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For the first time, you will be able to fly from the New York area to Ibiza without changing planes. United Airlines begins a seasonal nonstop service from Newark Liberty to Ibiza on 31 May 2027, running four times a week through to early October on its new Airbus A321XLR. Until now the trip has meant a connection in Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon or a northern European hub, and half a day lost in each direction. From next summer it is a single overnight flight, and you land on the island in time for lunch.
That changes the shape of an Ibiza trip for American visitors. A long weekend becomes viable. So does flying in on a Thursday for an opening party and out on the Sunday. Seats are already on sale, and the route is expected to fill quickly in July and August, so the planning starts now.
Here is what to do when you get there, and how to move around an island whose transport has not kept pace with its popularity.
The clubs
Ibiza's club scene is still the best on earth, and the summer 2027 season will run from the opening parties in late May through to the closings in early October, which lines up almost exactly with the new flight schedule.
Hï Ibiza, in Playa d'en Bossa, has been voted the world's best club several years running and is the most technically impressive room on the island, with a sound and light rig that justifies the ticket price on its own. Across the road, Ushuaïa is the open-air daytime institution where the biggest names play to a pool crowd from late afternoon until midnight, and where most people's Ibiza weekend begins. UNVRS, the vast arena-scale venue from the same group, has joined them as the island's newest headline room.
Pacha, in Ibiza Town, is the original and still the most glamorous, cherry logo and all, with a crowd that skews slightly older and better dressed. Amnesia, out on the San Antonio road, is the one for harder, purer dance music, and its terrace at sunrise is a rite of passage. DC-10, near the airport, remains the credible underground choice, and Circoloco on a Monday is the party that serious dance music fans plan their trip around.
For something less intense, Cova Santa in the hills does a beautiful open-air evening, Lío combines cabaret with dinner over the harbour, and Es Paradís in San Antonio still floods its dancefloor for the water party.
A word of advice on timing. Nothing happens early. Dinner at ten, club at one, home at six is the normal shape of an Ibiza night, and the return journey is the part people plan for least.
The beaches
The island is small enough that you can be at a different beach every day of a week without driving more than half an hour.
Ses Salines, in the salt flats nature reserve at the southern tip, is the fashionable one, a long stretch of sand with beach clubs at either end and the flight path overhead. Cala Comte on the west coast has the best water in Ibiza, a clear turquoise that looks filtered in photographs, and the finest sunset on the island bar none. Cala Bassa next door is calmer and better for families.
Benirràs, on the north coast, is where the drummers gather on a Sunday afternoon to play the sun down behind the rock formation in the bay. It is the closest the island gets to its hippy origins and worth the drive. Cala d'Hort, on the south-west coast, faces the island of Es Vedrà, a monolith rising out of the sea that is the most photographed thing in Ibiza and still does not disappoint.
For beach club days, Cala Jondal has Blue Marlin, Playa d'en Bossa has Beachouse and Tanit, and Talamanca is the closest proper beach to Ibiza Town. And if you have a spare day, take the ferry from Ibiza Town to Formentera and spend it at Ses Illetes, which is regularly rated among the best beaches in Europe.
Where to stay
Where you sleep determines what kind of trip you have, and Ibiza divides quite sharply.
For the club-focused visit, staying in Playa d'en Bossa puts you within walking distance of Hï, Ushuaïa and the beach clubs. The Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel is the party itself, Hard Rock is next door, and Destino Pacha, up on the hill at Talamanca, offers a slightly calmer version with its own terrace parties.
For something more grown up, Nobu Hotel Ibiza Bay at Talamanca is the sophisticated choice, five minutes from town with one of the best restaurants on the island attached. Six Senses Ibiza, at Xarraca in the far north, is the finest hotel on the island and the furthest from the noise, with a spa that is worth the trip on its own. OKU Ibiza and Seven Pines on the west coast both do the design-hotel version well, and W Ibiza puts you in the middle of Santa Eulalia, which is the most liveable town on the island.
The other option, and the one many repeat visitors prefer, is an agroturismo inland. Atzaró, Can Domo and Cas Gasi are converted farmhouses among the orange groves and olive trees, twenty minutes from everything and a world away from it. You get the island's other personality, the quiet one, and the drive back at four in the morning is somebody else's problem if you have arranged a car.
The thing nobody warns you about: getting around
Ibiza has a transport problem, and it is the single most common complaint from first-time visitors.
The island operates a strictly limited number of taxi licences, capped well below what a summer population of several hundred thousand actually needs. The result, every July and August, is queues. At the airport on a Saturday afternoon in August the rank can run to an hour. Outside Playa d'en Bossa at six in the morning, when Hï and Ushuaïa empty at the same time, it is worse, and you will be standing in it in whatever you wore out. Ride-hailing coverage on the island is thin and unreliable at exactly the hours you need it. Unlicensed drivers fill the gap, and they are neither insured nor safe.
Hire cars solve part of the problem and create another. Parking at the major clubs in peak season ranges from difficult to impossible, and a car is no use at all on a night when everyone in the group intends to drink.
The answer is a car and a driver arranged before you travel. Airport Executive meets your flight at Ibiza airport, takes you straight to the hotel with no queue, and can stay with you for the rest of the trip. A driver waiting at a pre-agreed point at the end of the night means you leave the club when you want to leave rather than when the queue allows, get back safely, and do not spend the first hour of the next day recovering from the journey home.
It works the same way for the rest of it. A car to Cala Comte for sunset and back. A driver for the evening that starts with dinner in Dalt Vila, moves to a beach club and finishes at Pacha. The run to the port for the Formentera ferry. A group of six with a people carrier and a driver for the week costs less per head than most people assume, and removes the one genuine friction point in an Ibiza holiday.
Book early, both of them
The nonstop flight is going to make summer 2027 the busiest Ibiza has seen from the American market. Hotels, club tables and transport will all be tighter than usual, and the good ones go first.
If you are planning a trip for next summer, get the flights while the introductory fares last, then lock in the ground transport at the same time. Arriving on a brand new nonstop service and then standing in a taxi queue for an hour would be a poor start.
Book your Ibiza airport transfers and club transport here or call our reservations team on +44 (0)208 838 3333.
Airport Executive, a better way to travel.