Koukounaries & the west coast

One road runs the length of this coast and buses go up and down it all day, stopping at every bay — which is why Skiathos works for people who do not want to drive. The beaches get better the further west you go: Achladies and Kanapitsa are close to town and busy, Vromolimnos has the windsurf school and the sunset bar, Platanias and Troulos are broad and shallow and full of families, and Koukounaries at the end is the famous one, a long gold crescent with an umbrella pine forest and a protected lagoon behind it.

Koukounaries is also, in August, extremely full. The honest tip is to walk ten minutes west over the headland to Banana and Krifi Ammos, which are the same sand with a fraction of the people.

The north side of this box is the island's empty half: Megalos and Mikros Aselinos, Elia and Agistros face open sea down rough tracks, with no sunbeds and no shelter from the north wind. Kastro, the abandoned medieval capital on its crag, is at the top — reachable on foot through the pines or, far more easily, by boat from town.