Sardinia Booking Guide: What to Book First and What It Costs

This may sound odd, but finding a nice place to stay in Sardinia was harder than we expected. The island is expensive, most of what’s on offer is rooms let by local families, and as soon as you want a small kitchen and a balcony, the search gets a lot narrower. Type Sardinia booking into Google and you get a shop window: Booking.com, Airbnb, trivago, a few package operators and one hotel with a nightly rate that makes you wince. What none of them tells you is the part that actually matters: in which order to buy everything, what the headline price leaves out, and why on Sardinia a nice room on its own isn’t enough. On an island where you can hardly get anywhere without a car, and where direct flights from the UK are few and mostly seasonal, the order you book things in matters more than the hotel itself.

This is our guide to putting a Sardinia trip together yourself. Where to stay, and in which specific places, we cover separately in our guide on where to stay in Sardinia.

Why the booking order matters in Sardinia

On most holidays you start with the hotel. You find somewhere you like and then look for a flight to match. In Sardinia that doesn’t work, in our experience, for three reasons.

• There aren’t many flights. Direct routes from the UK are thin on the ground and largely seasonal. Once the seats sell out, you’re left with a change in mainland Italy or a flight from another country, and that can push your whole plan back by a day.
• You need a car, and there are only so many. One travel guide we checked notes that buses run to many places only once or twice a day and to some beaches not at all. In August the rental firms’ fleets are booked out and prices go up week by week.
• There’s plenty of accommodation, but in the wrong places. The most interesting areas have the fewest listings. Cala Gonone, the base for boat trips along the Golfo di Orosei, has 409; Alghero has six times as many. If you want to stay exactly where you like it, you have to book before everyone else does.

Sardinia booking: when to book what

You probably know that prices climb in summer. That’s exactly why it pays to book accommodation in Sardinia well ahead, and the same goes for everything else on the list.

Be careful with October and the end of the season in general: some coastal hotels and apartment complexes close, and the choice suddenly shrinks. If Booking.com shows suspiciously few beachside options in October, it usually doesn’t mean sold out, it means shut.

Step 1: flights

Sardinia has three international airports: Olbia in the north-east, Alghero in the north-west and Cagliari in the south. Choosing one is really your first accommodation decision, because Olbia to Cagliari means crossing the whole island, and that drive eats half a day.

Direct from the UK. The routes we could confirm on Cagliari airport’s own list are Ryanair from London Stansted and, in the summer season, British Airways from London Gatwick; Ryanair also flies from Dublin. For Olbia and Alghero, check the current timetable on the airports’ websites, as routes change from season to season. Seats on seasonal routes go quickly in the school holidays. Our tip: search on Google Flights and buy directly from the airline, not through a middleman.

To Alghero and out of season, with a change. Outside the direct routes, you’ll usually connect via an Italian hub such as Rome or Milan, or via another European city. If you buy two separate tickets, leave yourself plenty of time to change. The second airline won’t wait for you, and nobody will compensate you for a missed onward flight.

Budget airlines. Low-cost routes change every season, so check what’s flying when you’re ready to buy rather than relying on last year’s timetable.

Step 1b: the ferry, if you’re bringing your own car

If you drive, you reach Sardinia via mainland Italy and a ferry, most often from Livorno, Civitavecchia or Genoa to Olbia and Porto Torres. The operators are Moby, Tirrenia, GNV, Grimaldi Lines and Corsica Sardinia Ferries. Routes, crossing times and fares are in our Sardinia holiday guide.

In our view the ferry is worth it in two situations: when you’re going for two weeks or more and your own car saves you the rental, or when you’re bringing a dog, bikes, a surfboard and half the house. For a week it almost always works out worse than a flight plus a hire car, and from Britain the drive to an Italian port is a long one on top. Always book with your actual car (height and length affect the price) and with a cabin if you’re sailing overnight. One travel site quotes the Civitavecchia to Olbia crossing from €30 per person on deck, but that’s the price without a car and without a cabin.

Step 2: car hire

Book the car straight after the flights, ideally the same evening. We wouldn’t go to Sardinia without one, unless it was a city break in Cagliari or Alghero.

What it costs. One travel guide gives a week’s hire from €250 in summer and from €120 in winter (roughly £215 and £100); another reckons on €120 to €200 a week. A third writes that out of season you can find a car for 5 to 6 days for as little as €25 to €30 without insurance, and that in summer the same period easily costs twice as much. The spread is wide because the price depends mostly on how far ahead you book.

Deposit and card. This is where it gets serious. Rental firms block a deposit on your card, usually €500 to €1,000 (about £425 to £850). Most want a credit card in the main driver’s name. Some will rent on a debit card too, but on worse terms or with a deposit that often exceeds €1,000. If you don’t have a credit card, filter the comparison site for firms that accept debit cards, and expect to be made to buy their full insurance.

Insurance. Third-party liability and basic collision damage waiver (CDW) with an excess are always included. The excess is typically €1,000 to €2,200 depending on the firm, and usually doesn’t cover tyres, glass, the underside or the roof. Extra cover costs around €5 to €10 a day. We always take full cover with zero excess, because on the narrow Sardinian lanes down to the coves even a careful driver picks up a scratch.

What to check when you book:

• Where the office is. At Cagliari airport some firms are based out in an industrial area and ferry customers there by their own bus. You’ll spot it on the offer by a note saying “shuttle” or “off-airport”. It’s cheaper, but allow an extra half hour.
• Age and licence. The minimum age is usually 19 to 21, drivers under 25 pay a surcharge and the upper limit is typically 75 to 85. Your licence must have been held for at least a year, for bigger cars two to three years.
• Second driver and child seat. Both cost extra. Children under 12 or shorter than 150 cm must have a car seat or booster.
• Car size. Smaller is better in Sardinia. Village streets are narrow, and so are the parking spaces along the kerb.

A fine for entering a ZTL zone (limited traffic zone) in a historic centre goes to the rental firm, which passes it on to you with an admin fee, sometimes months after you get home. Where the ZTLs lurk in Sardinia and what the colours of the parking lines mean, we explain in Sardinia: what to watch out for.

Step 3: accommodation

This is the part people are really after when they search for “Sardinia booking”.

What Booking.com shows you for Sardinia

Booking.com’s Sardinia region page promises “more than 26,316 hotels and other places to stay”. So there’s no shortage. What matters is how that supply is spread across the island:

Read the “most popular” lists the right way: they mean the most bookings, not the best value. Among the most-booked hotels of the past month, number one was Club Esse Palmasera in Cala Gonone, rated 7.0 from 3,177 reviews, simply because big hotels sell the most rooms. Among the top-rated, Booking.com listed smaller places, such as Hotel La Bitta in Arbatax with 9.4 or Nichotel in Carloforte with 9.3. Specific places to stay by area are in our guide on where to stay in Sardinia; here we’re focusing on how to choose.

How much are hotels in Sardinia?

Booking.com publishes average prices for the region by star rating. At the end of the 2026 season they looked like this:

Averages are misleading. The listing on the same page had rooms from about €53 a night for two (Nichotel in Carloforte), but also a resort in Stintino for about €790. Trivago gives a range of roughly €61 to €715 a night. In Sardinia location decides the price more than stars do: one travel guide puts the Costa Smeralda among the most expensive places in all of Italy, while in Bosa and Porto Torres it says you can find a double room for under €75 (about £64) even in high season. In San Teodoro, there’s nothing by the beach under €130.

Sardinia: Booking.com, Airbnb or a package holiday?

One budget travel site sums it up in a sentence: compare hotels on Booking.com, look for private rentals on Airbnb. We’d add package holidays and booking direct with the hotel.

In our view Booking.com is the most practical choice in Sardinia for hotels and for touring the island, sleeping two or three nights in each place. The region page even has its own section, “Hotels you can book without a credit card”.

Airbnb makes sense for groups. Among the top-rated Sardinian listings there were plenty of whole houses and villas, for example in Castiadas near Villasimius, or a traditional Gallurese farmhouse (stazzu) in Luras. A reader of one travel site went with four friends, rented a house by the sea in Golfo Aranci, and the rental that “looked expensive” didn’t come out expensive at all once split five ways.

A package holiday sounds like the opposite of independent travel, but in Sardinia it has its own logic. Large Central European tour operators we checked were selling early-booking deals for summer 2027 with flights at about €790 to €1,220 per person for 8 days, for example Club Esse Cala Gonone all inclusive from about €790. A specialist operator had a week at the Blu Sant Elmo Beach Hotel near Castiadas with flights in October 2026 for about €1,050. An average 3-star hotel on Booking.com comes to over €680 (about £580) per person for a week in a double room, without flights, which is why in August, all-inclusive packages win. UK operators price their own packages differently, but the comparison holds. An independent budget of roughly €540 to €980 per person for a week, with flights, a car, Airbnb or camping and food, as calculated by one budget travel site, applies to the shoulder season and shared accommodation.

Direct with the hotel is how we mostly book small agriturismi inland. Some aren’t on the big platforms at all, and those that are sometimes offer better cancellation terms on their own website. It’s worth sending them an email.

Booking.com and Airbnb filters that make sense in Sardinia

Booking.com and Airbnb have dozens of filters, and most of them are useless in Sardinia. These are the ones we’d always switch on:

• Parking (ideally free and on site). If you have a car, and you will, parking matters more than breakfast. In town centres and resorts, parking in high season is hard.
• Air conditioning. In July and August a ground-floor apartment without it is stuffy even at night.
• Distance to the beach, but on the map. “300 m to the beach” can mean across a main road and a car park. Open the location on the map and look at what’s between you and the sea.
• Pool. When the mistral blows, parts of the coast get big waves, and the pool is the only place the children will swim that day. Outside summer, ask whether it’s heated. One reviewer on Booking.com found it ice-cold at the beginning of May.
• Arrival time and reception. For apartments without a reception, read until what time you can arrive. Since the key box ban this matters more than before.

Fees you don’t see in the first price

In Sardinia the price on the first screen is almost always lower than the final bill. These are the items added most often:

• Tourist tax (imposta di soggiorno). It’s charged by the town and usually paid on the spot. In Alghero, since 1 January 2026, it’s €4 per person per night in 4- and 5-star hotels and €2 in hotels up to 3 stars, apartments, B&Bs and campsites (€1 with your own tent or camper). It’s charged for a maximum of 7 consecutive nights and children under 12 don’t pay (City of Alghero website). Cagliari introduced rates graded by category from April 2026, according to local media from €1 in 1-star to €5 in 5-star hotels. It’s charged for a maximum of 5 nights, and children under 12 and people over 70 are exempt (City of Cagliari website).
• Final cleaning. For apartments and houses it’s often a separate item. Over a week it hardly matters; for two nights it can easily double the price.
• Energy and air conditioning. Some apartments charge for consumption separately, by meter or as a flat fee. Look for the words “consumi”, “energia” or “aria condizionata a pagamento” in the description.
• Bed linen and towels. In apartment complexes and campsites they’re not always included.
• Wi-Fi and extras. A guest at a campsite near Cannigione complained in a Booking.com review about being charged €5 a day for Wi-Fi.
• Refundable security deposit. For apartments and villas it’s sometimes collected in cash on arrival.
• Late arrival. Places without a reception often charge extra for arriving after a certain hour, and some hosts won’t do it at all.

So compare prices only at the last step of the booking, where you see the breakdown. And on Airbnb, remember that since 27 October 2025 some hosts have switched to a model where the host pays the whole service fee and you no longer see it as a separate line. Two listings with the same nightly rate can therefore have different totals.

How to spot a misleading listing

• No CIN code. Since 1 January 2025 every place to stay in Italy, short-term lets included, must have a national identification code (CIN) and show it in every listing. In Sardinia there’s also a regional IUN code (Sardegna Turismo). A landlord without a CIN faces a fine of €800 to €8,000. If you can’t find the code in the listing, ask for it. An honest host will send it straight away.
• They want payment off the platform. A bank transfer “because it’s cheaper” or a link to another website means you lose Booking.com’s or Airbnb’s protection.
• “By the sea” without a distance. In Sardinia, a village five kilometres from the beach up in the hills can be “by the sea”. Look for a figure in metres and check it on the map.
• A new rating with no track record. A villa rated 5.0 from three reviews may be great, but it’s a gamble.

Where to start your Sardinia hotel search

Here are links to accommodation in the places that come out strongest on Booking.com. There’s accommodation in Alghero, with the biggest choice on the island, accommodation in Cagliari for your first or last night, accommodation in Olbia near the airport and the ferries, accommodation in San Teodoro for the north-east beaches, accommodation in Cala Gonone for the Golfo di Orosei and, among the cheaper places, accommodation in Bosa and accommodation in Porto Torres. For Cala Gonone we also recommend our separate guide to Cala Gonone, and for Alghero our guide to Alghero.

Once you know where you want to stay, it helps to have a few tried-and-tested addresses for each place as a starting point. We picked places rated well by hundreds of guests, and for each one we looked mainly at the things this guide is about: whether you can cancel for free and until when, whether breakfast is included and where to leave the car. We checked prices and terms on Booking.com on 28 September 2026 for a stay from 7 to 10 June 2027 (three nights for two). They’re for guidance only, always for the whole stay and on the free-cancellation rate unless we say otherwise. On other dates both the cancellation deadline and the price will shift.

Alghero

• Hotel Catalunya (Alghero): A 4-star hotel opposite the harbour, five minutes’ walk from the old town, rated 8.7 on Booking.com from more than 2,200 reviews. Breakfast is included, and the flexible rate could be cancelled for free up to two days before arrival (about €542). Parking is private at €15 a day and has to be booked in advance, so sort it out as soon as you book.
• Hotel Villa Piras (Alghero): A kilometre from the historic centre and a hundred metres from the sea, most rooms have a sea view, rated 8.3. It’s a good example of how a price is built up: without breakfast the stay came to about €429, with breakfast €489, both with free cancellation. Parking costs €10 a day, again by reservation.
• Alghero Resort Country Hotel & Spa (Alghero): An 18th-century country estate about 4 km from the centre with two pools, a spa and free on-site parking. Breakfast is included, cancellation was free until 2 June and nothing was charged until 31 May (about €524, less for signed-in members). It suits you if you have a car and want peace and quiet outside town.

Cagliari

• Hotel Italia (Cagliari): A classic city hotel in the historic centre, 50 metres from the port and five minutes’ walk from the railway station, 8.5 from more than 2,400 reviews. Breakfast included and free cancellation until the day before arrival (about €410). According to Booking.com it has no parking of its own, so it works best for a first or last night without a car.
• Palazzo Doglio (Cagliari): A hotel with a spa ten minutes’ walk from Via Roma, rated 9.2 by almost 1,800 guests. It shows you nicely what flexibility costs: the non-refundable rate without breakfast came to about €908, the rate with breakfast and free cancellation until 4 June to €1,038. Parking €15 a day, no reservation needed.
• Hotel Nautilus (Cagliari, Poetto): A hotel right on the Poetto beach promenade with an outdoor pool, 9.0 from more than 1,100 reviews, about a quarter of an hour by car from the centre. Free cancellation applied until 24 May (about €543 with breakfast); the non-refundable rate was roughly €80 cheaper. Booking.com doesn’t list its own parking, so ask in advance.

Olbia

• Jazz Hotel (Olbia): It’s 500 metres from the airport, which makes it ideal for the night after you land or before you fly home. It has a pool, free on-site parking and a rating of 8.7 from more than 3,100 reviews. Breakfast included, free cancellation up to three days before arrival, and you pay on the spot (about €687).
• Hotel dP Olbia (Olbia): A hotel with a garden and pool on the edge of Olbia towards Pittulongu, free parking. Breakfast included and free cancellation up to two days before arrival (about €507). Watch out: Booking.com also offered a cheaper rate from a partner company with only a partial refund and payment up front.
• L’Essenza Hotel (Olbia): A 4-star hotel in central Olbia, about 200 metres from the town centre, rated 8.8. Breakfast included, free cancellation up to a week before arrival (about €622). According to Booking.com it has no parking, so if you have a car, find a car park in the centre beforehand.

San Teodoro

• Hotel Onda Marina (San Teodoro): About 70 metres from La Cinta beach and a 15-minute walk from the centre of San Teodoro, rated 8.4. The flexible rate included breakfast and one parking space, with free cancellation until 2 June (about €741); the non-refundable rate was €70 cheaper.
• Residence Hotel Lu Nibareddu (San Teodoro, Porto Taverna): Apartments, studios and bungalows with kitchenettes about 8 km from the centre of San Teodoro and a kilometre from Porto Taverna beach, with two pools and free parking. Breakfast isn’t included (€15 optional) and it lists a fan instead of air conditioning, so bear that in mind in August. Free cancellation applied up to two weeks ahead (about €752).
• Hotel San Teodoro (San Teodoro): A hotel with a pool and free parking five minutes by car from the centre and from La Cinta and Cala d’Ambra beaches, rated 8.2. A good example of why you should read the rates: the non-refundable booking came to about €675, with free cancellation until 24 May to €750, and breakfast was €15 extra on both.

Cala Gonone

• Hotel La Playa (Cala Gonone): A family-run hotel with a pool and garden 350 metres from the sea, 8.8 from almost 1,000 reviews, and a breakfast guests describe as fantastic. On the rate with breakfast you could cancel for free up to a week before arrival and paid on the spot (roughly €370 to €400). According to Booking.com it has no parking.
• Il Nuovo Gabbiano (Cala Gonone): A hotel right by the harbour where the boats leave for the Gulf of Orosei; all rooms have a balcony, rated 8.5. Free cancellation up to a week before arrival, breakfast either €13.50 or included in the pricier rate (roughly €440). Its car park is only for motorbikes and bicycles, so leave the car in the public car park.
• Hotel Resort Nuraghe Arvu (Cala Gonone): A resort with a pool in a private park 500 metres from the beach; rooms have their own entrance from the garden. Unlike most of the Cala Gonone hotels we went through, it has free parking, and the flexible rate included breakfast and a parking space, with free cancellation until 2 June (about €672).

Bosa

• Palazzo Pischedda (Bosa): A boutique hotel 50 metres from the old bridge over the River Temo, with rooms looking onto the river or the castle, 8.9 from almost 1,900 reviews. It has free parking, which is far from a given in central Bosa, breakfast included and free cancellation up to a week before arrival (about €555).
• Corte Fiorita Albergo Diffuso (Bosa): A “scattered hotel” spread across two historic houses on the Temo riverfront and in the centre, rated 8.6. With breakfast and free cancellation up to three days before arrival it came to about €312. No parking, and guests say in reviews that parking in the centre is hard; there are a few spaces just across the river.
• Da Ida (Bosa): A small guesthouse in the heart of the old town, rated 9.5 by almost 400 guests. The rate didn’t include breakfast, but you could cancel for free up to a week before arrival and paid nothing until then (about €306). No parking.

Porto Torres

• Residence Cala Bianca (Porto Torres): Accommodation with a terrace 900 metres from Acque Dolci beach; some units have a kitchenette and a washing machine, rated 9.5. The private car park is free but has to be reserved. Free cancellation up to two weeks ahead (about €378, without breakfast). Handy for the night before or after the ferry.
• B&B L’Ancora (Porto Torres): A B&B with a garden and shared kitchen 500 metres from Scoglio Lungo beach, rated 9.0. It had the most generous terms of our whole selection: breakfast included, free cancellation at any time, payment on arrival and no card needed to book (about €270). You can park for free in the public car park next door.
• B&B Brezza Marina (Porto Torres): A cheaper B&B with a terrace 1.2 km from the beach, breakfast included, rated 9.0, with free parking nearby (about €242). Watch the terms: on our dates it offered only a partially refundable rate paid online in advance, so read the cancellation policy twice here.

Step 4: everything else

Once you’ve got flights, a car and a bed, only the small things are left. In our view these aren’t worth buying months ahead, because they depend on the weather.

Boat trips. Boat trips along the Golfo di Orosei or around the La Maddalena archipelago are sold in the harbours and online. When it’s windy, they don’t sail, so book them for days when you also have a spare day as back-up. One reviewer on Booking.com couldn’t see anything of the Pink Beach over the crowd on a big boat, so a smaller boat or hiring your own licence-free boat is worth considering. More in our guides to the Golfo di Orosei and the Pink Beach.

Boat trips along the Golfo di Orosei from Cala Gonone GetYourGuide

Cala Gonone: Boat trip to Cala Mariolu and Cala Goloritzè

★ 4.7 · 2,535 reviews

from €69

See the tour →

Cala Gonone: Gulf of Orosei boat cruise with swimming stops

★ 4.8 · 793 reviews

from €93

See the tour →

Cala Gonone: 6-metre licence-free boat hire (groups of up to 10)

★ 4.5 · 131 reviews

from €230

See the tour →

Prices and ratings are approximate (GetYourGuide, October 2026).

Boat trips to the La Maddalena archipelago from Palau GetYourGuide

From Palau: La Maddalena boat trip, 4 islands in one day

★ 4.6 · 2,493 reviews

from €57

See the tour →

Palau or La Maddalena: 4-hour archipelago tour by RIB

★ 4.8 · 878 reviews

from €47

See the tour →

La Maddalena archipelago: Sailing trip with lunch

★ 4.9 · 216 reviews

from €71

See the tour →

Prices and ratings are approximate (GetYourGuide, October 2026).

Beaches that need a reservation. Some of the best-known beaches have a visitor cap and paid entry by reservation in season. One travel site gives a €3.50 fee for La Pelosa. The current rules for 2026 and other beaches with restrictions are in Sardinia: what to watch out for.

Sardinia booking checklist before you click “Reserve”

• Do you have a credit card with enough limit for the car hire deposit (€500 to €1,000) and for the hold the accommodation may place?
• Does the listing show a CIN code (and in Sardinia, an IUN)?
• Do you know the final price including cleaning, energy and tourist tax?
• Have you noted the date until which you can cancel for free?

What we would do differently

We wouldn’t book every night in advance. In Sardinia it often happens that you arrive in a village that isn’t in any guidebook, eat culurgiones somewhere without a website, and realise you want to stay another day. Outside August we’d firmly book only the first and last nights near the airport and something in the middle, and leave the rest open.

Two bases rather than five hotels. Every move in Sardinia means half a day in the car, packing, hunting for parking and a new check-in, which now has to be arranged in person. Two bases for a week, say one in the east near the Golfo di Orosei and one in the north-west near Alghero, give us more than a round trip with a new room every other night.

We wouldn’t compare ourselves to death. We’ve caught ourselves spending two evenings over a difference of about €8 a night between two apartments. A terrace with a sea view does more for a holiday than the money saved.

And we’d keep one day with no plan. No boat, no booked beach, no excursion, just a cove ten minutes from the road. Why it pays to slow down, we wrote in our piece on slow travel.

Sardinia booking FAQ

Where to go next

• Sardinia holiday guide: the whole trip plan, which part of the island suits which kind of holiday, ferries and itineraries for 7, 10 and 14 days.
• Where to stay in Sardinia: where to base yourself depending on your style of holiday, with specific places we checked, area by area.
• Sardinia: what to watch out for: ZTL zones, parking, beaches that need a reservation, fines for taking sand and other traps.
• Weather in Sardinia: when to go for the sea, when for hiking and when the mistral blows.
• What to see in Sardinia: an overview of the places you’ll be choosing your base from.
• Best beach campsites in Italy: if you want to tour Sardinia with a caravan or a tent.