Yacht charter sailing itineraries.
Proven week-long routes across Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Türkiye and the Caribbean. Follow the day-by-day map, check the distances and pick a boat from the route's home marina — all bookable online.
Build your own itinerary.
Tailor-made, day by day, from realistic hops — with a PDF at the end.
Every route, by sailing area.
Pick the waters that fit your week — each card opens all routes from that base, day by day. Use them as they are or as a starting point; the stops adapt to the weather and your crew.
Croatia itineraries.
5 areas
Sailing area Split
Central Dalmatia is the easiest sailing you can buy. From Split, Trogir or Kaštela the first island is an hour away, and after that you rarely sail more than twenty miles in a day: Šolta for the first quiet night, Vis when you want open water, Hvar when you want noise and a good dinner. The maestral fills in most afternoons at a polite 12–18 knots and dies with the sun, so mornings are for miles and afternoons for swimming. Three international airports feed the area, which is why half the world's charter fleet lives here; it also means bases are professional and turnarounds quick. Our tip: do the outer leg first — Vis and the Pakleni islands early in the week, Hvar and Brač on the way home — and you'll be moving against the crowd instead of with it.
Sailing area Dubrovnik
Leaving Dubrovnik by boat is a small ceremony: the walls slide past, the Elaphiti islands line up ahead, and the water traffic thins out within the hour. This is the quieter end of Dalmatia. Legs run a touch longer than around Split, but the reward is space — a buoy inside Mljet's saltwater lakes national park, an evening on Šipan where the konoba owner remembers you, Korčula's old town rising off the bow like a smaller, calmer Dubrovnik. Lastovo sits far enough out that most flotillas never bother, which is exactly the argument for going. Book your first and last night's berth early; ACI Dubrovnik fills fast in season. In return you get the best departure photo in the Mediterranean.
Sailing area Sibenik
Charter from the Šibenik riviera and you're holding two aces. One is the Kornati: 89 bare, moon-grey islands where the sailing feels older than tourism, anchorages are lonely, and dinner is grilled fish at a konoba that runs on a generator. The other is the Krka river — you can take the boat itself up the canyon to Skradin and walk to the waterfalls before the coaches arrive. Marinas here (Mandalina, Frapa, Kremik) are among the most sheltered on the coast, and Primošten's vineyard hills make the approach home genuinely pretty. Buy the Kornati park ticket online before you go; it's cheaper than at the ranger boat, and rangers do check.
Sailing area Istria
The north is a different Adriatic: greener islands, cooler mornings, and harbours where the waiter isn't in a hurry. From Pula or Pomer you day-hop past the Brijuni parkland into the Kvarner, where Cres and Lošinj carve out forty miles of pine-lined channels and the sea still smells of it. Mali Lošinj and Rab are proper towns rather than showcases, and tiny Unije or Susak will hand you an anchorage to yourself even in August. Watch the forecast for bura — the northeast wind arrives fast and hard here — but between its visits the sailing is soft and the distances kind. Ideal for crews who measure a good week in quiet bays rather than beach bars.
Sailing area Zadar
Nowhere on the coast packs more islands into a week of easy sailing. The Zadar archipelago is a lattice of channels — Ugljan, Iž, Dugi otok, Molat — where the next anchorage is always in sight and the water stays flat in almost any wind. Telašćica's cliffs and the salt lake sit at the bottom of Dugi otok; Sakarun's white sand sits at the top; the Kornati begin one channel south. Sukošan hosts the country's biggest marina, which makes check-in painless, and Biograd is a charter town to its bones. If the forecast turns, you can re-route in minutes without losing the week — the islands shelter every course. That flexibility is why we send first-time skippers here.
Greece itineraries.
4 areas
Sailing area Cyclades
The Cyclades are the postcard — Mykonos windmills, Santorini's caldera, chapels on bare hills — but they're also the Aegean's most honest sailing. In July and August the meltemi blows a hard 20–30 knots from the north for days at a time, which turns passages into proper sailing and rewards crews who plan around it. Go south with it, not against it; leave early; treat rest days as part of the route. June and September soften everything. Paros and Naxos make the best mid-week bases, with real towns behind the quays, and Lavrio spares you an hour of Athens traffic on day one. This is the area for crews who want the sailing itself to be the story.
Sailing area Ionian
The Ionian runs on a schedule you can set your watch by: glassy mornings, a friendly northwest breeze from lunch until sunset, then calm again for dinner on the quay. No meltemi, short legs, deep sheltered bays — this is where Greek flotillas learn to walk, and where experienced crews come to actually relax. From Lefkas you can reach Meganisi's fjords in an afternoon; Ithaca and Kefalonia fill the middle of the week with green mountains and one-taverna harbours; Fiskardo and Kioni are as pretty as Greek villages get. Further north, Corfu adds Venetian streets and Paxos its famous west-coast cliffs. Bring a long line for tying stern-to a taverna quay — you'll use it every night.
Sailing area Sporades
The Sporades never make the posters, which suits everyone who sails there. These are forested islands — pine down to the tide line — scattered across a sea that hosts Europe's oldest marine park, where monk seals still haul out and dolphins work the channels. Skiathos brings the airport and the nightlife; Skopelos brings the Mamma Mia chapel and a harbour town that smells of plums and resin; Alonissos brings the silence. Legs are short, anchorages are sandy, and the meltemi arrives here softer than in the Cyclades. Starting from Volos adds a mainland day across the Pagasitic gulf, calm as a lake. A week here feels longer than it is, in the best way.
Sailing area Dodecanese
Sail the Dodecanese and you thread a chain of islands that kept crusader castles, Italian art-deco harbours and Greek fishing villages all within sight of the Turkish coast. Symi is the show-stopper — a neoclassical amphitheatre around a harbour you'll fight for at six pm and forgive by seven. Nisyros lets you walk inside a live volcano; Kalymnos still dives for sponges; Rhodes old town is a medieval city with a marina attached. The meltemi funnels between the islands, so afternoon legs can be lively — plan them early, and keep an anchorage in reserve. Charters from Kos or Rhodes both work; Kos keeps the legs shorter, Rhodes adds the grand finale.
Turkey itineraries.
2 areas
Sailing area Bodrum
Bodrum faces a gulf that was made for wandering. Gökova cuts thirty miles into the Turkish mainland, its shores folded into bay after pine-backed bay where the routine writes itself: swim, breakfast, two hours of sailing, another bay. Sedir island keeps its ancient theatre and a beach of sand the legends say Cleopatra shipped in; English Harbour hides so well the Royal Navy used it in wartime. Restaurants with their own jetties will take your lines, feed you meze and charge you fairly for the pleasure. The meltemi reaches in here softened, more breeze than weather. Bodrum itself — castle, market, marina — bookends the week properly. It's the easiest introduction to Turkey a sailor can get.
Sailing area Gocek
Göcek sits at the head of Skopea Limani, a gulf so sheltered and so full of islands that you can spend a week without ever taking a wave over the bow. The formula is unbeatable for mixed crews: anchor drops in ten metres of clear green water, a lazy line goes ashore to a pine, and dinner happens at a family restaurant that built its jetty exactly for you. Lycian ruins stand right above several anchorages — Cleopatra's Baths, the tombs at Kaya — and Fethiye's market supplies the galley properly. Winds are light and thermal, navigation is line-of-sight, marinas in Göcek are plentiful and slick. If Turkey has a nursery slope for chartering, this is it — and it happens to be beautiful.
Spain itineraries.
3 areas
Sailing area Catalonia
Catalonia is the charter for crews who want civilisation with their sailing. Start under Barcelona's skyline, and within a day you're either south among Sitges' beaches or north on the Costa Brava, where the pines lean over small rocky calas and the water turns bottle-green. Palamós and Roses make honest overnight harbours with serious restaurants — this is the coast that fed elBulli — and the tramuntana wind, when it blows, is strong but well forecast. Legs are flexible: hug the coast in twenty-mile days or push longer when the crew finds its rhythm. It's also the rare sailing week where a rest day means Gaudí rather than another beach. Fly in, step aboard, no ferries involved.
Sailing area Ibiza
Strip away the club posters and what's left is the best swimming water in Spain. The channel between Ibiza and Formentera is a sandy-bottomed lagoon where anchored boats appear to float on air, and a week is enough to work around both islands without ever sailing three hours straight. Formentera is the quiet half — Cala Saona sunsets, beach restaurants that take the anchorage seriously — while Ibiza's north coast hides pine coves the party crowd never reaches. If you want the noise it's there too, one dinghy ride away. Posidonia seagrass is protected and patrolled: anchor on sand, always, or pick up a buoy. June and September give you the same water with half the boats.
Sailing area Mallorca
Mallorca's reputation belongs to its beaches; its best side belongs to sailors. The southwest gives you Palma — a genuine maritime capital with the cathedral above the mooring field — and easy hops between marinas. The Tramuntana coast is the drama: two thousand-foot cliffs, Sa Calobra's gorge, and the tiny port of Sóller glowing at dusk. South lies Cabrera, a national park island where a permitted buoy buys you the kind of night sky the mainland forgot. Add Menorca's Ciutadella and its untouched calas if you have the second week. Winds are workable year-round and the infrastructure is the best in the Balearics. Book Cabrera's buoys weeks ahead — they're few, and they're worth it.
France itineraries.
3 areas
Sailing area Côte d'Azur
The Côte d'Azur packs short, forgiving hops into a coastline that swings from film-festival marinas to pine-covered islands in a single afternoon. Winds are usually light, a westerly of 10 to 25 knots through the day that eases after dark, with almost no tide to plan around. Saint-Tropez sits about 26 nautical miles from Cannes, so you rarely log long passages. Point the bow at the Îles de Lérins for a free anchorage off Saint-Honorat's monastery, then push west to Port-Cros, the first national park in Europe to protect land and seabed together. Porquerolles rewards the detour with white-sand bays like Plage Notre-Dame. If you want the glamour without the gridlock, sail here in late May, June, or September; July and August turn Saint-Tropez into a superyacht car park. One local habit worth copying: check the holding before you drop, since anchoring over the protected Posidonia seagrass is both illegal and poor ground.
Sailing area Corsica
Most crews base out of Ajaccio and work south toward Bonifacio, a run that rewards you with steady thermal winds of 10 to 20 knots through summer afternoons. The sailing here is honest work: the west coast throws up force 3 to 6 westerlies, and the Strait of Bonifacio funnels the Libeccio into short, sharp gusts, so carry a plan B for the crossing out to the Îles Lavezzi. That reserve of granite islets and shallow turquoise bays is the payoff. North of Ajaccio, the red porphyry cliffs of Scandola and the boat-only hamlet of Girolata make a quieter alternative to the southern circuit. Legs mostly run 15 to 30 nautical miles, easy day-hops. One practical note: Bonifacio's fjord harbour packs out from mid-July through August, so radio ahead for a berth or anchor off and tender in. Come in June or September and the same anchorages feel half-empty.
Sailing area Brittany & Atlantic
This corner of the Atlantic rewards sailors who read the water. Summer winds usually settle into a moderate southwesterly, Force 3 or 4 most afternoons, which makes for easy reaches between islands that rarely sit more than a couple of hours apart. Quiberon Bay stays sheltered enough for a relaxed first day, then the coast opens up. Belle-Île is the big draw, its cliffs and the Grotte de l'Apothicairerie on the wild side, Le Palais and its Vauban citadel on the calmer one. Smaller Houat and Hoëdic offer white-sand anchorages and almost no cars. The Gulf of Morbihan is the puzzle everyone remembers, an inland sea threaded with islets like Île aux Moines and Île d'Arz. One rule matters here: time your run through the Gulf mouth with the flood or slack, since the Jument current can top nine knots at springs and will stop a cruising yacht dead. July and August fill Le Palais by late afternoon, so arrive before three or aim for June and September.
Italy itineraries.
3 areas
Sailing area Amalfi
This is theatre sailing. The Amalfi coast drops a thousand metres of lemon terraces straight into the sea, Capri's faraglioni stand in water so blue it looks lit from below, and Vesuvius watches the whole bay. It is not wilderness — summer brings ferry wakes, buoy fees and a queue for everything — but nothing else in the Mediterranean looks like this from a cockpit. The trick is timing: Capri at eight in the morning belongs to you; at noon it belongs to everyone. Procida and Ischia carry the quieter nights, and Salerno's Marina d'Arechi makes a calm, well-run start. Anchoring is restricted along much of the coast, so budget for buoys — and consider it the ticket price for the view.
Sailing area Sardinia
North-east Sardinia is the Mediterranean doing an impression of the Caribbean and pulling it off. The La Maddalena archipelago is a maze of pink granite and turquoise shallows where every second cove looks photoshopped; Spargi and Budelli hold the famous ones, but the plain ones would be famous anywhere else. The Costa Smeralda adds the yachts-and-aperitivo end of the spectrum at Porto Cervo, worth one evening of people-watching. Distances are short, shelter is everywhere, and when the mistral pipes up the archipelago itself flattens the sea. You need a permit for the Maddalena park — sort it before the week, not at the ranger boat. Then go get lost in it; that's the whole idea.
Sailing area Sicily
The Aeolians are seven volcanoes standing in deep blue water, and a charter here feels closer to expedition than holiday — in the gentlest possible way. You'll swim over bubbles rising from the seabed off Panarea, eat granita in Lipari's pastel harbour, climb through Salina's vineyards, and finish with the one sight nobody forgets: Stromboli throwing red embers into the night sky while you watch from the cockpit a mile off. Anchorages are deep and shelves are narrow, so mooring takes attention; buoys and short quays fill early in August. Black-sand beaches, capers and malvasia wine — the islands feed you well between passages. Palermo and Portorosa starts both work; Capo d'Orlando gets you to Vulcano fastest.
Caribbean itineraries.
4 areas
Sailing area Bahamas
The Abacos are chartering on a different physics. The Sea of Abaco is a protected bank, often only three or four metres deep, so the water glows that impossible Bahamian pale-blue and the sailing stays flat while the trade wind does the work. Distances are tiny: Hope Town's candy-striped lighthouse, Man-O-War's boatbuilding sheds and Great Guana's beach bars all sit within a couple of hours of each other. Navigation is by eye — read the water colour, respect the sand bores, and the bank is friendly. Conch fritters and rum punch handle the catering ashore. Winter cold fronts need watching, but between them the Abacos serve the gentlest ocean sailing in the hemisphere.
Sailing area British Virgin Islands
There's a reason every charter company on earth keeps a fleet in the BVI: the islands arrange themselves in a ring around the Sir Francis Drake Channel, the trades blow a reliable fifteen knots across it, and the next anchorage is always visible from the last one. Mooring balls take the anchoring stress out of most nights. The hits are real — swimming through the granite caves of the Baths, lobster on Anegada's endless reef, the Soggy Dollar's painkiller at White Bay — but so are the quiet corners, Norman Island's bight or Cooper's snorkel coves midweek. December to April is the classic season. If your crew has never chartered before, start here; if they've chartered everywhere, they'll still grin.
Sailing area Grenada
Grenada is the Caribbean with its seasoning intact. The island smells of nutmeg two miles offshore, St. George's horseshoe harbour is the prettiest capital in the Windwards, and the underwater sculpture park at Molinere makes the first day's snorkel stop genuinely strange and wonderful. Sailing north, the legs get real — proper trade-wind passages in open Atlantic swell — until Carriacou pays it all back with Sandy Island's cartoon perfection and Paradise Beach rum shacks. This is a charter for crews who want some ocean in their ocean holiday. The southern anchorages around Prickly Bay make an easy shakedown day, and Port Louis Marina is as comfortable a base as the Caribbean offers.
Sailing area Martinique
Martinique is the Caribbean that takes lunch seriously. Le Marin — the biggest charter base in the Windwards — sends you out with proper baguettes aboard, and the west coast unrolls in easy day-hops: turtles grazing under the boat at Grande Anse d'Arlet, St-Pierre sitting quietly beneath the volcano that erased it in 1902, rum distilleries that treat tasting as education. Then comes the choice: stay French and gentle, or make the twenty-mile channel crossing to St. Lucia, where the Pitons rise straight out of the sea and a mooring under them is the Caribbean's best front-row seat. The channel is honest trade-wind sailing — reef early, go with the morning. Both halves of the week earn their place.
How to pick your yacht charter route
Boat4You covers six charter playgrounds — Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Türkiye and the Caribbean — and each sails differently: different winds, different distances, different price points. A standard charter week runs marina to marina, Saturday to Saturday, and the sample routes on this page are built around exactly that rhythm.
Every route here is bookable in practice: each departure base holds a live fleet on Boat4You, so once a route fits, you can jump straight from the itinerary to the boats actually available from that marina for your dates.
Croatia — Split, Dubrovnik, Šibenik, Istria & Zadar
Short hops, sheltered channels and more than a thousand islands make Croatia the easiest place in Europe to sail your first bareboat week. The busiest bases sit around Split and Trogir, with Dubrovnik, Šibenik and Zadar covering the south and north. Expect 10–25 NM legs, an island town every evening and two national parks — Kornati and Mljet — within a week's reach. See boats in Croatia.
Greece — Cyclades, Ionian, Sporades & Dodecanese
Greece splits into four moods: the gentle Ionian for relaxed family weeks, the windy postcard Cyclades for confident crews, the green and quiet Sporades, and the Dodecanese hugging the Turkish coast. Distances stay modest and tavernas replace marinas at many overnight stops. See boats in Greece.
Italy — Amalfi Coast, Sardinia & Sicily
Italy is charter for the senses — the Amalfi Coast and Capri from Naples, granite coves and gin-clear water on Sardinia's Costa Smeralda, volcanoes and Aeolian island-hopping from Sicily. The sailing legs are short; the food is the second itinerary. See boats in Italy.
Spain — Balearics & Catalonia
The Balearics — Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera — pack cliff-backed anchorages and beach clubs into short daily legs, while Barcelona and the Costa Brava suit crews who want a big-city arrival and a coastal cruise. See boats in Spain.
Türkiye — Bodrum & Göcek
The Turquoise Coast runs the longest season in the Mediterranean — April to November — from Bodrum for the Gulf of Gökova or Göcek for Fethiye, Kaş and Kekova's sunken ruins, plus the strongest crewed-gulet fleet anywhere. See boats in Türkiye.
Caribbean — BVI, Bahamas, Grenada & Martinique
Winter charter at its best: steady trade winds, line-of-sight hops in the BVI, shallow turquoise banks in the Bahamas, and the greener, quieter Grenadines and Martinique to the south. The season peaks December to April — exactly when the Mediterranean sleeps. Browse the Caribbean itineraries.
Quick decision guide
First bareboat, or young kids aboard? Croatia from Split or the Greek Ionian — short sheltered legs and forgiving winds.
Chasing the postcard? The Cyclades for white villages over deep blue, Sardinia for Caribbean-clear coves — or the actual Caribbean from Tortola.
Two weeks to fill? Combine a Split → Dubrovnik one-way, run Athens deep into the Cyclades, or chain Bodrum with Göcek along the Turquoise Coast.
Sailing to eat? The Amalfi Coast from Naples, or Mallorca and Menorca — short legs, long dinners.
Want the crew included? Türkiye's gulets come with captain and chef; larger crewed yachts sail Croatia, Greece and the Caribbean.
Still deciding? Open the boat search — filter by country, dates and boat type, and the right route usually reveals itself.
Found a route you like?
Every itinerary starts at a marina full of boats you can book online — pick your week, compare live prices and reserve with free cancellation.