Where to stay in Naxos: every area compared, and who each one suits

Chora (Naxos Town) — the default, and usually right

Chora is where the ferry docks, where the restaurants are, where the old town is, and where every road on the island begins. Agios Georgios beach is a ten-minute walk from most of it. For a first visit, or for anyone who does not want to drive every evening to find dinner, this is the correct choice and the question does not need more thought than that. The trade-offs are real but small: the waterfront is busy in August, some rooms in the old town are up stepped lanes with no vehicle access, and Agios Georgios, while perfectly good, is not the best beach on the island. Stay in the upper town or towards Grotta for quiet, and on the waterfront if you want to be in the middle of it.

Agios Prokopios and Agia Anna — beach first

These two run into each other along one road six to seven kilometres south of Chora, and between them they hold most of the island's beach accommodation. Agios Prokopios is the larger and better equipped, with a proper little village behind the sand. Agia Anna is smaller, quieter, and has tavernas directly on the beach, which is the single best argument for it if you are travelling with small children - lunch, shade and a toilet are twenty steps from your towel. Both have hourly buses into Chora in summer, so you can stay here without a car and still get into town for dinner. Both are far enough from the nightlife to sleep well.

Plaka, Stelida and the alternatives

Plaka is four kilometres of beach with low-rise studios and a campsite scattered behind it, and staying here means space, dark skies and very little else within walking distance - excellent for a week with a car, frustrating for three nights without one. Stelida is the hill between Chora and the beaches, where most of the newer design hotels have been built; the views west over the sea are the best on the island and you will drive everywhere. Mikri Vigla is for people who came to kitesurf and should not be chosen for any other reason. And the mountain villages - Chalki, Filoti, Apeiranthos - are wonderful places to stay on a second or third visit, when you have already done the beaches and want to be somewhere that is simply a Greek village at night.

Booking timing and what it costs

Naxos accommodation in the last three weeks of July and the first three of August sells out, and the good value goes months before the availability does. Book by February or March for those dates. Shoulder season - late May, June, September - you can book six to eight weeks out and still choose well. Expect €60–110 a night for a good double in shoulder season and roughly double that in peak August, with Chora and Stelida at the upper end and Plaka and the villages at the lower. If your dates are fixed and your budget is not, September is where the same room costs 40% less than August and the sea is warmer.

Naxos areas compared