Best Beaches in Zakynthos | Greece Beach Guide

Zakynthos — known in Italian as Zante — is the southernmost of the Ionian Islands, a 410-square-kilometre island of extraordinary natural contrasts in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of the Peloponnese. The island is perhaps best known internationally for Navagio Beach (Shipwreck Beach), the most photographed natural scene in Greece after the Santorini caldera — a completely enclosed cove of luminous white pebbles surrounded by 200-metre white limestone cliffs, with a rusted shipwreck (the MV Panagiotis, run aground in 1983) rotting dramatically on the shore, accessible only by boat. But Zakynthos is far more than a single viral photograph: the south coast is home to the most important loggerhead sea turtle nesting beaches in the Mediterranean, the north features wild clifftop walking trails and deserted pebble coves, and the Vassilikos Peninsula in the southeast offers some of the finest family swimming beaches in Greece.

The island receives around 1.5 million visitors per year and is very popular with British and Greek package tourists — the resort towns of Laganas in the south and Tsilivi in the northeast have the infrastructure (and the noise levels) associated with mass-market beach tourism. But the island is large enough that genuine escape is possible: the western coast, where the limestone cliffs plunge vertically to the sea, is largely undeveloped and accessible only by boat or on foot; the Vassilikos Peninsula's beaches are protected by a national marine park that restricts overnight tourism and maintains the water quality that makes it one of the finest places in Greece to snorkel with wild sea turtles.

The best time to visit is May–June and September — warm enough for swimming (24–26°C), before or after the peak crowds of July–August, and during the key months for sea turtle sightings on the Vassilikos beaches. July–August is very busy, particularly at Navagio and Laganas, but the cliff coast and northern peninsula remain comparatively quiet year-round.