Summer clubbing is all about the new-generation beach clubs Where to go if you want to dance without leaving the beach

Summer clubbing has changed its schedule, shape and landscape. The night starts earlier, often while the sun is still high and the air is beginning to cool. The sunbed becomes a table, the restaurant fills up, the first cocktail arrives in the golden light and the music slowly changes the atmosphere. Part of the Italian summer is moving away from enclosed nightclubs and towards beaches, terraces, cliffs, seafront restaurants and open-air dancefloors.

The beach club has become one of the places that best represents this shift. You come for the sea and stay for everything that happens afterwards. Food, drinks, DJ sets, community, sunsets, encounters, content, energy. The line between daytime and nighttime is becoming increasingly blurred. The beach no longer comes alive only during daylight hours and is becoming one of the new social infrastructures of summer.

Il Bikini, Vico Equense

In Vico Equense, Il Bikini has a history you can feel even before stepping inside. Open since 1952, it brings together a beach club, restaurant, events and weddings along one of the most scenic stretches of the Sorrento Peninsula. Its charm comes from a rare balance of sea, memory, hospitality and attention to detail. It is a place that belongs to the landscape before it belongs to nightlife, and perhaps that is precisely why it manages to turn summer socialising into something more natural.

Here, clubbing does not arrive as a disruption, but as an evolution of the day. You can start on the beach, continue with brunch, a cocktail, dinner by the sea or a private event, allowing the pace to build naturally. Music enters a setting that already has an elegance of its own, shaped by rock, water, light and views. The sea never remains in the background; it accompanies everything.

Il Bikini embodies a more understated, Mediterranean, almost instinctive form of summer luxury. At a time when many formats are constantly trying to turn up the volume, its strength lies in staying power. In the desire to linger a little longer, to talk, eat, listen to music and watch the light change over the water. It is the kind of beach club that does not need to shout to be remembered.

Cala Maka, Torre Canne

Cala Maka, in Torre Canne, takes the conversation towards a newer side of Puglia, one that is aesthetic and contemporary. Maka Club defines itself through signature cocktails, international music and an intimate setting designed to turn the beach into a complete experience. Its manifesto says it all: «This is not just a beach — this is Maka Club».

Here, everything revolves around atmosphere. Cala Maka works with an idea of summer built around visual details, nature, food, drinks and music. The sea remains central, while becoming part of a distinctive, carefully curated, almost editorial environment. It is the kind of place that perfectly captures the way we experience holidays today, with less separation between lunch, relaxation, aperitivo and nightlife, and greater continuity between different moments of the day.

Its value lies precisely in representing a new generation of Italian beach clubs. Places conceived from the outset with a strong visual and sonic identity, where the beach becomes a brand, an experience, a story. Cala Maka speaks to those looking for sea and atmosphere in the same place, to those who want to spend the day somewhere beautiful and reach the evening with the feeling that the clubbing has already begun.

Phi Beach, Baia Sardinia

Phi Beach is one of Italy's most iconic examples of summer clubbing by the sea. In Baia Sardinia, just a few kilometres from Porto Cervo, it has built a very distinctive identity over the years. Rocks, platforms overlooking the cliffs, sunset, dinner, drinks, DJ sets and the sea stretching out ahead. Everything seems designed to turn the transition from day to night into a ritual.

Its strength lies in the way the landscape becomes part of the club itself. The dancefloor is outdoors, set within a natural bay surrounded by granite and water. Sunset opens the evening, setting the stage for a shift in energy and building anticipation. Then come dinner, lights, music, performances, tables, people moving between the terraces, while the sea remains ever-present, like a living backdrop.

Phi Beach works because it understands something fundamental about summer: the most memorable clubbing comes from atmosphere first, even before volume. The music enters an experience that is already charged with energy. The landscape does half the work, while the architecture organises the rest. You arrive while there is still daylight and stay as everything changes colour. It is one of the places where the Italian beach club comes closest to an international idea of the open-air club, while maintaining a powerful connection with the Mediterranean.

That is why it remains a benchmark. At many beach clubs, sunset is a moment to photograph. At Phi Beach, it becomes part of the narrative structure. It shapes the arrival, dinner, anticipation and transition into the night. It is a precise, almost cinematic sequence that makes the club recognisable even before the DJ set begins. Here, the sea is experienced to the fullest: by day as an escape, at sunset as a spectacle, and by night as pure energy.

Samsara Beach, Riccione

Samsara Beach, in Riccione, represents the most popular and generational version of the Italian beach party. Its identity is tied to the collective celebration, the crowded beach and the music that turns a day by the sea into an event. It is one of those names that, especially over the years, have defined a particular way of experiencing the Italian summer: more immediate, more physical and closer to the idea of community.

Within this list, Samsara serves as a reminder that the new summer clubbing scene also thrives on a broader and more accessible dimension. Less sunset luxury, more shared energy. The beach party becomes a simple ritual, made up of people arriving at the beach, staying until late and starting to dance before the night has even really begun. Samsara reveals the most direct side of the phenomenon. The sea becomes a space for gathering, music creates a sense of belonging, and the party becomes part of the identity of the place. Gallipoli, for many, was also shaped by this kind of experience, by a beach club capable of turning a day at the beach into a recognisable scene.

Twiga Beach Club, Forte dei Marmi

Twiga Beach Club takes the conversation to Versilia, into an atmosphere very different from that of Puglia or Sardinia. Forte dei Marmi has always had a strong relationship with the beach club as a place of status, socialising and nightlife. Twiga perfectly embodies this tradition, combining the sea, restaurants, seaside luxury, entertainment and nightlife along Versilia's most iconic stretch of coastline.

It is the most glamorous example on the list, and one that captures the aspirational side of Italian summer clubbing. Here, the beach becomes a social stage. The sunbed, dinner, private area, music and nightlife all belong to the same ecosystem. For decades, Versilia has built a culture of summer nightlife around beach clubs, venues, tables, encounters and social rituals. Twiga updates that tradition into a more international and instantly recognisable form.