CalmBeach Greece
Beaches in Naxos
All 43 beaches in Naxos, in one list. 13 of them are not exposed to the meltemi, which gives them the better odds on a windy day. Open any of them for live wind and waves.
The beaches
- Agia Anna Sandy - Easy road access
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Agiassos
Sandy - Easy road access
The end of the western sand — Agiassos is the wide sandy bay at the southern end of the west coast, where Naxos’s run of big beaches stops.
- Agii Theodori Pebbles - Easy road access
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Agios Georgios
Sandy - Easy road access
The town beach of Naxos — It is fully organised and among the busiest; its shallow, breezy southern end is a well-known windsurf-instruction spot.
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Agios Prokopios
Sandy - Easy road access
Golden sand and the Red Lake — About 1.5 km of soft golden sand with turquoise shallows — one of Naxos’s most popular and organised beaches. Behind it lies a wetland with salt pans…
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Azalas
Pebbles - Easy road access
The cove past Moutsouna — Azalas is a small pebbled cove on eastern Naxos, just past Moutsouna, where the water deepens quickly.
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Alyko
Sandy - Easy road access
The cedar forest among the dunes — An area of white sand and wind-shaped dunes on the southwest coast, famous for its "cedar forest" — botanically a juniper grove (Juniperus…
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Ammitis
Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
The shore the north wind works — Ammitis is one of the wide open shores of north-west Naxos, exposed to the meltemi — which is why its sand is coarse and the water is rarely glass.
- Ampram Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
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Apollonas
Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
The kouros that was never finished — Just above Apollonas, inside the ancient quarry, lies an unfinished kouros 10.7 metres long — abandoned there 2,500 years ago and never moved.
- Vintzi Sandy - Easy road access
- Glatza Sandy - Passable dirt road
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Glyfada
Sandy - Easy road access
Beside the Alyko cedar forest — Glyfada belongs to the string of small sandy coves around the Alyko peninsula, where the largest cedar forest in the Cyclades comes down to the dunes.
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Grotta
Rocky - Easy road access
The ruins under the water — At Grotta, below the town of Naxos, the remains of a submerged Mycenaean settlement can be made out in the shallow water — the name means "cave"…
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Paralia Kalantos
Sandy - Easy road access
On the other side of the mountain — Kalantos is the wide sandy bay of southern Naxos; you get there through Filoti and the mountainous interior, a drive that keeps most people away.
- Kampos Sand & pebbles - Passable dirt road
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Kastraki
Sandy - Easy road access
The quiet continuation of the west coast — Kastraki is a long ribbon of fine sand between Mikri Vigla and Alyko — the same sea as Agios Prokopios, with far fewer people.
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Kedros
Sandy - Easy road access
Where the cedars reach the sand — Kedros takes its name from the forest around it: the Alyko peninsula holds the largest coastal cedar wood in the Cyclades, planted to hold the dunes…
- Klidos Sand & pebbles - Passable dirt road
- Paralia Klido Pebbles - Passable dirt road
- Ligaridia Pebbles - Easy road access
- Paralia Limnari Pebbles - Easy path
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Lionas
Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
The emery village — Lionas was an emery loading point: the mineral came down from the mines of mountainous Naxos on an aerial cable-way and was loaded onto ships here…
- Melino Sand & pebbles - Passable dirt road
- Mikra Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
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Mikri Vigla
Sandy - Easy road access
The granite cape for windsurf & kite — A cape of golden granite divides two beaches. The name means "small watchtower", after a lookout that once guarded the coast against pirates.
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Mikri Vigla - Notia plevra
Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
The side the wind picks — Mikri Vigla is a rocky headland separating two beaches. The south side is the one that takes the meltemi head-on, which is why the island’s windsurf…
- Mikro Alyko Sandy - Easy road access
- Moutsouna Sandy - Easy road access
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Orkos
Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
The coves between two big beaches — Orkos is not one beach but a series of small sand-and-rock coves between Plaka and Mikri Vigla on the west coast.
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Panormos
Sand & pebbles - Easy road access
On the remote south-east corner — Panormos sits on the south-east corner of Naxos, off the axis of the west-coast tourist beaches — the drive from Chora is long, which is why it stays…
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Plaka
Sandy - Easy road access
The wild dunes of Naxos — The longest (~4 km) of the chain of beaches south of the town, with soft white-gold sand and natural dunes dotted with sea cedars and tamarisks;…
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Pyrgaki
Sandy - Easy road access
Where the beach road stops — Pyrgaki is the last organised beach on the west coast, past Alyko — beyond it the road turns inland.
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Rina
Pebbles - Boat access only
By boat only — Rina has no road: you reach it only by boat, on the south-east coast of Naxos. That is why it never appears in our suggestions when it blows hard.
- Paralia Spedo Sand & pebbles - Passable dirt road
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Chilia Vrysi
Pebbles - Passable dirt road
A thousand springs — The name Chilia Vrysi — "a thousand springs" — comes from the water that runs down here, unusual for a Cycladic shore, where fresh water is the rule…
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Paralia Psili Ammos
Sandy - Easy road access
Fine sand on the east coast — Psili Ammos is one of the few long sand beaches on eastern Naxos, the side most visitors never reach.
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Hawaii
Sandy - Easy road access
The name that stuck — It is not organised and has no shade; below the dunes stand the abandoned concrete shells of a hotel that was never finished, now covered in graffiti.
- Akrotiri Pebbles - Moderate access
- Galini Passable dirt road
- Kanaki Passable dirt road
- Stelida Passable dirt road
- Faraklo Passable dirt road
Pick by what you are looking for
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Meltemi options
The coves that face away from the prevailing wind — the shortlist for a windy day.
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Family beaches
Organised, not hard to reach, and recorded as shallow in our data.
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Snorkeling
Rockier seabed and clearer water, where there is something to look at underwater.
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Organized
Sunbeds, umbrellas and somewhere to eat or drink nearby.
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Sunset
West-facing, so the sun goes down over the water in front of you.
- Sandy
- Beach bars
- All beach guides →
Good to know
Which beaches in Naxos are more sheltered from the wind?
13 of the 43 face away from the meltemi, meaning less open water in front of them for a wave to build across when it blows. It is not a guarantee — the same beach changes character when the wind turns. Check the live reading before you drive out.
How is this list ordered?
By how well known each beach is, not by a score of ours. Which beach is good on a given day changes hour by hour and cannot be printed on a static page — so this page carries the list and the things that do not change, and the live map carries the conditions.
When is the sea calmest here?
Across 43 of the beaches on this page, the open water in front of them is typically 0.88 m in June, 1.11 m in July and 1.11 m in August when the meltemi is at its strongest, and 0.97 m in September. June is the calmest month of the season. We calculate these figures ourselves from European Copernicus wave-model data at 4.2 km resolution. They describe the sea offshore, not the shelter of an individual cove — a bay protected by a headland will usually be calmer than this.
How warm is the water, month by month?
Off 43 of the beaches on this page the sea is typically 18.7 °C in May, 21.7 °C in June, 23.3 °C in July, 24.1 °C in August and 23.6 °C in September — ideal at the height of summer, mild in June. By October it is 21.5 °C. August is the warmest month. Satellite measurements, 1995–2024, from a sea cell about 5 km offshore; shallow bays usually run warmer than this.
Weather and sea conditions change. CalmBeach uses the app view for live beach recommendations.