koukounaries if the beach is the reason you came, since that is where the pine forest meets the best sand and where the larger hotels with pools are. Troulos sits between the two and is the usual answer for families who want space without a long transfer. The island is only 12 km end to end, so none of these choices is a long way from any other, but the bus timetable still decides your evenings.
What is the best hotel in Skiathos?
There is no agreed answer, and the island is small enough that the question really means which stretch of the south coast you want. Elivi, spread across the Aselinos side, is the property people search by name and the one that behaves like a resort rather than a hotel. Beyond it, the pattern is a run of mid-sized places with pools along the road from Achladies to Koukounaries, and small hotels and studios inside Skiathos Town. Shortlist by location first and then read the last few months of guest reviews, because on this island the recurring complaints are about the walk to the beach, the bus and, near the port, aircraft on final approach.
Is it better to stay on Skiathos or Skopelos?
Skiathos if you want the beaches, the airport and something happening in the evening. Skopelos if you want the greener, quieter island and do not mind the extra leg. Skiathos has the international airport for the whole group, more than sixty beaches including Koukounaries, and a town with real nightlife. Skopelos has the pine forests, the amphitheatre-shaped Chora, the Mamma Mia chapel, and a fraction of the visitors, but everyone arriving by air lands on Skiathos first and takes a boat across. A common compromise is a few nights on each, since the crossing is short and runs several times a day in season.
Which Skiathos hotels are on the beach, and which have a pool?
The beachfront properties are almost all on the south coast, which is the sheltered side, along the single road that runs from the harbour west to Koukounaries. Achladies, Vasilias, Troulos, Agia Paraskevi and Koukounaries itself are where the hotels stand on or immediately above the sand, and most of the larger ones there have a pool as well, because there is room behind the beach for one. In Skiathos Town a pool is rare, since the old town is built on steps and there is no ground to spare. The north coast beaches, Lalaria and Kastro among them, have no accommodation at all and several are reachable only by boat.
Are there all-inclusive hotels on Skiathos?
Some, and they are concentrated at the western end around Troulos, Agia Paraskevi and Koukounaries, where the hotels are large enough to run the format and far enough from a village that leaving for dinner means a bus or a car. It suits a family week on the sand. It suits Skiathos Town much less, since the whole point of staying there is that you can walk to a different taverna every night. The season is short even by Greek island standards, roughly April or May to October, and most of these hotels close for the winter along with the seasonal flights.
Where are the cheaper rooms, and is Skiathos Town a good base?
Skiathos Town is the good base and it is also where the cheaper rooms are, because it holds the studios, the apartments and the small family hotels rather than the resorts. You can walk to the ferries, the buses, the restaurants and a beach, and you can skip a hire car entirely. Two things to check before you book there. The old town is built on steps, which is hard work with a pushchair or a heavy case. And the runway sits immediately north of the harbour, with aircraft crossing the road at the eastern threshold on final approach, so anything within a few hundred metres of that threshold hears every arrival. Past Achladies it stops being a factor.
The same question, island by island, in our guide to where to stay in Greece.
