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The Mediterranean charter season runs from late April to mid-October. The Caribbean runs from December to mid-April. Outside those windows the charter math gets ugly fast: fewer yachts in position, crews on rotation, and weather risk the brochures do not mention. We cover 40 weekly charter destinations across both seasons, ranked by what each does well and what each is not for. Rates start at $50,000 a week for a 30m sailing yacht in the BVIs and pass $2M a week for a 100m motor yacht out of Monaco. The yachts vary. The destinations vary more.
Picking the destination is harder than picking the yacht. The right yacht in the wrong region ruins a week. The wrong yacht in the right region usually survives.
How to think about destination choice
We organize the index by region because that is how broker availability and crew positioning are organized. The better way to think about your own choice is by trip shape. A charter week in the Greek Cyclades is a different trip from a charter week in the BVIs even if the yachts cost the same. The Cyclades are long passages, big anchorages, and late dinners ashore in port towns that go quiet by 2am. The BVIs are short hops, sheltered anchorages, and most nights aboard with the lights of Bitter End in the distance. Both work. They are not interchangeable.
The trip-shape factors that matter most:
- Passage length per day. Italy and the BVIs are short hops. The Cyclades and the Windwards are not.
- Anchorage protection. The BVIs are sheltered. Corsica is not.
- Distance to provisioning. A French Polynesia week needs serious advance planning. A Saint-Tropez week does not.
- Customs and flag rules. Bahamas, Galápagos, Turkey, and Cuba each have specific rules that change what you can do once aboard.
- Crew positioning windows. Many yachts cross between the Med and the Caribbean in November and May. Booking inside those windows is sometimes the best value of the year.
Mediterranean charter destinations
The Med season is roughly May to October, with July and August at peak rates. Charter rates run 20 to 35 percent higher in those two months than in May, June, September, and October. The yacht selection is widest in May and June (yachts arrive from refit yards) and again in September (yachts about to reposition). October is the value month for the Med if you can take the weather risk on the back half.
We cover 22 Mediterranean destinations. The ones most readers are choosing between:
- Côte d'Azur is motor-yacht country. Cannes, Saint-Tropez, Monaco, and Cap Ferrat are the anchorage rotation. Wider hulls, smaller groups, restaurants ashore.
- Amalfi Coast covers Capri, Positano, and Amalfi. Honeymoons and small groups. Never large families on large yachts. The anchorages do not support it.
- Sardinia and the Costa Smeralda are where the yacht has to be the destination. The marina infrastructure is the best in the western Med. The beach clubs are the most expensive in the world.
- Corsica is quieter than Sardinia, with harder anchorages and fewer crew options. Worth it if you have done Sardinia twice.
- Croatia is the price-ratio winner for a first-time Mediterranean charter. Dalmatian island-hopping, sailing or motor.
- Greece, split between the Cyclades for groups that want to be ashore at night and the Ionian for sailing families.
- Turkey, with Bodrum and Göcek, is the underbooked corner of the eastern Med. Gulets and modern motor yachts share the same harbors.
- Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. Volcanoes, longer passages, fewer crowds.
- Mallorca, Ibiza, and Menorca. September if you want the islands, July if you want the scene.
- Montenegro is smaller Croatia with fewer yachts and slower customs at Bar.
Caribbean charter destinations
The Caribbean season is December to mid-April. The peak weeks are Christmas, New Year, the week between, then Presidents' Week and the two flanking weeks. Outside those windows the rates drop 20 to 30 percent and the weather is usually better. We cover 11 Caribbean destinations.
The headline ones:
- BVI is the first-time charter destination on earth. Short hops, sheltered anchorages, and the easiest sailing chartering in the world.
- Bahamas, with Exumas and Abacos. Bahamian flag complications, glass water, harder provisioning than the Caribbean proper.
- Saint-Barths is winter weeks at any price. The highest broker premiums in the region. New Year is impossible to book inside 12 months.
- Antigua, Saint Lucia, and the Grenadines are longer passages and real sailing.
- Anguilla and Saint Martin are quieter and more beach-driven.
Indian Ocean, Pacific, and Northern Europe
Three smaller regions with specific seasons.
- Maldives. Atoll-hopping, October to April. Limited yacht inventory and most charters happen on a small fleet of converted gulets and a handful of explorer yachts.
- Seychelles. Year-round but May to September is windier. Granitic islands and shorter passages.
- French Polynesia. Society Islands and the Tuamotus. May to October is the better window. Provisioning is the constraint.
- Norway. Fjords, late June through August, expedition style.
What we look for before adding a destination
A region only goes on this list when three things hold. We can list at least 30 yachts that meet our quality bar in the region. The charter season is well defined enough to write a useful guide rather than a hedged paragraph. We have run or observed enough charters there to write with authority rather than from press releases. We have passed on several places that look good on paper. The Mexican Pacific coast, most of the Adriatic outside Croatia and Montenegro, the Asian charter market beyond Phuket, and the US East Coast outside summer Hamptons day charters all sit in the not-yet column. When the inventory and the editorial coverage qualify, we add them.
How charter cost actually works
The headline rate is the yacht for the week. The full check is usually 1.4 to 1.6 times that headline. Add APA at 25 to 35 percent (fuel, food, dockage, and provisioning during the charter). Add VAT in many Mediterranean ports, between 6.6 and 22 percent depending on country and itinerary, with some optimization possible. Add crew gratuity at 5 to 15 percent at trip end. The yacht charter cost by size and APA explained guides cover the math in detail. Brokers who do not surface the full check up front in the pitch are the brokers we mark down in our broker reviews.
The rest of the trip
The yacht is the trip, but the week often includes a villa before and hotel nights on either end. The For Kings network covers the rest. VillasForKings has the destination villas for the same regions. HotelsForKings covers the hotel side. RestaurantsForKings and BarsForKings cover the meals and the drinks ashore.