Corfu beaches that work with a pushchair

Corfu is a hilly island with a beautiful coast, and those two facts fight each other if you are pushing a buggy. Most of the famous beaches are at the bottom of something: a stepped path, a gravel track, a set of forty concrete stairs with no handrail.

This is a list of the ones that are not, with the specific reason each one works and the specific thing that still catches you out.

What "works with a pushchair" actually needs

Four things, and a beach that has three of them is not enough:

• Parking within sight of the sand. Not "a five-minute walk", which with a buggy, a bag and a toddler is fifteen.
• A flat, made surface from the car to the beach. Concrete, boardwalk or hard-packed path. Loose gravel is the one that defeats small front wheels.
• A shaded place to sit that is not a sunbed. Trees, an awning, a taverna terrace at the sand's edge.
• A toilet you can get into. This is the one people forget and the one that ends the afternoon early.

Dassia

Long, flat, shallow, and entirely unremarkable to look at, which is exactly why it is never crowded the way the pretty bays are.

The road runs behind the beach with parking along it, the ground from the road to the sand is level, and there is shade under the trees at the north end rather than only under rented umbrellas. Tavernas along the whole length, several with a terrace at sand level.

The catch: the beach is sand and shingle mixed, and the shingle stretches are hard going for the last few metres. Aim for the north end, where the sand is finer.

Gouvia

Really two things: the beach itself, which is small and sheltered, and the flat promenade behind the marina, which is the best buggy walk on the island.

The water is very shallow and very calm because the bay is almost closed, and that same enclosure means the water warms early in the season. Cafés on the marina side have proper level access and staff who are used to prams.

The catch: it is not a beautiful beach. If your day needs to be scenic, this is not it. If your day needs to be easy, nothing else is close.

Barbati

The exception on this list, because Barbati is pebbles rather than sand and the slope down to the water is not gentle.

It earns its place for the trees. The shade behind the beach is real shade, from mature cypress and olive, and the water is the clearest on the east coast by a distance, which matters if you have a child who is nervous about not seeing the bottom.

The catch: there are steps in places and the pebbles are a real obstacle for wheels. Take the ramp at the taverna end, and accept that you will carry the buggy the last twenty metres.

Almyros, on the north coast

The shallowest water on Corfu and the flattest approach. You can walk out a long way before it reaches an adult's waist, and the sand is fine rather than mixed.

Parking is close, the ground is flat, and the beach is wide enough that you are not sharing a metre of shade with four families.

The catch: it is a forty-eight-minute drive from the airport, which is the longest journey on this list, and the north coast catches wind in the afternoon more than the east does.

Ipsos and the road behind it

Included as a warning as much as a recommendation. The beach is long, flat and easy to reach, and the road runs directly behind it with almost no separation. It is fine, and it is not somewhere to let a small child wander towards the back of the beach.

Two things about the drive

The first is the seat. Hiring a child seat that actually fits a two-year-old is harder on Corfu than it should be, and a seat that is the wrong size is worse than an inconvenience. We fit child and booster seats free on every transfer and tour, and the ages need to be on the booking rather than mentioned on the morning, because the seat has to be in the vehicle before it leaves the depot.

The second is the vehicle. A buggy, a beach bag, a cool box and four people do not go in a saloon with two suitcases already in it. The fleet page lists luggage capacity next to seat count for exactly this reason, and the transfer planner picks the size that fits rather than the size that is cheapest.

If you are staying on the east coast, Dassia and Gouvia share a transfer fare and both of the easiest beaches on this list are inside it, which makes that stretch the least effortful place on Corfu to have a small child by the sea.

If you want the coast without the logistics

A day where somebody else drives, parks, and carries the cool box is a different kind of day with a toddler in it. The Coastal gems day is built around two swims rather than a list of sights, the vehicle stays with you all day so the buggy and the bags stay in it, and the stops are chosen for shade and shallow water rather than for the photograph.

The one honest caveat

None of these are the beaches on the postcards. Porto Timoni, Myrtiotissa and Cape Drastis are extraordinary and they are all at the bottom of a path that a pushchair cannot use.

Go to them another year. This year, go to Almyros, sit in the shade, and let somebody who is two spend three hours doing the same six steps into the water again and again.