Ibiza
Ibiza has two reputations and both are true. There is the world's most serious club island, and there is a small, pine-covered, hippie-inflected Mediterranean island of empty coves and quiet villages: often on the same afternoon.
September–June lands in winter for Ibiza: warm, sunny weather ideal for the coast; prime hiking and outdoor season with the trails and passes open; calm seas and swimmable water.
The clubs, if that's why you came
The season runs May to early October, with opening parties in late May and the legendary closings through late September and October. The big rooms. Ushuaïa and Hï in Playa d'en Bossa, Pacha and Amnesia near the town, DC-10 for the harder, less polished crowd, and Café Mambo/Café del Mar in San Antonio for the sunset warm-up.
Budget honestly: entry is €50–90, a drink €15–20, and a taxi at 6am is its own event. Buying online in advance is cheaper than the door. Pace: one big night, then a beach day. Nobody survives three in a row.
Not into clubbing? Stay in the north or in Santa Eulalia and you will barely notice the scene exists.
Beaches and calas
The famous stretches. Playa d'en Bossa, Salinas, Cala Comte for the sunset: are beautiful and busy. The island's real pleasure is the small calas: Cala Salada, Cala Xarraca, Cala Mastella (with the legendary fish shack Es Bigotes), Cala d'Hort looking out at the Es Vedrà rock, and Aigües Blanques on the wild east coast.
A hire car or scooter transforms the trip; most good coves need one, and parking fills by 11am in August. Boat hire for a day, even a small one, gets you to water you can't reach otherwise.
Formentera is 30 minutes by ferry and has the best sand in the Mediterranean. Ses Illetes and Migjorn. Go early, hire a scooter at the port, come back on a late boat.
Dalt Vila and the towns
Ibiza Town's UNESCO-listed walled upper town, Dalt Vila, is a steep climb through 16th-century ramparts to a cathedral and a view over the harbour: best at dusk. The port lanes below fill with boutiques and bars; the Sa Penya and marina people-watching is free.
Santa Gertrudis in the middle of the island is the pretty, whitewashed, restaurant-heavy village. Sant Joan and Sant Carles anchor the north, with the long-running Las Dalias and Punta Arabí hippy markets. San Antonio is the cheap-and-rowdy west, plus the sunset strip.
Eating and the quiet side
Beyond the €40 beach-club salad there's real Ibizan food: bullit de peix (fisherman's stew with rice), sofrit pagès, flaó cheesecake, and hierbas ibicencas as a digestif. Chiringuitos on the north coast serve grilled fish at a third of the southern price.
The north: pine forest, terraced fields, the Es Vedrà viewpoints, sunrise at Aigües Blanques, yoga and finca stays, is where the island's other reputation lives. Two nights north and two nights south is a good split.
Practicalities
June and September are the best balance of weather, water and sanity; August is the most expensive, hottest and busiest month of the year. May and October are lovely and cheap with the sea still swimmable, but many venues are shut. Winter is very quiet, a genuinely different, pleasant island.
Book accommodation and cars months ahead for peak season. Taxis are famously scarce late at night; the discobus is cheap and runs until dawn. Nudity is normal on some beaches and illegal in town centres.
For the mainland version of Spanish nightlife and food, see the Madrid guide.
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