A quieter north Goa

North Goa in season is busy, and people who love it are not pretending otherwise. They have simply worked out how to be there.

Invert the day

The beach is yours before nine and pleasant again after five. Between those hours it belongs to everyone else, and that is precisely when a private pool and a shaded garden are the better proposition. Most people fight this and lose; the trick is to plan for it.

Stay off the strip

A residential lane a little back from the beach is a different holiday from a room on the front. You hear birds rather than bars, and you walk or drive the last stretch — which is a small price for sleeping properly. Nerul, for instance, is close to the Candolim side without being in it.

Go the other way at sunset

Everybody walks north. Walk south. Almost any beach has a quiet end, and the quiet end is usually a ten-minute walk from the crowded one.

Eat late, or eat in

Restaurants are calmest at the very start and the very end of service. A villa with a kitchen removes the question altogether, which on a week with children in the party is worth more than any view.

The shoulder weeks

If you have any flexibility at all, the weeks either side of peak season are the answer — the weather has barely changed and the crowd has halved.

Crestwood is at Nerul, screened from the neighbours, with its own pool. More on villas in Goa.