Sardinia without a car

[SimoneSpeaksSoftly]

Anyone been to Sardinia without a car? If so, where did you stay and did you regret not having one? Were taxis/Uber generally available if needed? It seems to be one of those places where a car is recommended but I'm just trying to weigh the usefulness to hassle (e.g., parking/traffic) ratio. I see this as more of a beach holiday than a busy sightseeing one, so would love to stay somewhere where we could walk to the beach, restuarants, and shops anyway. We'd likely fly into Olbia or Caligiari, so considering somewhere like San Teodoro of Villasimius, but open to other suggestions.

This might not be very helpful but we had a couple of days in Sardinia without a car, and then a car for the rest of the time. We found it very difficult without a car - apart from places like Olbia, the restaurants in the town were spread out and difficult to get to without a car. There are so many beaches to explore that being able to drive to different ones really helped. Having a car made things 100 times easier. We didn’t find the roads busy, it was very straight forward, and parking was really easy

We stayed in a all inclusive so didn't need a car, we could walk to a small harbour and the hotel put on a bus to a nearby larger white sand beach. However, when I visit again I will hire a car.

We flew to and stayed in Alghero for a week alghero itself is a lovely place for a few days/week. We used buses to get to a few beaches outside the town itself (plenty of lovely restaurants in the town and quite walkable). I would hire a car the next time we go there as there is so much to explore.

I found uber to be pretty unusable in Sardinia, rarely any about and expensive. Ended up hiring a car.

We stayed in resorts both times we went to Sardinia, and they had mini buses throughout the day to take take residents to the local beaches and back. Also a golf buggy to get you to the town of you had mobility issues and couldn't manage the steep walk. So unless I was going back to a resort like that then yes I'd definitely hire a car. We've looked at villas for this summer and due to costs we're thinking of cheaper parts of Italy instead, but if we do go ahead with Sardinia we'll hire a car.

My main memories of the taxis were they were so hot without any air conditioning! Pricey too, but the resort booked them for us for the airport trips and a trip to a nearby town, we should have shopped around really.

IMO you miss out on a lot by not having a car: lots of the nicest beaches are a bit remote or not easily accessible by bus. Uber you can forget!
when are you thinking of going? I have been a few times and August was hell - too hot and crowded.

I went first to Cagliari, then took a train to Olbia and from there a bus to the port with ferries to La Madalena. Then used taxis to a resort in Arzacena and San Teodoro. Finally a bus to the airport.
From my experience it is doable but I won’t do it again- train was 2 hours late, no proper bus stations or timetables, the taxis were all unhelpful and expensive, and both taxis and buses wanted cash only. That was in 2018 so things may have changed for the better since then.

Ok thanks all- if we do it we'll plan to rent a car! Timewise it would likely be early July- can't go earlier due to school schedule. WIll it be unbearibly hot by then? Otherwise we couldn't go till October and I imagine it would be too cool to swim then......

Looking at the long term climate July will likely be hot too but crowds should be less than August , especially early in the month. Unfortunately June and September are really the sweet spots for weather/crowds.

Weather wise you should be ok. It will be hot but shouldn’t be over 40. My friend went last August and they stayed indoors from 11am-3pm. (Too hot).

Ouch! Yeah I definitely don't want to go when it's too hot to be outside....