Where to stay in Ibiza: the best areas and hotels

Ibiza Town (Eivissa) is the island's capital and its most glamorous base. Dalt Vila, the UNESCO-listed old town, climbs inside massive Renaissance walls to the cathedral at the top, its cobbled lanes full of restaurants and tiny squares. Below, the port quarter is lined with bars and boutiques, and superyachts fill the marinas across the harbour.

Hotels range from a 1904 manor house turned luxury hotel inside Dalt Vila to the Ibiza Gran Hotel, gazing across the water at the old walls, and the design-led Montesol Experimental in the centre. South of town, Playa d'en Bossa is the clubbing beach, a long strip of sand where the biggest open-air parties happen; Torre del Mar sits on the seafront there. The airport is about 15 minutes away.

San Antonio (Sant Antoni de Portmany) is where Ibiza's young crowd has been coming for decades. The West End packs its streets with bars and pre-club venues, boat parties leave from the harbour, and the long bay is ringed with beach hotels. It's loud, cheerful and better value than the east of the island.

Not every hotel is a party hotel. Across the bay on Punta Pinet beach, Innside and Bonito are stylish beach hotels with front-row sunset views, and the adults-only Invisa Es Pla suits groups of friends and couples alike. Stic, a renovated urban hotel with a spa, puts you in the middle of town.

Just north of San Antonio's bay, the coast breaks up into small rocky coves with startlingly clear water. Caló des Moro is a tiny sandy cove at the end of the famous sunset strip, where the bars along the rocks turn every evening into an event, and Cala Gració, a little further on, is loved for its glassy water and its sunsets.

It's the best of both worlds: the town and the West End are about a kilometre away, but the hotels feel like retreats. OKU Ibiza has the island's largest pool and a bohemian, barefoot style; Cubanito brings the look of Miami's Little Havana to the Med; and Blau Park sits 20 metres from the sand at Caló des Moro.

The south-west corner of the island, in the municipality of Sant Josep, is where Ibiza keeps its best beaches. Cala Conta's sandbars and turquoise shallows, Cala Bassa's pine-fringed sand, Cala Tarida and the little family beach at Port des Torrent all lie within a few kilometres, and offshore the jagged islet of Es Vedrà looks like something out of a fantasy novel.

Hotels mix clifftop luxury with easy-going family stays. 7Pines is an all-suite resort in the pines between Cala Conta and Cala Codolar, facing Es Vedrà; the all-inclusive Occidental and Coral Star are a few minutes from Port des Torrent's sand; and Can Salia's apartments have a rooftop infinity pool on the shore of San Antonio Bay.

Santa Eulalia del Río, on the east coast, is Ibiza at its most relaxed and civilised. The town has a palm-lined promenade, a marina, a sandy family beach and a restaurant street where locals actually eat, and the whitewashed church on the Puig de Missa hill above town is one of the prettiest on the island.

Hotels lean upmarket and design-conscious: the W is on the Santa Eulalia seafront, ME Ibiza sits near Punta Arabí and its famous hippy market, Aguas de Ibiza is an eco-minded boutique hotel by the harbour, and Bless Cala Nova overlooks a cove further north. Ibiza Town is about 20 minutes away by car.