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Where to find Europe's cheapest summer stays
Holiday lets in popular destinations are 10% pricier than last year – but you can still find a bargain break if you know where to look.
We compared more than 200,000 listings in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and France to find Europe’s cheapest summer stays in August. Among them is the Galician village of Caldebarcos, which sits next to a picture-perfect beach backed by dunes. A two-bedroom holiday let booked through Airbnb or rival platform Vrbo is £86 a night on average – less than a third of the price of a rental in Ibiza’s Sant Josep.
Overall, we found that France and Spain are the best-value destinations, according to data from analyst AirDNA. Greece is the priciest country we checked: holiday lets booked through Airbnb and Vrbo were roughly 30% more expensive there than in France.
Read on to discover the best-value destinations in southern Europe, from the little-known Portuguese 'Venice' to a dramatic clifftop city in Spain.
- Where to find Portugal’s cheapest destinations
- Where to find Greece’s cheapest destinations
- Where to find Spain’s cheapest destinations
- Where to find France’s cheapest destinations
- Where to find Italy’s cheapest destinations
Portugal
Portugal’s priciest accommodation is in the exclusive golf resorts of the Algarve’s ‘Golden Triangle’: Quinta do Lago and neighbouring Vale do Lobo. Staying in high-rise Quarteira and boisterous Albufeira in August also come with hefty prices.
The cheapest stays can be found 300 miles north, lining Porto’s underrated coast. Aveiro is especially good value – Portugal's 'Venice' is a lagoon town with canals and gondola-like boats. If you’re visiting Lisbon, consider spending a few days in the walled city of Évora – home to one of the Iberian Peninsula’s best-preserved Roman temples (and just a 90-minute train ride away).
Aveiro
Stay: £97
Flights: £102 return to Porto
The brightly painted boats that bob along Aveiro’s canals once transported seaweed. Today they carry wide-eyed tourists past tiled houses and ornate Art Nouveau buildings to salt pans, where flor de sal is still harvested by hand.
Less than an hour’s drive from Porto, this well-heeled town sits on the edge of a diverse lagoon system; you can spot black-winged kite and flamingos from the wooden walkways that bridge the reed beds.
A short ferry ride across the estuary takes you to the wild dunes and powdery sands of São Jacinto nature reserve. Back in town, admire sacred art in the lavish Dominican convent.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Aveiro.
Booking.com is the top-rated hotel-booking site in our survey and received five stars for its flexibility. Most bookings can be cancelled at short notice without penalty. The only way to be sure you've found the best rate is to call or email the hotel directly.
Évora
Stay: £95
Flights: £119 return to Lisbon
This vibrant university city is the capital of Portugal’s southern Alentejo region. Explore cobbled lanes lined with yellow-and-white terraces within its 14th-century ramparts. You’ll be rewarded with Évora’s Augustus-era Roman Temple, an enormous cathedral and a lively café culture at the Gothic and Romanesque town square – a former execution ground during the Spanish Inquisition.
Other highlights include the eerie Chapel of Bones, housing 5,000 skulls inside a San Franciscan church, and a grand aqueduct – homes are tucked neatly into some of the arches. There’s also no shortage of snug bars and tabernas serving up Alentejan’s hearty cuisine and full-bodied wines.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Évora.
Greece
A week on party island and A-list favourite, Mykonos, will typically cost you a whopping £2,690 in August – and it came bottom of the table in our recent Greek islands survey. Santorini was the second-most expensive destination, where a seven-night stay also costs more than £2,000.
The lowest-priced beach resorts are all found on the mainland, and a week in Greece’s underrated second city, Thessaloniki, will typically cost a lot less than two nights on Mykonos.
Vytina
Stay: £71
Flight: £123 return to Athens
Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula is steeped in 3,000 years of history. It’s the home of Olympia – the birthplace of the Olympics – along with ancient Sparta, and Virgil’s semi-mythical wilderness, Arcadia. The latter is still a pastoral idyll, and Vytina is the Athenians’ favourite retreat.
Breathe in the crisp mountain air at the centuries-old town, where stout stone-built mansions and cosy restaurants dot the fir-carpeted slopes of Mount Mainalon – the Peloponnese’s tallest peak. Hike from Vytina to the village of Elati on the waymarked Menalon Trail, then refuel on slow-cooked cockerel with noodles – a local speciality.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Vytina.
Thessaloniki
Stay: £70
Flight: £118 return
It may not be Greece’s most beautiful city, but Thessaloniki has some interesting sights and fabulous food. Breakfast on bougatsa (custard-filled or feta-stuffed filo pastry pie), stock up on plump olives at the 100-year-old Modiano Market and tuck into spicy meatballs in old-school tavernas.
Work up an appetite exploring the city’s Roman ruins. Most impressive is the Rotunda: a fresco-adorned temple that was turned into a church and then a mosque. Or join the locals promenading and rollerblading along the two-mile waterfront, beginning at the Ottoman-era White Tower. The silken coves of Halkidiki lie 20 miles to the south east.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Thessaloniki.
Spain
All but one of the most expensive Spanish destinations were in the Balearic Islands, and half were in Ibiza. The most exorbitant was Sant Josep – a town with sugar-cube-style buildings on the slopes of the island’s tallest peak, Sa Talaia. When we checked, a two-bedroom Airbnb or Vrbo in August was nearly £300 per night.
Staying in the extraordinary-looking city of Cuenca will cost you a fraction of that: just £79 per night, on average. Several of the cheapest places for an Airbnb stay were in Galicia – the Iberian Peninsula’s rugged north-western corner.
Cuenca
Stay: £79
Flights: £96 return to Madrid
This little-visited city’s medieval tall houses huddle on a bluff, encircled by gaping ravines. Originally built by the Moors, Cuenca rises from the peaks of Castilla-La Mancha, 100 miles east of Madrid.
It’s famous for its casas colgadas (hanging houses) which cling to the cliff face, teetering precariously over the gorge. One of them is an excellent abstract art museum – but you might hesitate before stepping onto its wooden balconies to admire the vertiginous views.
Just as striking are the otherworldly limestone formations in the Enchanted City, a geological park north of Cuenca.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Cuenca.
Caldebarcos
Stay: £86
Flights: £86 return to Santiago de Compostela
Backed by rolling dunes, Playa de Carnota is Galicia’s longest and, arguably, loveliest beach. The village of Caldebarcos sits at one end of this four-mile crescent of soft white sand.
An hour’s drive from Santiago de Compostela, this remote stretch of the ‘Coast of Death’ is the region’s wild west – where rocky headlands, towering cliffs and empty beaches are pounded by the Atlantic. Boulder-strewn Monte Pindo – a sacred Celtic Olympus – towers over Carnota Beach.
Galicia is known for crisp white wines and seafood – family-run restaurants serve up plentiful portions.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Caldebarcos.
Setenil de las Bodegas
Stay: £85
Flights: £96 return to Malaga
This Andalucian village is an hour or so north, and a world away, from the crowded beaches of the Costa del Sol. Setenil de las Bodegas’ white-washed houses are built into a canyon and dramatically wedged under mammoth granite ledges.
Wander up winding alleys and enjoy the views from the last remaining tower of the crumbling Moorish castle, before stopping at one of the cave bars for tapas. Down the road, the sierra town of Ronda sits atop a plunging river gorge spanned by the Puente Nuevo – a towering bridge and a feat of 18th-century engineering.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Setenil de las Bodegas.
France
Forget the Mediterranean; head for the hills if you’re after a bargain Airbnb. Five out of 10 of the country’s priciest resorts were on the French Riviera. Sun-worshippers in Saint-Tropez will shell out the most: a week’s stay this August will typically cost £2,000.
Many of the lowest-priced destinations are dotted around the Alps and Pyrenees: ski resorts drop their prices to attract hikers and bikers in summer. If food and wine are more your thing, consider Périgueux – the average price of an Airbnb in the capital of the Dordogne is less than half what you’d expect to pay in Bordeaux.
Périgueux
Stay: £72
Flights: £76 return to Bordeaux
A cathedral topped with domes, turrets and an ancient bell tower looms over Périgueux’s old town, Puy St-Front, where the flamboyant Renaissance mansions are still in good nick.
Périgueux is liveliest on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when market stalls crowd the stone-flagged squares with wheels of cheese, crates piled high with strawberries, and baskets of the Dordogne’s prized mushrooms. Work up an appetite by walking or cycling the greenway that meanders along the river and through town.
Further afield you’ll find Stone Age cave paintings, the surreal Marqueyssac Gardens (with artfully trimmed boxwood topiaries) and Bergerac’s good-value vineyards.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Périgueux.
Besançon
Stay: £66
Flights: £116 return to Geneva
A 17th-century citadelle with commanding views crowns this little-known city in the eastern region of French-Comté. One hundred metres below, the river Doubs snakes around Besançon’s old town, where poet and novelist Victor Hugo was born in one of the 18th-century townhouses. There’s also an elaborate astronomical clock and a Second World War museum about local Resistance fighters.
Head south to ramble in the pine-blanketed Parc Naturel Regional du Haut-Jura or explore the quaint wine villages in Jura’s foothills. Château-Chalon is famous for its dry and aromatic vin jaune (yellow wine) – known as the gold of the Jura.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Besançon.
Valmeinier
Stay: £66
Flights: £116 return to Geneva
This Alpine village is perched on a plateau in the shadow of craggy 3,100-metre Mont Thabor, near the Italian border. When the snow finally melts in June, you can strike out along trails up to lonely peaks and emerald lakes. Cyclists take on the Col du Galibier – often the Tour de France’s highest point.
If you’re lucky, you might spot an ibex or furry marmot in the flower-carpeted meadows and spruce forests of Vanoise National Park, which lies northward. The closest big town is Chambéry, which has an Italianate old town and chateau that belonged to the Dukes of Savoy.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Valmeinier.
Italy
Rubbing sun-kissed shoulders with the jet-set on the Amalfi Coast will cost you, especially in Positano – where the average nightly rate in August is £438. Unsurprisingly, the nearby island of Capri – haunt of the rich and famous – is also eye-wateringly expensive.
While Sicily has its fair share of well-to-do resorts, it’s also home to some of Italy’s cut-price destinations – such as Erice, a fairy-tale town on the island’s lesser-visited west coast. If you’re off to Tuscany, consider basing yourself in Loro Ciuffenna, a sleepy village split in two by a river gorge.
Erice
Stay: £73
Flights: £127 return to Palermo
Two castles preside over this hilltop town in western Sicily: a tower with fairy-tale turrets, and a Norman edifice built on top of a temple to Venus (according to legend, it was founded by the mythical Trojan hero Aeneas).
The views over the palazzi-strewn port of Trapani are even more impressive – unless Erice is enveloped in cloud. After you’ve explored the ancient walls and cobblestone alleyways hiding endless churches, you can glide down to the city of Trapani in a cable car to marvel at Baroque buildings, dine on fresh tuna, or catch a ferry to the sun-baked Egadi Islands.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Erice.
Loro Ciuffenna
Stay: £88
Flights: £151 return to Florence
Florence and Siena are easy day trips from this colourful Tuscan village. It’s divided in two by a rushing river traversed by a medieval bridge. But its biggest claim to fame is a 900-year-old water mill – Tuscany’s oldest – which is still used to grind chestnuts into flour.
In the town hall, you’ll find dozens of local hero Venturini Venturi’s curvaceous sculptures. From the nearby village of Castelfranco di Sopra, you can hike to hulking canyons: Leonarda da Vinci was so enamoured that he painted them into the backdrop of the Mona Lisa.
Check with booking.com to easily compare and find accommodation deals in Loro Ciuffena.
Our research
The prices listed are average nightly rates for a two-bed Airbnb or Vrbo, which were provided by short-term rental analyst AirDNA. For overall averages, we compared the price of more than 200,000 three-bed listings (booked by March 2022 and 2023). Average return economy flight prices were provided by comparison site Skyscanner.