As the summer months are fast approaching, people are becoming more eager to travel and are beginning to search for their next exciting escape. And nothing says summer like a holiday at sea!
To provide them with some inspiration, experts at BuildYourAquarium.com sought to discover the best countries across Europe for staying on a boat by collating a seed list of the 11 most popular holiday destinations and utilising Airbnb to find the ones with the most boat Airbnbs available.
Here are the best European countries for a boat stay, ranked…
| Ranking | Country | Number of Airbnb Boats Available | Number of Superhost Airbnb Boats | Locations with Superhost Airbnb Boats |
| 1= | Italy | 300+ | 25 | Cervia, Livorno, Portovenere |
| 1= | France | 300+ | 204 | La Rochelle, Nantes, Saumur |
| 2 | Spain | 297 | 32 | Barcelona, Calafell, Valencia |
| 3 | Turkey | 271 | 15 | Finike, Kaş, Rhodes |
| 4 | Netherlands | 183 | 65 | Amsterdam, Bodegraven, Groningen |
| 5 | Greece | 155 | 6 | Artemis, Kontokali, Nafplio |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 150 | 71 | London, Manchester, Southampton |
| 7 | Portugal | 104 | 32 | Lisbon, Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia |
| 8 | Croatia | 66 | 11 | Dubrovnik, Split, Vis |
| 9 | Czech Republic | 9 | 2 | Mníšek |
| 10 | Iceland | 2 | 1 | Reykhólahreppur |
With more than 300 boat Airbnbs available, the first place is shared by Italy and France. While both countries have stunning coastal locations, France leads Italy when it comes to Superhost Airbnb boats, having a whopping 179 more. A popular Superhost location in France is the coastal city La Rochelle in the south-west of the country and in Italy a Superhost boat could be found in the northern seaside resort town Cervia.
Second place goes to Spain with 297 boat Airbnbs on offer. The south-west European country has 32 Superhost boat Airbnbs available. One of the most popular locations to find one of those is in the port city Valencia, situated on the country’s south-east coast.
In third place is Turkey with 271 boat Airbnbs available to rent (only 26 less than its predecessor). Out of those, 15 are Superhost Airbnbs. Finike, located on the Mediterranean coast of the country, is one of the most popular locations for a high-rated boat Airbnb.
Ranking in fourth and fifth place respectively are the Netherlands (183 boat Airbnbs) and Greece (155 boat Airbnbs).
And the least popular destination for staying on a boat is…
Having a total of just 2 boat Airbnbs (295 less than Spain in second position), Iceland ranks tenth and therefore, last in the study.
Methodology
- BuildYourAquarium.com sought to find out the most popular countries for staying on a boat throughout Europe.
- A comprehensive seed list of popular holiday locations across Europe was compiled utilising multiple websites, including: Schengen Visa Info, Condé Nast Traveller, Planet Ware, Contiki and Our Escape Clause.
- Only countries that appeared more than once across the different articles were taken into consideration.
- A refined list of 11 holiday destinations throughout Europe was created.
- Following this, each country was manually inputted into Airbnb. The months June, July and August were selected as a time period and results were filtered to show only boat Airbnbs. The number of those for each destination was then recorded. After that a second filter was chosen to show only Superhost boat Airbnbs (Airbnbs with very high ratings), the amount of which was also recorded, along with some of the most popular locations they were situated in.
- Slovenia was omitted from the research due to lack of data.
- All destinations were then ranked based on the number of boat Airbnbs available, so that the most popular country for a boat staycation could be determined.
- All data was collected on 5 April 2022 and is subject to change.
Source: BuildYourAquarium
Photo Credit: Marco Rubino_Shutterstock
