Getting to Sardinia:
fly, sail, or bring the car.

The real question is not "plane or ferry": it is whether you need your own car. Two or three of you with normal luggage, flying and hiring locally almost always wins. A large family, a stay of two weeks or more, bikes, sports kit or a pet, and the ferry with the car on board becomes the sensible choice. What never changes is the rest: on the island you need a car, and in August everything must be booked far earlier than you would think.

The three airports, and which to choose

Sardinia has three airports, well spread across the island. Choosing by destination saves hours of driving, and getting it wrong is the commonest mistake made by people who book on flight price alone.

Elmas is the only one with a rail link, a few minutes from Cagliari station. Olbia is the busiest in summer and carries many seasonal European routes. Alghero works all year with low-cost links to several European cities, which is why Alghero has a longer season than the island average.

Ferries: where they sail from and how long they take

The main routes leave from Genoa, Livorno, Piombino, Civitavecchia and Naples, arriving at Porto Torres in the north-west, Olbia and Golfo Aranci in the north-east, Cagliari in the south and Arbatax on the east coast. There are also links from Corsica, with the short hop between Bonifacio and Santa Teresa Gallura.

Crossing times vary widely: Civitavecchia to Olbia generally runs between seven and eight hours, Genoa to Porto Torres sails overnight on a longer passage, while the summer fast services from Livorno or Piombino cut the time considerably. The practical choice is between the overnight crossing, which costs you a night but gives back a whole day, and the daytime one, easier with children but eating into the day.

Two pieces of advice worth their cost: take a cabin on overnight crossings, because sleeping in a reclining seat with your luggage on your lap ruins the start of a holiday; and book far ahead for the period between late July and mid-August, when vehicle spaces genuinely sell out.

Bringing your own car or hiring one

There is no single answer, but there is a rule of thumb: the more of you there are and the longer you stay, the more your own car makes sense. A ferry with a vehicle has a cost that splits between passengers and does not grow with the days, whereas hire is charged daily. Beyond a fortnight the sums often tip towards the ship.

The ferry also wins whenever you are carrying things: child seats, pushchairs, bikes, boards, hiking gear, the dog. All of it is expensive or impossible by air.

Hire wins for short trips, for anyone coming from far away and for couples. The one serious recommendation is to book early: between July and August the island's available cars run out and prices climb sharply against June or September. People who book the house in January and the car in June usually pay twice as much for no reason.

Do you actually need a car once you arrive?

In the large majority of cases, yes. Trains link Cagliari with Oristano, Sassari and Olbia and are useful between towns, but they reach almost nothing on the coast. Buses exist and in summer there are seasonal beach services, but departures are few and they do not give you the freedom to move around by day.

There are three exceptions. Cagliari, where the Poetto is on a city bus route and the centre is walkable. Alghero, with its pedestrian old town and beaches close by. And Golfo Aranci, which is a ferry port and the terminus of the train from Olbia: people arriving by ship or rail walk into town. If you want a holiday without driving, those are the right bases.

Real distances, which are not the ones on the map

This is what surprises people most. Sardinia is nearly the size of Belgium and has a single fast road, the SS131, cutting across from Cagliari towards Sassari and Porto Torres. Everything else is single carriageway, often winding.

These are times in normal traffic. In August, and especially on Saturdays when nearly every house changes guest, add a good deal more. The practical conclusion is always the same: better to pick one area and stay there than to plan a holiday that takes in north and south in seven days.

Arriving off season

From November to March flights thin out, some seasonal routes disappear and ferry sailings become less frequent. That is not a problem, but it needs allowing for: you will usually fly into Cagliari or Alghero, and it is worth checking timetables before fixing dates. In exchange you find much lower prices and a completely different island, as we describe in the guide on when to visit Sardinia.

One last thing about check-in

Flights and ships keep hours that rarely match a reception desk: arrivals at midnight, departures at dawn, ferries delayed by rough seas. In our houses entry is self-service and there is always someone reachable, precisely because here the journey ends when it ends, not when it suits us. If you are planning a trip and want to work out which area suits your flights, look through our destinations or just write to us.

Where the figures on this page come from

This guide was last updated in August 2026. Fares, timetables and beach access rules change every season, so rather than asking you to take our word for it, here is where we checked: Trenitalia for the rail link to Cagliari airport. The driving times are ours, measured on roads we use every week, and hold in normal traffic: in August, add to them. Flight and ferry timetables should always be checked with the operators, because they change between high and low season. If you find a figure that no longer holds, tell us and we will correct it: we would rather have a page that is right than one that looks complete.