Mykonos is a small island that behaves like several different places at once. Two bays apart, you can go from a beach club with a resident DJ to a stretch of sand where the loudest thing is the wind. Choosing where to sleep matters more here than on most Greek islands, because the island will not average itself out for you. Whichever side you pick is largely the holiday you will have.

What follows is a plain look at the main areas, and who each one actually suits.

The first decision: town or coast

Almost everything else follows from this one choice.

Staying in Mykonos Town, or Chora, means you can walk to dinner, walk home from it, and never think about transport in the evening. Staying on the coast means waking up to the sea, and accepting that getting into town is a short drive, a bus or a taxi.

There is no correct answer. There is only the question of whether your holiday is built around evenings or around days.

Mykonos Town (Chora)

Chora has the highest concentration of restaurants, bars, galleries, bakeries and boutiques on the island, packed into a maze of whitewashed lanes that were laid out to confuse pirates and still work well on visitors.

It suits first-timers, short stays, and anyone travelling without a car. It suits people who want to eat late and wander.

It does not suit light sleepers. The lanes carry sound, and in high season parts of the town are awake until the early hours. There is also no real beach in Chora itself. Value tends to be poor in July and August, because you are paying for the address.

Ornos

Ornos is a proper village on a sheltered south-facing bay, with shallow, soft-sand swimming and a row of tavernas along the water. It is the safest first choice for families and for anyone who wants a calm base without being cut off.

It is close to town, well served by buses, and small enough to walk around. It is not a quiet backwater — it is busy in August — but the busyness is domestic rather than nocturnal.

Platis Gialos

Platis Gialos is the island’s most efficient beach base. It is a long organised beach with hotels stacked behind it, reliable bus links to Chora and the airport, and a jetty that serves as the hub for the south-coast boats that hop between the beaches.

If your plan is to see a different beach every day with minimal effort, this is the practical answer. It is organised rather than atmospheric.

Psarou

Psarou is the glossy end of Mykonos: a small, sheltered bay with a serious yacht presence offshore and Nammos anchoring the scene on the sand. It is expensive, beautiful and highly visible.

Stay here if that is the point of your trip. It is not a restful bay in August, and it is not somewhere you stumble upon a quiet lunch.

Paradise and Paraga

These two bays on the south coast are where the island’s daytime party lives. Paradise is loud and young. Paraga is more polished, with day clubs that run music from lunch onwards.

They are excellent if that is what you came for and genuinely difficult if it is not. Sound carries across a bay in a way that no amount of glazing solves.

The west coast: Agios Stefanos, Tourlos and Agios Ioannis

The strip of coast running north-west from Chora is the part of Mykonos that most visitors drive past on the way in from the port, and it is the part that consistently surprises people who stay there.

Agios Stefanos sits in a west-facing bay a few kilometres from Mykonos Town, above the New Port at Tourlos. The bay is largely sheltered, the water shelves gently, and the outlook runs across the channel to Tinos, Syros and Rinia. Because it faces west, it takes the sunset directly.

The appeal is the arithmetic. You are minutes from Chora when you want it, and out of earshot of it when you do not. It is also the most convenient part of the island for anyone arriving or leaving by ferry.

This is the stretch where Bard de Sol sits — a small collection of boutique suites in Agios Stefanos, each with a private plunge pool and a view over the water, which is the sort of arrangement that makes the middle of the afternoon in August considerably more bearable.

Agios Ioannis, further south on the same coast, is a smaller and quieter proposition again, with the same westward outlook.

Ano Mera and the east

Ano Mera is the island’s only real inland village: a square with plane trees, a monastery, and tavernas where the clientele is noticeably more local. It offers better value than the coast and a slower pace.

The east coast — Kalafatis, Elia, Kalo Livadi — gives you long beaches with far fewer people, and traditional village life at Kalafatis.

Both come with a condition. Once you move east or inland, you need a hire car. Bus links exist but they are not frequent enough to build a holiday on, and taxis are scarce on Mykonos in a way that catches people out.

How to choose

A rough guide, based on what people usually mean when they ask.

• First trip, three or four nights, no car: Chora, Ornos or Platis Gialos.
• You want to swim and read, and eat well in the evening: the west coast, or Ornos.
• You are here for the beach clubs: Paraga, Paradise or Psarou.
• Families with young children: Ornos or Agios Stefanos, for the shallow water.
• Second or third visit, hire car, want the island rather than the scene: the east coast or Ano Mera.
• Arriving or leaving by ferry with an awkward time: anywhere on the west coast, near the port.

A note on August

Everything above intensifies in August. The busy areas get considerably busier, the quiet ones stay reasonably quiet, and the gap between the two widens. If you are travelling at the height of summer and you are not certain which side you belong to, err towards the calmer base. It is easy to go into the noise for an evening. It is much harder to escape it at two in the morning.

If your dates are still open, the shoulder months are a different island entirely — and worth reading about before you book. It is also worth deciding early which beaches you actually want to be near, since that tends to settle the question of where to stay faster than anything else. Returning visitors will find that the second trip asks for a different base than the first.