Spain · Balearic Islands
Ibiza
The island that reinvented nightlife, wrapped around a pine-and-turquoise coastline you can still have almost to yourself.
Ibiza is two islands sharing one coastline: the summer capital of global club culture, and a quiet Balearic island of pine-backed coves, whitewashed inland villages and working salt pans. Above the harbour, the walled hilltop of Dalt Vila has been fortified since the Phoenicians and is UNESCO-listed. Pick the right base and you can have either version, or both.
Suggested stay
4–7 days
Language
Spanish
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Ibiza
The clubs Ibiza set the template for the modern superclub, and each summer the biggest names in dance music still build their residencies around it.
The coves Dozens of small pine-fringed calas along the west and north coasts, several of them best reached on foot or by boat.
Dalt Vila A walled Renaissance old town stacked above the port, with a cathedral, ramparts and long views over the salt flats.
The other Ibiza Inland it is fig trees, fortress churches and long lunches, the hippy-trail island that never quite left.
Best time to visit
all year
16-30° days
38.974° N, 1.420° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Madrid
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Weather & when to go to Ibiza
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best all year
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Ibiza
No bad-weather season, but Ibiza is strongly seasonal by choice: most clubs, beach bars and a good share of hotels and ferries shut from roughly November to April, so a winter visit is a walking-and-eating island rather than a nightlife one. August is the most crowded and most expensive month by a wide margin.
Top things to do in Ibiza
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Dalt Vila - climb the walled old town
history culture arts 👍 PopularIbiza Town's UNESCO-listed upper town is ringed by sixteenth-century Renaissance bastions built to keep out Ottoman and corsair raiders. Walk up through the Portal de ses Taules gateway to the cathedral and the castle terrace, where the view runs over the harbour, the salt pans and, on a clear day, Formentera.
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Es Vedra - the sunset rock off Cala d'Hort
scenic nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedA near-vertical limestone islet rising straight out of the sea off the southwest coast, uninhabited and wrapped in more folklore than any rock deserves. The classic view is from the pines above Cala d'Hort or the Torre des Savinar watchtower on the cliff, and it is at its best in the last hour of light.
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Ibiza's superclubs - Pacha, Amnesia, Ushuaia and DC-10
nightlife music 👍 PopularThe club season runs roughly May to early October, when residencies fill open-air terraces at Playa d'en Bossa and converted warehouses inland at Sant Rafel. Daytime parties are as much a fixture as the small hours, door queues and dress codes are real, and the closing weekends in early October are the ones people plan around.
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Ses Salines - swim off the salt-pan beaches
nature wildlife scenic 👍 PopularThe island's southern tip is a natural park where Phoenician-era salt pans are still worked, flamingos stop over on migration, and low dunes give onto Ibiza's best-known stretch of sand. It is the beach closest to both the airport and the town, so it fills early in high summer.
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Cala Comte and Cala Bassa - west-coast cove swimming
scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedClear shallow water over pale sand, low rocky headlands and islets offshore, on the coast that faces the sunset. Comte is the busier and more spectacular of the two, Bassa the calmer and better with children. Both sit a short drive from Sant Antoni and both have beach restaurants above the sand.
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Las Dalias and Punta Arabi - the hippy markets
shopping culture artsTwo long-running markets are the surviving thread of Ibiza's 1960s counterculture: Punta Arabi at Es Canar and Las Dalias at Sant Carles, both weekly through the season, with night markets added over summer. Expect leather, silver, sarongs and live music rather than antiques.
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Benirras - drumming at sunset
culture arts scenicA north-coast cove enclosed by wooded headlands, with a finger of rock offshore that everyone photographs. Drummers have gathered here to see the sun down for decades, loudest on summer Sunday evenings, and the walk down from the parking is part of the ritual.
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Sa Caleta and Puig des Molins - the Phoenician island
historyIbiza's World Heritage listing covers far more than the walls. A Phoenician settlement sits on the red-cliff headland at Sa Caleta, and the vast Punic necropolis of Puig des Molins lies on the edge of Ibiza Town, thousands of rock-cut tombs under a hillside with a museum attached.
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Santa Gertrudis and the interior - long lunches in the campo
food culture artsInland Ibiza is fig trees, dry-stone terraces and whitewashed fortress churches at Sant Miquel and Sant Josep. Santa Gertrudis is the hub, a village square of galleries and restaurants that keeps going when the coast shuts down for winter.
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Sant Antoni sunset strip - where the chill-out bar was invented
nightlife music scenicThe west-facing bay at Sant Antoni is where sunset bars and the Balearic downtempo sound came from, and the promenade south of town still fills every evening in season. The town behind it is Ibiza at its rowdiest, but the sunset itself costs nothing and is genuinely good.
Best areas to stay in Ibiza
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Ibiza Town and Dalt Vila
First-time visitors $$$Walled old town above a working harbour
Explore hotels in Ibiza Town and Dalt Vila →
Playa d'en Bossa
Clubbers $$Long beach, big hotels, daytime clubbing
Explore hotels in Playa d'en Bossa →
Sant Antoni de Portmany
Budget and sunsets $Sunset bay, cheaper beds, rowdy nights
Explore hotels in Sant Antoni de Portmany →
Santa Eularia des Riu
Families $$Calm resort town with a marina
Explore hotels in Santa Eularia des Riu →
Santa Gertrudis and the interior
Car-based quiet $$$Fig trees, village square, farmhouse hotels
Explore hotels in Santa Gertrudis and the interior →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Ibiza
Getting to & around Ibiza
Getting there
Fly into Ibiza Airport, then about twenty minutes by bus or taxi into Ibiza Town.
Flight
Ibiza Airport (Aeroport d'Eivissa) (IBZ)
Roughly 7 km southwest of Ibiza Town. Airport buses serve Ibiza Town and Playa d'en Bossa year-round in about 15-25 minutes, with extra seasonal runs to Sant Antoni and Santa Eularia; taxis queue outside arrivals and there is no rail link.
Ferry
Ibiza Town port
Car and passenger ferries from Denia, Valencia and Barcelona on the mainland; Denia is the shortest crossing and the most frequent.
Ferry
Ibiza Town and Sant Antoni
Inter-island boats from Palma de Mallorca and Formentera. Summer timetables are far denser than winter ones, which thin to a few sailings.
Cruise
Ibiza Town commercial port
Cruise calls berth a short walk or shuttle from the foot of Dalt Vila, so the old town is reachable on foot.
Getting around
Hire car or scooter
The only practical way to reach the north coast and the smaller calas; beach parking is the real constraint in August.
TBC
Bus
A workable network between the towns and main beaches, slower between resorts and much thinner in winter.
TBC
Discobus
Night buses loop between the clubs, Ibiza Town, Playa d'en Bossa and Sant Antoni right through the summer season.
TBC
Taxi
Metered, and scarce at club closing time; ranks queue badly and ride-hailing is limited on the island.
TBC
Water taxi
Seasonal boats link Sant Antoni with the west-coast beaches, often quicker and nicer than driving.
TBC
Day trips from Ibiza
Formentera
Full dayIsland escape
The smallest inhabited Balearic, and the reason half of Ibiza owns a boat: shallow turquoise water off Ses Illetes, low dunes, a flat interior made for cycling and almost no development. Hire a bike or scooter at La Savina and stay for the sunset crossing back.
Getting there
ferry
About 30 min by fast ferry from Ibiza Town
Es Vedra and the southwest
Half dayCliffs and sunsets
Cala d'Hort for the classic view of the rock, the Torre des Savinar watchtower on the cliff above it, and the strange half-carved quarry at Atlantis below for anyone willing to scramble down and back up.
Getting there
car
About 40 min drive from Ibiza Town
Sant Carles and Las Dalias
Full dayHippy heartland
The old counterculture end of the island: the market at Las Dalias, a village bar at Sant Carles the sixties never left, and the drive on to the cliffs and dark sand at Aigues Blanques.
Getting there
car | bus
About 30 min drive or bus from Santa Eularia
Portinatx and Benirras
Full dayNorthern coves
The quiet end, where pine forest runs to the cliff edge. Portinatx has sheltered family beaches, Benirras the offshore rock and the drummers, and Sant Joan a slow village lunch between the two.
Getting there
car
About 45 min drive from Ibiza Town
A little history of Ibiza
Ibiza was a port long before it was anything else. Phoenician settlers founded a town here in the seventh century BC and named the island for Bes, an Egyptian god of music and protection. Carthage made it a major western Mediterranean base, and the hillside necropolis left behind is among the largest in the Punic world. Rome, then Islamic rule from the tenth century, then the Catalan conquest of 1235 each rebuilt the town, and the bastioned walls that still ring Dalt Vila went up in the sixteenth century against Ottoman and corsair raids.
For centuries afterwards the island was poor, dry and dependent on salt and figs. That obscurity is exactly what drew the artists and exiles who began arriving in the 1930s and the drop-outs who followed in the 1960s, and the counterculture they built is the direct ancestor of the club scene that took over in the 1980s and turned a small Balearic island into a global brand.
Phoenician settlers found a port on the site of modern Ibiza Town.
Carthage takes the island; the Puig des Molins necropolis grows into one of the Punic world's largest.
Rome absorbs the Balearics, and Ibiza keeps a favoured status as a confederate city.
The island is drawn into the Emirate of Cordoba, beginning three centuries of Islamic rule.
Catalan and Aragonese forces take Ibiza, tying it to the Crown of Aragon and the Catalan language.
Work begins on the Renaissance bastions of Dalt Vila, raised against Ottoman and corsair raids.
Writers and artists leaving a darkening Europe settle on the island, the first wave of outsiders.
Hippy trail arrivals make Ibiza a counterculture stop; the markets and beach scene date from here.
UNESCO inscribes Dalt Vila, Ses Salines, Sa Caleta and Puig des Molins as one World Heritage site.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+34
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
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FAQs about Ibiza
▸ When is the best time to visit Ibiza?
The island is comfortable year-round, but it runs on a season. Clubs, beach bars and boat trips operate from roughly May to early October, and June or September give you all of that with fewer people than August. Come between November and April and you get a green, quiet, walking-and-eating island with the nightlife shut.
▸ Is Ibiza only about clubbing?
No. The club scene is concentrated in Playa d'en Bossa, Sant Antoni and a couple of inland warehouses, and it is easy to avoid entirely. Base yourself in the north, the interior or Santa Eularia and you get coves, walking, markets and long lunches with barely a hint of it.
▸ Do I need to hire a car in Ibiza?
For the north coast, the smaller calas or an inland base, yes. Buses link the main towns and beaches well enough for a town-based trip, and the summer Discobus covers the club run at night, but the best coves sit on roads no bus goes near.
▸ Is Ibiza expensive?
In July and August, yes; it is one of the Mediterranean's pricier destinations, and beach clubs and club entry are where it bites hardest. Outside the peak weeks, and away from the beach-club coast, it costs about what the rest of the Balearics do.
▸ How do I get to Formentera?
Fast passenger ferries run from Ibiza Town all day in season and take around half an hour, with some sailings from Playa d'en Bossa and Santa Eularia too. Formentera has no airport, so the boat is the only way in, and winter sailings are much reduced.
▸ Is Ibiza good for families?
Yes, if you pick the base carefully. Santa Eularia, Portinatx and Cala Llonga have sheltered swimming, promenades and family hotels, and the island is small enough that nothing is far. Avoid Playa d'en Bossa and Sant Antoni's West End in high summer.
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