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Nestled just beneath Corsica, the Italian island of Sardinia is the perfect place to take a road trip. It is the second largest island in the Mediterranean and can be enjoyed by car at your leisure, over a nice long three week get-away, or equally pleasurably in one week capturing the highlights.

An island of diversity
The charm and diversity of Sardinia is legendary. Bustling Italian towns, miles of unspoilt sandy beaches, mountainous countryside and crystal clear waters. All this awaits you in the heart of the Mediterranean and is only a short and relatively inexpensive flight away for most European visitors.

Hire a car there
Unless you’re planning a full-scale European road trip, you’ll find it a lot easier to hire a car there, giving you more time to explore the island. Air conditioning is favourable as, depending on when you travel, temperatures can get pretty spicy, especially in July and August. The airport you fly into will dictate the route of exploration that you take but driving along the coast comes highly recommended. Sardinia has over 1000 miles of sandy shores that are relatively untouched by tourism providing plenty of stunning stop-offs for a swim and refreshment.
 
The beaches

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Sardinia is most notorious for its Costa Smeralda region in the north east of the island where you’ll find huge yachts, designer shops and plenty of millionaires. Visit Porto Cervo for a spot of lunch and people watching – you’ll soon have life-envy and probably want to move on! But the beaches around this area are some of the most impressive and there are some very plush hotels if you fancy a stop-over to rub shoulders with the rich and famous.

Swanky stop-overs
If doing it in style is your thing, then try the award-winning Forte Village resort in the south of the island in Santa Margherita di Pula. This is a breath-taking complex that caters for all accommodation requirements with beach, gardens and rustic fishing village views to suit all tastes.

A cheaper option - try camping
A really good way to do Sardinia freely and more cheaply is to camp. Not for everyone, but the campsites are generally very good, backing directly onto the beaches and sheltered in coastal woodland. The facilities are mostly high standard and don’t be surprised to find huge horizon pools, fit for a luxury hotel, a few paces away from your tent. If you hire a car and fly over with your tent you have the perfect freedom to beach-hop around the entire coastline, great for doing a night or two in different spots and there are plenty of campsites you can just turn up and stay in.

If you’d rather not lug a tent with you on the plane then you can hire either a tent or caravan in most of the campsites you come across. Camping in the north of the island provides an excellent springboard for a ferry trip over to Corsica.

Celebrating tradition
Regular festivals and celebrations are the perfect way to see Sardinian tradition and gastronomy brought to life. The beauty of a road trip is that you can make a diversion in your trip to catch impromptu events that you’re bound to hear about as you meander your way through rustic villages and rural retreats.

There are a number of ways to plan your driving holiday through Sardinia. Despite it being the second largest island in the Med, you never feel like you can go that far wrong which makes going off the beaten track all the more pleasurable. Whether you camp, stay in luxury hotels or stop in rustic farmhouse B&Bs, you can’t fail to enjoy the diversity of this Mediterranean jewel.

All in all, you may well leave from the same place you arrived in Sardinia, but you’ll have a wealth of memories to take home with you as you pat your trusty car goodbye.