The Balearics reward a triangle rather than a tour: Mallorca for the mountains and the marinas, Menorca for the slow north, Ibiza and Formentera for the beaches-and-evenings act. What the brochures soft-pedal is the arithmetic — Palma to Mahón is a serious day's run of over a hundred miles, Mahón to Ibiza another long leg, and the triangle's corners are far enough apart that a one-week circuit means more passage than pause. The honest shapes are two: a Mallorca-Menorca week with the big crossing done once, or a Mallorca-Ibiza week with Formentera's flats as the centrepiece. Both work; the full triangle is a ten-day object.
This is a planning guide from published pilot and regulatory information; the islands' anchoring rules are enforced and seasonal — confirm current buoy systems and closures before the week.
The rule that reshapes every Balearic week
Posidonia. The seagrass meadows around the islands — especially Formentera and south-west Mallorca — are protected, and anchoring on them is prohibited and patrolled: boats anchor in designated zones or take the eco-buoy fields, and the charts carry the meadows' boundaries. The practical consequence: the famous white-sand bays are regulated capacity, first-come in the buoys, and the tender-length rules around Es Palmador are enforced in season. None of this ruins the week; it prices it — the early boat gets the bay.
Mallorca: the working base
Palma is the Mediterranean's most serviceable yachting city — marinas for every size, shipyards, an airport twenty minutes from the quay — and the island's own coast rewards a full slow side: the Serra de Tramuntana dropping into the sea on the north-west, the calas of the south-east, Andratx to Sóller as the scenic day-run. Palma's old town does the evenings seriously.
Menorca: the slow crossing's reward
The run from Mallorca's east end to Mahón is the triangle's rite of passage — an early start, a hundred-odd miles of open-ish water, done by mid-afternoon in a motor yacht or taken overnight in a sailing week. The reward is the archipelago's counter-programming: Mahón's huge natural harbour, one of the world's largest, a town at its head and quiet coves down its length; the north coast's wild, pine-fringed calas; Ciutadella for the evening arrival, Gothic and composed. Menorca is the island guests didn't schedule enough of.
Ibiza and Formentera: the finale act
From Mallorca's south-west, Ibiza is a half-day crossing to a channel that funnels wind and requires respect rather than drama. Ibiza town's marina-and-old-town evening is the island's composed face; the beach clubs of the west, its other one. Formentera next door is the flats: shallow, luminous, buoy-regulated, with beach lunches that run long and an afternoon that insists on itself. In August the whole corner is the Mediterranean's most crowded water; in June or September it is merely perfect.
Who should skip it
Crews wanting short daily hops and a new bay every night should stay on Mallorca alone — the island supports a full fortnight by itself. And the August version of the triangle — crossings, buoys, beach clubs, everything at capacity — is a different trip from the June one. Choose the month as carefully as the route.