We did not see the Balearic Islands in one go. We went back three times over the summer, one island per trip, and every time we landed, we made the same two decisions before we had even left the airport: pick up a Vespa and set the alarm early. Both choices paid off so often that they became the rule for the whole summer. The Vespa took us down the small coastal roads where the buses never go, and the early mornings gave us the coves to ourselves, before the boats arrived and the light turned hard. What follows is how those three trips actually went, island by island, in the order we did them.
Mallorca first: A city, a scramble and a concert underground
Mallorca was the biggest surprise of the three Balearic Islands, because we had filed it in our heads as a beach island and it turned out to be a city trip too. Palma is a proper city, and we gave it a full day on foot. The old town is a tangle of honey-coloured lanes and little squares, and we kept stopping for tapas whenever a shady corner looked too good to walk past.
The day ended where it had to, at the seafront cathedral, La Seu. It is enormous from the outside and even better inside, where the light comes pouring through one of the largest rose windows in the world, and the chapel Gaudí worked on is worth standing in front of for a while. Buy the skip-the-line ticket. The queue outside is not where you want to spend a Mallorca morning.
The next morning we were up before the sun for the cove everyone photographs. Caló des Moro is tiny, and that is the whole point of it, a pocket of turquoise water between pine-covered cliffs that looks too bright to be real until you are standing above it. It fills up fast and the path down is steep, so the early start is not a nice-to-have, it is the trip. We sat on the rocks for a long time just watching the colour change as the sun climbed.
The rest of that coast is dotted with coves in the same spirit, made for swimming, paddling a kayak into the sea caves, and jumping off the low cliffs into deep water. Bring a snorkel if you have one. The water is so clear that what is underneath it is half the experience.
Our last day on Mallorca gave us the two things we still mention first when anyone asks about the island. In the north, Port de Sóller sits in a curve of harbour below the Serra de Tramuntana mountains, all fishing boats and green slopes, and the way in is half the pleasure: a vintage tram that rattles down from the town of Sóller through the orange groves to the sea.
Then, on the other side of the island, the Caves of Drach. You walk down into a huge underground world of stalactites, and at the bottom of it there is a lake so large it feels like a sea that got lost indoors. A small boat carries musicians across it while they play, and the sound moves over the water in the dark. It sounds like a gimmick when you describe it afterwards. Down there, with the music drifting across the lake, it felt like one of the strangest and loveliest things we had done all summer.
Ibiza second: The island behind the reputation
Ibiza has a reputation that precedes it, and we arrived half expecting to spend the trip apologising for it. We did not. Away from the clubs, the island is cliffs and coves and some of the clearest water in the Mediterranean, and the days we spent there were the slowest of the summer.
Our best evening was the simplest one: we rode the Vespa out to the south-west coast late in the day and found a clifftop spot looking out at Es Vedrà, a huge rock island rising straight out of the sea. There is something about that rock, alone in the water with nothing around it, that makes you go quiet. We watched the light change on it until the sun went down, and it was one of the least party-like corners of the island we could have found.
The west coast is where Ibiza keeps its beaches. It is a run of turquoise calas between ochre cliffs, Cala Comte and Cala d’Hort among them, and the water is the kind you keep describing to people afterwards because you cannot quite believe it yourself.
Our advice from those days is practical and short: go early, before the crowds and the heat, and pack water shoes, because the prettiest coves are the rocky ones. We snorkelled wherever we could, and one afternoon we joined a guided kayak and snorkel trip out of Es Figueral, paddling into the inlets and caves you simply cannot reach on foot. That is the side of Ibiza we wish more people knew about, the one you find with a paddle in your hands and salt drying on your shoulders.
Ibiza also gave us the best sunset of the three Balearic islands, and we watched it the right way, from the water. A sunset boat trip along the west coast, with a swim stop built in, puts you in the middle of the light as the whole coastline turns gold. We had a drink in hand, the cliffs were glowing behind us, and there was nothing to do but watch the sky do its work. If you book one thing on Ibiza, book that. The island does its best work at the end of the day, and you want to be out on the water when it happens.
Menorca last: The quiet one that stayed with us
We saved Menorca for last, and it ended up being the island we talk about most. It is greener and calmer than the other two, and the water is so clear it barely looks real. Our best day there was on a boat along the south coast, hopping between coves you would never reach by land and swimming straight off the deck into shallow, glassy water in every shade of blue. We dropped anchor in one cove after another, and the water was so transparent we could count the fish from the boat. That is not an exaggeration. We actually did it, like two kids with a new toy.
The north coast is a different island altogether, rawer and windier, and we loved the contrast. The Pont d’en Gil sea arch is the landmark up there, a great curve of rock standing in the sea, and the coves around it, Cala Pregonda among them, have rust-red sand and rock that looks almost Martian against the blue water. It is wonderful Vespa country, open roads and big skies, and the red rock glowing in the late light is the kind of thing you pull over for without thinking. Come up here after the soft sand of the south. The two coasts barely feel like the same island, and that is exactly why the drive between them is worth it.
Menorca has more than beaches, and the afternoons we spent away from the sand were some of our favourites. The coast hides sea caves where shafts of light pour through the roof and land on the water, and the interior is green fields, dry-stone walls and quiet lanes that smell of wild herbs.
We wandered it all on the Vespa, and half the pleasure was the drive itself, turning a corner to find another field, another wall, another lane going nowhere in particular.
Then, on our last evening, the island gave us its final trick.
We ended the day on the west-facing cliffs for the sunset, and then we stayed and looked up. Menorca is a certified Starlight destination, and the night sky there is something else entirely. We had booked a guided stargazing session on the coast almost as an afterthought, and it turned into one of the evenings we talk about most, standing on the cliffs after the sunset faded and watching the sky fill with stars you simply never see from a city.
What we would tell a friend about the Balearic Islands
Three trips, three islands, and the same handful of lessons every time. Rent the Vespa, because the coves worth finding sit at the end of small roads. Go early, especially for the small coves like Caló des Moro and the west coast calas of Ibiza, because the early light and the empty sand are the whole experience. Bring water shoes for the rocky coves and a snorkel wherever you can, because the clarity of the water is the point of these islands and you will want to see what is underneath it. And save your evenings for the west, for the sunset boat in Ibiza, the cliffs in Menorca, and then the stars.
As for which of the Balearic Islands to pick, it depends on the trip you want. Mallorca if you want variety, a real city and a mountain range and coves all in one place. Ibiza if you want drama, the cliffs and the coves behind the party label, and a sunset you will measure other sunsets against. Menorca if you want calm, green countryside, a wild red-rock north and the darkest skies in the Mediterranean. Or do what we did, take them one at a time across a summer, and let the colour of that water be the thread that ties the three trips together.
