Iskele and Long Beach, North Cyprus: area guide

Long Beach is not a resort town centre — it is a long, straight stretch of sand below Iskele town (the old village of Trikomo), with new apartment blocks on the land side and a landscaped promenade with walking and cycling paths along the sea. The section nearest the resort developments is the serviced part, with sunbeds, umbrellas, showers, and beach cafes; keep walking and the coastline turns emptier and wilder. The beach itself is municipal and free to enter — you pay only if you take a sunbed.

The sea shelves gently here, with a soft sandy bottom and no sudden depth changes close to shore, which is why Long Beach is the default family recommendation on this coast. The comfortable swimming season runs May to October: the water passes 25°C in June, peaks near 29°C in mid-August, and locals stretch swims into the calm 'velvet season' weeks of October.

• Free municipal beach; sunbeds and umbrellas are paid extras.
• Serviced stretch near the promenade: cafes, showers, loungers.
• Quieter sand: walk away from the main resort section.

From Ercan airport it is about 50 kilometres — plan on 45 to 50 minutes by rental car or pre-booked transfer, which is how most visitors arrive. Famagusta is roughly 15 to 20 minutes' drive south, so the walled old town and the Salamis ruins make an easy half-day trip; in the other direction, Long Beach is the last comfortable base before the roads empty out toward Karpaz. A car earns its keep here more than anywhere else on the island's east side.

A few minutes inland from the beach strip, Iskele town keeps the older Cyprus that the seafront towers don't show. Its landmark is the Panagia Theotokos church — a Byzantine-era core with a 12th-century extension and rare medieval frescoes — which now operates as an icon museum and is the area's one genuinely historic sight. Treat the town as a slow morning: church, a coffee stop, then back to the water.

Iskele has grown into the most development-heavy corner of North Cyprus, so most beds here are modern resort-style apartments with pools and facilities rather than classic hotels. For travellers that means good-value, self-catered long stays right on the promenade. It also means construction: if you want silence, check how close a building sits to active sites before booking. Plenty of visitors leave curious about buying — if that's you, start with the Iskele apartment and off-plan guides linked below rather than a beachfront sales office.