Best Lads' Holiday Destinations: All 10 Ranked and Costed

You've been talking about it for months. Someone set up a group chat, half the lads said they were in, three haven't paid their deposit, and one keeps suggesting Center Parcs. It's happening though. Your first proper lads holiday.

The single biggest decision you'll make is where to go. Get it wrong and you're stuck somewhere rubbish for a week with nobody to blame but whoever Googled "best lads holidays" at 1am and booked the first result.

So we've ranked the ten best lads' holiday destinations in the order we'd actually recommend them, with real prices, honest warnings, and a clear answer on who each one suits. No sales pitch. If a place isn't right for your group, we say so.

The Ten at a Glance

Budgets assume four or five of you splitting an apartment, flights booked at least two months ahead, and a normal amount of drinking. Go in July, book late, or go properly hard and you'll spend more.

The short answer: book Zante. It's cheap, it's a three hour flight, everything is walkable, the beaches are good, and the whole resort is built for exactly this trip. If someone in the group has already done Zante, go to Albufeira.

Now the detail.

1. Zante (Laganas), Greece

Best for: a first lads holiday where nobody wants to think too hard.

Laganas, on the south coast of Zakynthos, is probably the most popular lads holiday resort in Europe for the 18 to 30 crowd, and it has earned that.

What it's actually like. The Laganas Strip is one road, roughly a kilometre of bars and clubs, all free entry, all shouting drinks deals at you as you walk past. On a peak night in late July it's thousands of people doing the same lap. It's loud and it's messy, and if that sounds like your idea of a good week, you'll love it.

The daytime holds up better than you'd expect. Laganas Beach is a two minute walk from most of the accommodation. Navagio, the shipwreck beach on the west coast, is one of the most photographed beaches in Europe and worth the day trip. Boat trips to see the loggerhead turtles in Laganas Bay run from the harbour for around €20.

Cost. Flights run £120 to £250 return depending on airport and how early you book, or under £100 if you catch a Ryanair sale. A pint of Mythos on the strip is about €3.50 to €4. Basic apartments start around £20 to £30 a night per person split between four. A week comes in at £450 to £650 all in.

The events scene. This is where Zante has pulled ahead. The old dodgy booze cruise model is mostly gone, replaced by properly run events with names attached. The White Party has been going over 20 years and books acts on the level of Gorgon City and Sonny Fodera. Yacht parties sell out weeks ahead.

Buy an event package online before you fly, usually £85 to £130 for several events across the week. It's cheaper than paying on the door and it means you're not haggling with a promoter on the strip at midnight.

Watch out for. Yourself, mostly. Cheap spirits in 35 degree heat catch people out every single night, and the private medical centres in Laganas have staff walking the strip looking for casualties. They'll happily put you on a drip for €150. Also ignore anything advertising a "free bar", which almost always means bad spirits covering for a bad event.

Read the FCDO safety advice for Greece before you fly. It is blunter than most travel writing about what actually lands British visitors in trouble, including that Greek police will arrest you for behaviour they judge rowdy or indecent where drink is involved, and that some fancy dress falls foul of local decency laws.

Verdict. Sun, cheap drinks, real beaches, and a strip you can crawl. Hard to beat for a first one.

2. Magaluf, Mallorca, Spain

Best for: groups who want actual superclubs.

Magaluf has been the default British lads holiday for two decades. It's calmed down since the Club 18-30 era, but it's still very much a party town.

What it's actually like. Punta Ballena, known as the strip, has around 100 bars and clubs on one street running from early evening until sunrise. BCM is the island's only superclub, with a capacity close to 5,000 and a proper summer DJ programme. BH Mallorca is a hotel complex with its own waterpark and daily pool parties, which is where a lot of groups spend their afternoons. Beyond that there are three beaches, jet skis, go-karting and a waterpark. If the group wants better sand than Magaluf itself offers, our guide to Spain's best beach holidays covers what's worth a day trip.

Cost. Flights to Palma from £80 return if you book early with Ryanair or easyJet, and Palma is a short transfer from Magaluf. A pint on the strip runs €4 to €5. Accommodation is pricier than Greece but fine split four ways. Budget £500 to £750.

How it differs from Zante. Bigger and more established. Better production, larger venues, more to do in the day. The trade-off is a wider age range, so you're mixed in with stag dos and ordinary tourists rather than exclusively 19 year olds. Zante feels purpose-built. Magaluf feels like a resort that goes very hard at night.

Watch out for. Standard late-night sense on the strip. The overwhelming majority of people have a fine time, but being very drunk and alone at 4am makes you a target anywhere. Stay together, use registered taxis, carry only what you need for the night. Club PRs are aggressive and completely harmless. Say no and keep walking.

The Balearic government has banned all-you-can-drink promotions and restricted alcohol vending, which has made the resort noticeably safer than it was ten years ago.

Verdict. The classic version of this holiday, slightly more expensive and considerably more polished.

3. Albufeira, Portugal

Best for: groups where not everyone wants seven consecutive nights out.

The most underrated option on this list, and the one we'd push hardest if your group has mixed appetites.

What it's actually like. Albufeira has two separate night scenes, which is the whole appeal. The Strip, properly Avenida Sá Carneiro in Areias de São João, is the full lads holiday experience: bars, clubs, shots, PRs, open until around 6am. The Old Town, twenty minutes' walk or a €6 taxi away, is a different holiday entirely, with proper restaurants, sensible bars and a square by the fishermen's beach. You can have a heavy night and then a civilised one without changing resort.

The beaches are the best in this price bracket. Praia da Oura is the closest to the strip. Praia da Falésia, a short drive east, is six kilometres of sand under orange cliffs. Boat trips to the Benagil sea cave run from the marina for about €25 to €35.

Cost. Faro flights are £60 to £130 return booked ahead, with a 45 minute transfer. A beer on the strip is €2.50 to €4, and food is cheaper than Spain or Greece. Budget £500 to £700.

The season advantage. Albufeira runs April to October, considerably longer than the Greek islands. If your group can only get time off in May or late September, this is the pick. The Algarve is still warm and the strip is still open when Laganas has shut for winter.

Watch out for. The hills. Albufeira is built on cliffs and the walk back up from the Old Town at 3am is genuinely brutal. Also check where your hotel actually is before booking, because "Albufeira" covers a large area and some of it is a €15 taxi from anywhere you want to be. You want Areias de São João for the strip or the Old Town itself.

Worth a skim of the FCDO advice for Portugal on drugs. Personal possession is decriminalised rather than legal, dealers work the strip openly, and buying from them is still an offence you can be detained for.

Verdict. The best balance of nightlife, beaches and price of anywhere here. If Zante feels too intense for your group, book this instead.

4. Sunny Beach, Bulgaria

Best for: doing a full week on the smallest possible budget.

What it's actually like. Eight kilometres of sandy Black Sea beach with a strip of bars and clubs behind it. Flower Street is the concentrated bar area. Cacao Beach and the beach club complexes further along run daytime parties into the night. It's less polished than the Spanish and Greek resorts, and it is dramatically cheaper.

Cost. This is the pitch. Beer is €1.50 to €2.50, spirits are cheaper than that, and a full meal out costs €10 to €15. Flights are the weak point, running £80 to £180 return to Burgas with fewer direct routes and mostly summer-only schedules. Burgas to Sunny Beach is a 30 minute transfer. A week is realistically £400 to £600, and the on-the-ground portion of that is tiny.

The currency change. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 and the lev stopped being legal tender at the start of February, so everything is now priced in euros. Bulgarians were worried this would push prices up, and in tourist resorts some of that has happened. It's still by far the cheapest destination on this list, but don't treat pre-2026 price guides you find online as gospel. The ECB's changeover page has the detail if you want it.

Watch out for. Taxis are the main scam. Agree a fare or insist on the meter before you get in, and use the ranks at hotels rather than cars idling outside clubs. Card acceptance is patchier than in western Europe, so carry some cash. Standards vary a lot between apartment blocks, so read recent reviews rather than trusting photos.

Verdict. If the deciding factor is money and one of the lads is skint, this is the answer. Accept that the flights are less convenient and the resort is rougher round the edges.

5. Ayia Napa, Cyprus

Best for: groups who care about the beach as much as the nights out.

What it's actually like. More compact than Magaluf. The main square and the streets around it hold nearly all the bars and clubs, so nothing is more than a few minutes' walk. Nissi Beach is the famous one, running pool parties and DJ sets through the afternoon in peak season. The beaches here are properly world-class, with white sand and clear water that beats anything in Spain or Greece.

Cost. Cyprus is further east so flights cost more, typically £150 to £280 return into Larnaca, which is a 45 minute transfer. Once you're there, prices match Zante. A pint is €3 to €4.50 and food is cheap. Budget £550 to £800.

Booking Cyprus in 2026, honestly. This needs saying plainly. Cyprus sits close to the Middle East, and regional airspace restrictions have caused real disruption to the island's flight schedules through 2026. Airlines pulled roughly 600,000 seats from Cyprus summer schedules, though airport authorities have suggested the total capacity reduction may stay under 5% if things settle. Arrivals fell sharply in spring, down around 30% in March and 27% in April year on year, before stabilising over the summer.

The island itself is calm and the resorts are running normally. Larnaca and Paphos airports are fully open, direct UK routes are operating, and Ayia Napa is trading as usual. The risk here is logistical rather than a safety question. If you book Cyprus, book flexible tickets, take insurance that covers cancellation and delay properly, and check the FCDO advice for Cyprus again a fortnight before you fly. Fewer seats also means less last-minute availability, so book early or don't book here.

Watch out for. Unofficial taxis overcharging, so agree a price or use an app. Otherwise the usual: violent crime is rare and the real risk is heat plus alcohol.

Verdict. The best beaches of the big party resorts. Worth the extra flight cost if the group wants beach days, provided you take the flight disruption seriously when you book.

6. Malia, Crete, Greece

Best for: the Greek island week when someone's already done Zante.

Malia gets less attention than Laganas but topped the party resort booking charts in 2025.

What it's actually like. A strip of bars and clubs much like Laganas, on a considerably bigger island. Beach clubs run through the day, water sports are cheap, and you can hire quad bikes to get out and see some of Crete. The old town, a few streets back from the strip, is genuinely pleasant and gives you somewhere to eat that isn't a full English.

Cost. Comparable to Zante at £450 to £650. Fly into Heraklion, not Chania. Chania is on the other side of the island and the transfer will cost you a chunk of your first day. Heraklion to Malia is about 40 minutes.

Watch out for. Quad bikes and mopeds. Hire firms don't always check licences properly, and these are one of the most common reasons young British men end up in hospital abroad. Your travel insurance will almost certainly exclude you if you weren't licensed for it, and your holiday becomes a very expensive problem very quickly. If you do hire, wear the helmet and stay off them after drinking.

Beer is also slightly dearer than the general cost of living suggests, at €3.50 to €4.50. The value is in spirits and cocktails.

Verdict. A solid Greek alternative with more to do off the strip than Laganas. Slightly less purpose-built for the 18 to 30 crowd, which some groups prefer.

7. Benidorm, Spain

Best for: groups where two lads want to go out until 6am and two want to sit by a pool.

What it's actually like. The New Town around Levante Beach carries the nightlife, and there's plenty of it, just less concentrated than Magaluf. Bars, clubs, beach clubs, and the British bar scene that Benidorm is famous for. Daytime options are the widest on this list: two waterparks, go-karting, paintball, boat trips, and a theme park at Terra Mítica.

Cost. Cheap flights into Alicante, about an hour from the resort by bus or transfer. All-inclusive deals are easier to find here than almost anywhere in Europe, which makes budgeting simple. £450 to £650 covers it, less if you find a good all-inclusive.

What makes it different. The crowd is everyone. Families, retired couples, stag dos and lads groups in the same square. That's a positive if you want variety and restaurants that aren't aimed at teenagers, and a negative if you want the whole resort pointed in one direction.

Watch out for. The balcony thing. Benidorm has a long and grim record of falls from hotel balconies involving drunk young British men, and hotels here will eject a group without a refund for climbing between them. It is not a laugh and it kills people every summer. The FCDO advice for Spain also covers the Balearic rules on street drinking, which carry real fines in resort areas.

Verdict. The compromise option, in a good way. Nobody gets exactly the holiday they wanted, everybody gets a decent one.

8. Kavos, Corfu, Greece

Best for: absolute rock bottom budget with a strip attached.

What it's actually like. One of the original lads holiday resorts, and the most stripped-back. A short strip of bars and clubs, cheap drinks, no pretence at anything else. You won't find Zante's event programme or Magaluf's superclubs. Kavos does one thing.

Cost. The cheapest Greek option and close to the cheapest overall, at £400 to £550. Corfu flights are short and often the cheapest in Greece.

Watch out for. Kavos genuinely splits opinion, and a lot of recent trip reports say the energy has dropped off compared to a decade ago. Some venues have closed and the resort feels quieter outside peak weeks. Local patience with British groups is also thinner here than elsewhere, so behave like you'd want people behaving in your town.

Verdict. It does the job if money is the only consideration. If you can find another £75 each, Zante or Sunny Beach give you a lot more for it.

9. Budapest, Hungary

Best for: groups who'd rather be in bars than by a pool.

A first lads holiday doesn't have to be a beach resort, and Budapest is the strongest argument against one.

What it's actually like. Budapest's ruin bars are the draw: bars built inside half-derelict buildings, filled with mismatched furniture and scrap art. Szimpla Kert is the famous one and worth seeing even though it's full of tourists. Instant-Fogas is the serious night out, a complex of multiple clubs and dance floors under one roof. Then there's the Széchenyi thermal baths, which run Saturday night pool parties in a nineteenth century bathhouse, an experience you will not get in Magaluf.

Cost. The cheapest week here. Flights on Ryanair and Wizz Air can be under £60 return. A pint is €2.50 to €3.50, a good meal is £12 to £18, and hostels or apartments are cheap. Hungarian food is heavy in the right way after a night out, and it features in our best food in Europe guide. £350 to £500 covers a week comfortably. Budapest also works year round, so it's the answer if the group can only get away in February.

Watch out for. Hungary uses the forint, not the euro, so pay in forint and decline the card machine's offer to charge you in pounds. Avoid restaurants directly on the main tourist drags, where prices triple. Some bars near the party district run a hostess scam, where friendly locals invite you in and the bill arrives at several hundred euros. Pick your own venues and check the menu and price list before you order anything. The FCDO's Hungary safety advice is specific about how this runs: tourists have been walked to cashpoints under pressure to settle the bill, and some taxi drivers take a commission for delivering people to the venues doing it. If a driver offers to take you to a bar, say no.

Verdict. Cheaper than any beach resort, more to actually do, and it feels like a trip rather than a week in a compound.

Two alternatives, if the group fancies a city. Prague has the best and cheapest beer in Europe, more traditional pub culture than club culture, and a stunning walkable old town. It runs 20 to 30% dearer than Krakow. Krakow is the cheapest of the three across the board, with the Kazimierz district holding the best bars and a big student population keeping it lively. Budapest for nightlife, Prague for beer, Krakow for budget. See our guide to Europe's best beer cities if that's the deciding factor.

10. San Antonio, Ibiza, Spain

Best for: groups who've saved properly and want the real thing.

We've put Ibiza last, not because it's worst, but because it's the wrong first lads holiday for most groups. If you've got the budget, it's the best week on this list by a distance.

What it's actually like. San Antonio has two halves. The West End is cheap bars, shots and a strip that works like any other resort. The Sunset Strip is Café Mambo and Café del Mar, where a few thousand people watch the sunset with a proper DJ playing, and it's genuinely one of the best things you can do on a holiday. O Beach and Ocean Beach run the daytime pool parties. Then there are the superclubs, Ushuaïa, Hï, Amnesia and Pacha, which operate at a level nowhere else in Europe touches.

The beaches are the part groups underrate, and they cost nothing. Cala Comte for the sunset, Cala Salada if you want sand without a DJ, Salinas if you want the opposite. Our guide to Ibiza's best beaches sorts them by what you're actually after, which matters here because the island is bigger than people expect and picking wrong costs you a €30 taxi each way.

Cost. Here's the problem. Flights are cheap, £70 to £150 return. Everything after that isn't. Club entry runs €50 to €90, a spirit mixer inside is €15 to €20, a bed at a pool party starts around €400 for the group, and a taxi across the island is €30 plus. A realistic week without holding back is £900 to £1,500 each. You can do Ibiza for less by staying in the West End and skipping the superclubs, but then you've paid Ibiza accommodation prices for a Magaluf holiday.

How to do it on a budget. Pick two big nights and plan the rest around the West End, the beaches and the sunset strip, which is free. Buy club tickets online in advance rather than at the door. Go in May or late September, when the same clubs are open, the closing parties are on, and accommodation costs half what it does in August. The beaches are excellent and cost nothing, and the beaches cost nothing. Las Dalias hippy market is a decent free evening too.

Watch out for. Budget creep. Groups arrive with a number in mind and blow it in three days, and the last half of the week gets grim. Agree what you're spending on clubs before you fly and put it in the pot separately.

Verdict. The best week on this list if the budget genuinely covers it. If it doesn't quite, Ibiza is worth waiting a year for rather than doing on a shoestring, because a thin week here is worse than a good week anywhere else.

Before You Book: the Practical Stuff

This section will save you more money than picking the right destination.

Package or DIY? For beach resorts, package deals through Jet2, TUI or loveholidays are usually cheapest and simplest, with flights, hotel and transfers bundled. For city breaks, booking flights and accommodation separately almost always wins.

Whoever books, check the company holds an ATOL before any money moves, using the official ATOL checker. Group bookings are a favourite target for fake apartment listings, and holiday fraud reports to Action Fraud ran to 6,066 cases last year with combined losses over £11 million. Pay by credit card where you can, and never send a deposit by bank transfer to a private landlord you found on social media. Our piece on the best time to book a last-minute holiday covers the timing in detail.

All-inclusive or self-catering? All-inclusive saves money if you'd otherwise eat out three times a day, and it makes budgeting idiot-proof. The included alcohol is usually basic, so it's poor value if you're on the strip every night anyway. If the hotel is just somewhere to sleep and recover, self-catering is fine.

Travel insurance. Not optional, and check the exclusions. A GHIC covers some emergency state treatment in EU countries, but it does not cover repatriation, private clinics, or anything the insurer decides was alcohol-related. It's free and lasts five years, so apply through the NHS directly and ignore the copycat sites that charge a fee for it. That last exclusion matters enormously on this type of holiday. Read the policy wording on alcohol and on activities like quad bikes and jet skis before you buy, not after.

Deposits and the group fund. Money is the single biggest reason these trips fall apart. Take deposits the day you agree a destination, because every week you wait raises the chance someone drops out and the price goes up for everyone left. Set up a shared pot in Splitwise or a Monzo shared tab, and put one person in charge of it who isn't the one who always forgets.

When to go. July and August are peak: hottest weather, biggest events, highest prices, busiest resorts. June and September cost noticeably less, stay hot, and everything is still open. May and October are a gamble on the Greek islands and Cyprus, where venues may not have opened or will have shut. Albufeira, Benidorm and Budapest are the safe bets outside the core season.

Airports and flights. Booking five or six seats together is where group trips quietly get expensive, so read our tactics for finding cheap flights before anyone commits. And don't get hammered before the flight. Airlines refuse boarding for it, and causing trouble in the air means being arrested on landing. It happens to somebody's group every summer.

Sun and heat. If you're not used to 35 degrees and you're drinking through the day, you'll dehydrate faster than you expect. Factor 30 minimum, drink water between rounds, and understand that sunburn on day one of seven is a miserable way to spend a week. If someone in the group hates the heat, our coolcation destinations piece has cooler European options.

Phones and data. Roaming charges came back for some UK networks after Brexit. Three includes EU roaming on most plans, while Vodafone and EE charge daily fees. Check before you fly and download offline maps so you can get home without data.

Common Questions

What's the cheapest lads holiday destination? Budapest for a city break at £350 to £500 a head for a week, or Sunny Beach for a beach resort at £400 to £600. Kavos is the cheapest of the Greek options.

Where should we go for a first lads holiday? Zante for most groups. It's cheap, it's an easy three hour flight, everything is within walking distance, and the resort is built around this exact trip. Albufeira if your group has mixed interests.

When's the cheapest time to go? Early June and the second half of September. Same heat, most venues still open, and flights and accommodation drop significantly against the July and August peak.

How much should we budget? £450 to £650 per person for a week in most Greek resorts, £500 to £750 for Mallorca or Portugal, and £900 upwards for Ibiza. Add a separate club and events fund on top if you're going to Ibiza or planning to do Zante's event package.

Is a package or a separate booking cheaper? Packages usually win for beach resorts because of the volume deals tour operators get on charter flights and hotels. Booking separately usually wins for city breaks, where budget airlines and apartment rentals are cheap and you don't need a transfer.

How far ahead should we book? Two to four months for the best balance of price and choice. Earlier than that and you're guessing at who'll actually come. Later and you're paying peak prices for whatever's left, which on a group booking means separate hotels or split flights.

Been on One of These? Write It Up

Every travel site describes these places the same way. Cheap drinks, good beaches, big clubs. What actually decides whether your week is any good is the stuff you only learn once you're there. Which hotel's pool bar shuts at six. Which promoter sold you a yacht party that turned out to be a pedalo with a speaker. Which bar does €1 shots on a Tuesday and which one waters them down.

That's what TravelPen is for. If you go to any of these ten, come back and write it up. It doesn't need to be polished and it doesn't need to be long. Where you stayed, what you actually spent, what you'd do differently. Four hundred words from someone who went last month beats another ranked list from someone who didn't.

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The Final Word

Where you go matters less than who you go with, but the right destination makes everything easier. Zante or Albufeira for a first trip, Magaluf for the clubs, Sunny Beach or Budapest if money is tight, Ibiza if it isn't. If none of it appeals, our best summer holiday destinations guide casts wider.

Whatever you pick: book early, get insurance that covers what you're actually going to do, put the money in one pot, and don't be the lad who ends up on a drip on night one. You've got a whole week ahead of you.

More practical reading: how to book excursions abroad our first girls holiday guide if you're planning the other trip too, and best lads weekend away UK if the budget won't stretch to a flight this year.