It can be hard to escape the tourist hordes in Europe during high summer, but there are still seaside spots that the locals keep mainly to themselves. These five hotels — from a whitewashed gem on a lesser-known Greek island to an haute restaurant with rooms on England’s east coast — offer access to beaches with more space to spread out your towel. Room rates listed here are for summer.
Nostos Boutique Hotel, Serifos, Greece
This two-year-old spot on the rugged Cycladic island of Serifos is a five-minute walk from the beach. With whitewashed walls and blue shutters, the hotel — which has 17 guest rooms, many with balconies, as well as a small gym — echoes the island’s sugar cube-style architecture. Unlike some neighboring islands — Sifnos, for example, lost its low-profile status when the actress Margot Robbie was photographed wheeling her suitcase off the ferry in 2023 — Serifos still feels off the grid. It’s hard to pick a favorite among its 50 beaches, but Psili Ammos, a 10-minute drive from Nostos, is a worthy contender. A golden crescent on the eastern side of the island just north of Livadi port, it’s shaded, unlike many of the island’s beaches, by tamarisk trees, and there are two tavernas: Stefankos, the more refined of the two, serves Cycladic classics like Greek salad with creamy mizithra cheese, zucchini fritters with tzatziki and fresh fish. From about $250 a night.
Les Hautes Mers, Île d’Yeu, France
One of only a handful of hotels on Île d’Yeu, a tiny island 10 miles off the west coast of France, three-year-old Les Hautes Mer has 25 bedrooms, some with sea views, decorated in shades of blue with nautical details like model sailboats. There’s a swimming pool and a restaurant, where plump, sweet Fromentine oysters are the must order. Half a mile from Port-Joinville, the island’s harbor and main village, where the ferry arrives from the mainland town of Fromentine (or you can take a 10-minute helicopter flight), Les Hautes Mers faces Plage de Ker Châlon, a broad, sandy beach on the island’s northeastern coast. Lined with dunes and pine trees, it slopes gently to the ocean and is a favorite of kite and windsurfers on breezy days. From about $425 a night, with a three-night minimum stay.
The Suffolk, Aldeburgh, Britain
About a hundred miles from London, the east coast county of Suffolk offers 50 miles of beaches that are far less crowded than those of the west coast counties of Cornwall and Dorset. The Suffolk is a restaurant with a handful of guest rooms in the Victorian seaside town of Aldeburgh, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the city, where an invariably packed dining room serves locally sourced produce, including oysters from Butley Creek, whole brill from a fishmonger in the nearby town of Lowestoft and côte de boeuf from Salter & King, the town’s revered butcher. There’s also a no-reservations roof terrace for cocktails and stellar bar snacks — don’t miss the seaweed papadums with mayonnaise. The Suffolk’s six comfortable bedrooms are decorated in subdued shades with furniture upholstered in patterned linens. Aldeburgh’s two-mile-long, pebbly beach is backed by ice cream-colored houses; the sea is popular with swimmers when the water’s calm — seals can occasionally be seen bobbing here too. From about $240 a night.
Dunas de Formentera, Spain
Low-slung Formentera, a 30-minute ferry ride from Ibiza, is the smallest and most mellow of the Balearic Islands, but its dozen miles of beaches are among the best in the archipelago, and the striking indigos and teals of its stretch of Mediterranean Sea make it look tie-dyed. On Migjorn beach, on the southern, wilder side of the island, Dunas de Formentera is the second property there from Marugal Hotels, which also owns Gecko, a stroll away. The 45 rooms and suites are spread between casitas connected by boardwalks that wind around the juniper and pine trees, and are decorated in sandy tones by the Mallorca-based designer Antonio Obrador. Billed as Formentera’s first regenerative hotel, it operates on 100 percent renewable energy and turns 80 percent of its waste into reusable resources; there’s even a five-minute hourglass timer in the bathrooms to encourage shorter showers. From about $450 a night.
La Roqqa, Porto Ercole, Italy
The northern Tuscan seaside towns of Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi can get stifling in summer, but head down the coast and cross the Tombolo della Feniglia isthmus from the mainland to the Monte Argentario peninsula and you’ll find a more laid-back scene. The 55-room La Roqqa hotel opened last year in the pretty, peaceful coastal town of Porto Ercole. The rust red building, a former tuna canning factory, has a rooftop restaurant with views of the harbor and the Corsini Botanical Gardens; its Isolotto Beach Club, a short walk away, sits on some of the only sand on the rocky peninsula. Combine beach time and strolls around the harbor with excursions to Tuscany’s Sangiovese vineyards and medieval towns, as well as day trips to Rome and Florence, which are an hour-and-a-half and two-and-a-half hours by car, respectively. From about $755 a night.
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