When people think of the French côtes, it’s often with the assumption that everything within easy reach of the beach is going to be special-occasion expensive. But with three very different coastlines to explore, there are tons of lesser-known, under-the-radar beach towns—and even some gems in the tonier touristed regions—where you can stay somewhere great without spending a fortune. If you’re new to us, “Costa Meno” (a play on “costs less” and an imaginary coastline that is actually affordable) is our guide to hotels (and the occasional house rental) in destinations that tend to be independently owned, inexplicably charming, and under (in this case) 350 euros/night. We’ve already covered Italy, Spain, The Caribbean, Mexico, and the Greek Islands, so France was our natural next stop! Our list begins in the north near the Belgian border, then moves counter-clockwise over to Normandy and Brittany in the northwest, then down to the southwest, before skipping over to the Côte d’Azur…uncovering some amazing finds along the way, from stilted modernist cabins to beachy cottages and toile-filled seaside châteaus. And many of them are even more affordable in September, when it’s still very warm but the crowds are gone. 

NORTH

The “Opal Coast”

Within the Hauts-de-France region, this coastline along the English Channel—stretching from the Belgian border to Picardy—is known for its scattered charming fishing villages, dramatic cliffs and wild capes.

Hôtel de Fiennes in Boulogne-sur-Mer has the sweetest rooms filled with tasteful French antique furniture, in a beautiful building within the town’s historic fort. 

Château de la Marine is a five-minute drive from the seaside town of Wimereux—a grand renovated château with thoughtful rooms.

Hôtel Atlantic is right on the sea in Wimereux with nice, basic rooms for a great price.

L’Accalmie is a simple 4-room chambre d’hôtes in Wimereux with a lovely breakfast room.

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If you’re a newer reader, our Costa Meno series is something we do each summer to find you the best stays in a country or region with last-minute availability—without maxing out your card. It’s a term we made up, playing off the evocative costa—which, of course means “coast” in Spanish and Italian and conjures images of Europeans bronzing sin SPF on tiny calas along the Costa Brava—and costa meno, which means “costs less” in Italian. It’s not a real coast, just our fantasy one where every hotel has great interiors, food, and service, at a price you wouldn’t think twice about booking for a full week. We use it to describe the special sort of properties we all want to find but are not easy to search for. Try typing in “affordable” and “cheap” and you’ll end up with dank rooms and popcorn ceilings that just aren’t worth it, but with enough digging, there will be charming, thoughtful small hotels for the same price. 

Our methodology: we priced out double rooms for weekdays in mid-July (since prices tend to spike on weekends), and focused on places under 250 euros (~$285 as of publishing) a night. We did include a handful that inch above that, because they looked too good not to. While our Costa Meno ceiling has typically been 300 or even 400/night, Spain has so many affordable options (and honestly, we could all use a deal this year), that we challenged ourselves to look for even better finds. Focused on places on or near the coast, less than an hour from the water (so no Madrid!); geographically, we started with the Balearic Islands, moving clockwise around mainland Spain starting in the northeast with the Costa Brava.  

We collected recs from friends and scoured our Spain Travel Planner, Dispatches, Spain Hotels List, Guest Books and did tons of new research. What we’re sharing below ranges from Spain’s historic, state-owned Paradores to family-owned fincas and converted farmhouses, as well as small, soulful boutique hotels and hostals (don’t write them off as hostels!). And we aren’t including rentals—which you don’t need us to tell you are often more affordable if you’re splitting the cost with others.  

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As soon as we finished last year’s Costa Meno Italy, I wanted to jump into the Greek version. Costa Meno is a term we coined to mean “costs less,” and to avoid having to use the ABC words (affordable, budget, cheap). Of course we all want a deal, and places we can afford that are pure and authentic, but we know that typing those ABC words into a search engine will, because of the nature of algorithms, pull up crappy hotels you’d never want to leave home for. And so when thinking of approaching Greece with its more than 200 islands, we needed to take a beat to figure out how best to approach it.

For as long as I’ve been traveling there—since I went on a college program in Kalymnos for a semester!—Greece has always been the land of small, family-owned and reasonably priced guest houses and small hotels. In putting this list together, I kept thinking about how the Grand Tour of the 19th-century aristos, which reached as far as Naples and Taormina (usually only the archaeologists made it as far as Greece!), meant the emergence of old-world grand hotels for them to stay in along the way. It’s a much more recent phenomenon that luxury hotels and their accompanying inflated prices have started dotting the country’s 8,500 miles of coastline. While I love many of these places with their modern architecture, minimalist chic, and insane views, my heart belongs to the rustic and authentic—which, for me, feels truly Greek. You can get that modernist luxury anywhere! 

Like last year, we emailed Greek friends who know these islands, pored through our Greece Travel Planner, our Dodecanese and Cyclades Lists, and researched way past the first couple of Google pages. Our methodology was to price out double rooms during the peak weeks of July 15 and 21 (looking at weekdays, as prices can hike dramatically on weekends), and focused on places that are under 300 euros a night (though we did include a handful that inch above that, because they looked amazing). Most of our picks are small hotels, but we also included rentals when we came across them—we know there is a much larger universe of rentals that become increasingly affordable the more people you add to split the cost, but you don’t need us to find those. We wound up focusing on the islands, as there are so many of them, but at some point we promise we’ll come back around and add the mainland coast and Peloponnese.

When we dug into this project, our friend Nausika Georgiadou, who owns one of our favorite properties, Skinopi Lodge in Milos (not a Costa Meno!), confirmed our hunch about where to search—the islands where Greeks actually still vacation: “The popular islands will be hard, but the lesser-known ones have a lot!” she said. “I was in Skyros last week, in a beautiful little hotel for 150 euros. These are the places the Greeks go to now, and they have the feeling of Greece as it used to be. Personally, I cannot have a holiday in the popular places anymore, with all the black transfer cars, the massive fast ferries, etc…I prefer those beautiful ‘left behind’ places that are not so Instagrammable.” 

Since some of those islands may be less familiar to many (a few were to us!), and because they all attract a different kind of person/interest, we added a little description of each. At the same time, we did manage to dig up a few Costa Meno options on the beaten path—Santorini, Hydra, Patmos—if you still want to go, despite the crowds. But you may need to forget the air conditioner and embrace Greece’s famous summer winds, the meltemi—and anyway, the true luxury is in connecting with real people who own these places and want to share their islands with you, not in ridiculous pillow selections, fluffy bedside foot mats and sushi. With that, here’s our Costa Meno Greece list. —Y.E.

Most recent edit July 2025

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So for selfish reasons—and because we love you—we’ve decided to take on the research and put together lists of great places that are priced approachably. We call this list Costa Meno, because we hate saying budget and cheap & cheerful—plus we love its double meaning: both “costs less” and “coast” in Italian. Today we’re sharing our favorite finds from the Caribbean, and we’ll roll out a Mexico list soon, then do France and Greece and Paris in the spring. 

These are the hotels and guest houses that generally don’t have marketing budgets, strong social feeds or SEO-boosted websites. Many of them are family owned, which means some quirks and more than a few turquoise bedspreads and questionable art (but, honestly, you’re there for the beach). It takes some digging to find them! Which is what we did. Our methodology: we started with a few of our own favorites and asked friends for their recs, which were surprisingly hard to come by. Then we did a Google deep dive, pricing out double rooms for weekdays in January and February—high season, but not peak festive, when even the smallest beach shack can cost a small fortune. While we tried to stick to a budget of $350 or less—our Costa Meno cut-off in Italy—we found that would mean leaving out a few great options that pushed past $400/night, so we decided to include those too. (The Caribbean is expensive, just no way around it!) Let us know how these are if you try any of them out, and as always, add anything we missed in the comments! 

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Relatedly, I was recently speaking to my friend Emily FitzRoy of Bellini Travel (who knows her way around the highest of high Italian luxury, but has a major soft spot for the simple seaside guesthouse) about the issue of the massive escalation in hotel room rates, and how social media has fed into it. Now a photo in an “it” hotel is as much of a statement as a designer handbag. While I’m happy for those hotels to charge whatever they can get, I’m not happy that it makes some travelers feel as if these are the only cool places to go—we have to do a better job of expanding that network. I love what Emily had to say about how she handled her clients who wanted to go to Sicily when there weren’t the options there are today. “Historically, before Sicily had so many lovely properties to stay in, we’d send our clients to guesthouses, which were far more rewarding than some crappy 5 star back in the day. We’d tell them to just trust us,” she said. “These are the places where you connect to the owners in a deeper way, and understand the essence of where you are. They have a real soul and character as opposed to some dull chain.”

So we took it upon ourselves to pull together our Costa Meno list—it means “costs less” in Italian, and costa also of course means “coast” (in Spanish too for that matter), but it’s also our attempt at wordplay to avoid the A, B and C words (affordable, budget and cheap). We’re starting first with Italy, but don’t worry—we’ll revisit the project again with other countries! And because it’s summer, we’re just listing places that are on or near the water, since we figure that’s what most of you are after. Our methodology: we priced out a double room during the peak week of July 17-20 (we didn’t do a weekend knowing rates increase), and only included places that are under 300 euros a night (with a couple that push a bit above that, because they looked amazing). Nearly all are small hotels, but we threw in a couple of rentals we came across because, same. We didn’t ask our friends for recommendations—we know it’s too much to get them to spill their favorite small guest houses publicly—so these are places we have either been to, or already knew about via friends, or just through a ton of research. If you try any of them out this summer, or want to share your favorites, we’d love to hear! And, as always, we’ll keep adding to this list as we make new discoveries.

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