Greek Island Hopping Itinerary: 9 Routes, 5 to 14 Days

The first time I planned a Greek trip I opened a map, saw islands a thumb-width apart, and assumed I could string six together in ten days. The Aegean ferry network is not a grid. It is a set of spokes out of Athens, with good local links and gaps you cannot see on a map.

A greek island hopping itinerary works when you pick one island group, keep your hops short, and build the route around ferries that sail daily rather than the ones that look shortest on paper. Below are nine routes I would send friends on, from five days to a fortnight, with the crossing times, fares, ports and booking rules behind each one. Two of the islands on my first attempt had no boat between them at all.

I have spent fifteen years travelling around Europe and a good chunk of that on Greek ferries, in the good seats and on the outside deck in a gale. What follows is built on the 2026 timetables, the current fare bands, and the rules that changed this year, including the accommodation tax and the Santorini cruise cap. Where I could not source a number, I say so. For the wider picture of when to travel anywhere on the continent, see our guide to the best time to visit Europe.

How to use this guide

Read it in three passes. First, the island groups table below: pick one group, because trying to combine two in under two weeks is where most trips fall apart. Second, the nine routes: find the one that matches your trip length and choose it more or less as written. Third, the practical sections. The Piraeus gate map, the ferry cancellation ladders, the platform booking fees, the 2026 tax bands. Those are the parts you will actually use in the week before you fly.

If you are still choosing a country rather than an island, start with our Greece travel guide, which sets out the mainland alongside the islands. If you have already settled on Greece and want the wider trip shape, the Greece itinerary covers Athens, the Peloponnese and the islands together, and the best Greek islands ranks the islands themselves if you are still deciding which ones to route.

The five island groups, and how to choose one

Greece has around 6,000 islands and islets, of which a couple of hundred are inhabited. For island hopping purposes, though, you are choosing between five clusters. The choice matters more than which islands you pick inside it, because ferries run within groups and rarely between them.

Group	Where	Gets you	Main gateway	Ferry density	Season
Cyclades	Central Aegean, south-east of Athens	The white cubic villages, bare hills, the famous ones	Piraeus and Rafina; airports on Santorini, Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Milos, Syros	Highest in Greece; SeaJets alone runs up to 229 sailings a day here	Late April to late October
Dodecanese	South-east Aegean, hugging the Turkish coast	Crusader castles, Italian architecture, Byzantine monasteries	Rhodes and Kos airports	Good along the Rhodes to Patmos spine, thin off it	May to October
Ionian	West coast, facing Italy	Green hills, olive groves, Venetian towns, calmer sea	Corfu, Kefalonia and Zakynthos airports; Patras and Kyllini by road	Sparse between the big islands; you often route via the mainland. See Corfu and the Ionian islands	June to August, dropping fast by October
Saronic	The gulf on Athens’s doorstep	An island night without committing a whole trip to it	Piraeus, an hour or so away	Year-round, several a day, all on one line	Year-round
Sporades	North-west Aegean, off Volos	Pine forest to the waterline, a marine park, very short hops	Skiathos airport, or Volos by road	Excellent within the group, poor to anywhere else	Late May to September

If this is your first Greek trip, take the Cyclades. Not because they rank higher, but because the ferry density gives you room to be wrong. If a boat cancels in the Cyclades in July there is usually another one within a few hours. In the Ionian there may not be another one that week.

How many days do you need for a Greek island hopping itinerary?

Ten days is the honest minimum for a trip that feels like island hopping rather than a transfer marathon, and fourteen is where it stops feeling rushed. The arithmetic is simple once you accept two rules. Every island change costs you the best part of a day even when the crossing is only ninety minutes, because you check out, get to the port early, sail, then arrive and find your room. And no island is worth fewer than two nights, because the first evening and the last morning are half days.

So the working guide is roughly this. Five to seven days gets you two islands. Eight to ten days gets you two or three. Ten to fourteen gets you three or four. Six islands in ten days is six ferry terminals, not six islands. If you want the wider trip shape first, our Europe itinerary and how to plan a trip to Europe cover the sequencing.

Two more constraints shape every route below. The first is that there is no ferry from Athens to the Ionian islands, at all, in any season. You reach the Ionian by flying, or by crossing the mainland to Patras, Kyllini, Astakos or Igoumenitsa. The second is that there are no direct ferries between the Cyclades and the Saronic islands, so combining Hydra with Naxos means going back through Piraeus. Both of these catch people out every summer. Our guide to getting around Europe covers the ferry, rail and budget-airline picture more broadly.

Nine Greek island hopping routes at a glance

Here are the nine routes in full, sorted by length. I have given each one a ferry difficulty score out of five, which is my own shorthand for how much the timetable will boss you around. A 1 means daily year-round sailings on short hops and a missed boat is an inconvenience. A 4 or 5 means you are building the entire trip around two or three sailings a week and a cancellation costs you a day.

Route	Length	Island group	Islands	Ferry difficulty	Car needed?	Best for
1. The Saronic Sampler	5 days	Saronic Gulf	Athens, Aegina, Hydra	●○○○○ 1/5	No	First-timers, short trips, anyone flying in and out of Athens
2. The Classic Cyclades	7 days	Cyclades	Athens, Paros, Naxos, Santorini	●●○○○ 2/5	Yes, on Naxos	A first Greek island trip that still ends on the caldera
3. The Postcard Run	7 days	Cyclades	Mykonos, Paros, Santorini	●●○○○ 2/5	No	Honeymoons, photographers, people who want the famous two
4. The Western Cyclades Quiet Line	10 days	Cyclades (western)	Athens, Milos, Folegandros, Santorini	●●●○○ 3/5	Yes, on Milos	Second-time visitors, walkers, anyone allergic to crowds
5. Cyclades to Crete, Open-Jaw	10 days	Cyclades and Crete	Athens, Naxos, Santorini, Crete	●●○○○ 2/5	Yes, on Naxos and Crete	Travellers who want ruins, mountains and beaches in one trip
6. The Dodecanese Loop	12 days	Dodecanese	Rhodes, Symi, Kos, Patmos	●●●○○ 3/5	Yes, on Rhodes	History travellers and anyone who wants to skip the Cyclades entirely
7. The Ionian Green Route	10 days	Ionian	Corfu, Paxos, Kefalonia, Zakynthos	●●●●○ 4/5	Yes, except Paxos	Beach trips, families, sailors, anyone who finds the Cyclades too bare
8. The Sporades Slow Route	8 days	Sporades	Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonissos	●●○○○ 2/5	Yes, on Skopelos	Green islands, short hops, families, low-key food trips
9. The Grand Cyclades Fortnight	14 days	Cyclades	Athens, Milos, Sifnos, Paros, Naxos, Santorini	●●●○○ 3/5	Yes, on Milos and Naxos	A once-in-a-decade trip with time to actually stop moving

Notice what the difficulty column is telling you. The Ionian scores worst not because the islands are hard work but because the inter-island connections are thin and seasonal, and one of them, Corfu to Lefkada, I could not confirm runs reliably in 2026. The Saronic scores best because every island on the route sits on the same line out of Piraeus, several times a day, all year.

1. The Saronic Sampler: 5 days from Athens

Athens 2 nights, Aegina 1 night, Hydra 2 nights. Ferry difficulty 1/5.

This is the route I recommend to people who have five days, a flight into Athens, and a nagging worry that they cannot fit islands in. You can. The Saronic islands sit between forty minutes and just over two hours from Piraeus, they are all on the same ferry line, and boats run several times a day all year, which is not true of anywhere else in this guide.

Give Athens two nights at the start, because you will want the Acropolis and one long dinner in Plaka before you leave, and because arriving on an island jetlagged wastes the island. Our guide to things to do in Athens covers the two days properly.

Then Aegina, forty minutes by high-speed catamaran or an hour and twenty-five on the conventional boat, for about EUR 10.50 to EUR 19.50 depending which you take. Aegina is a working island with pistachio orchards, a fifth-century BC temple of Aphaia on a pine ridge, and a fish market on the harbour that has nothing to do with tourism. One night is enough.

Finish on Hydra, an hour and five minutes from Piraeus on the fast Flyingcat, longer on the slower sailings, for roughly EUR 40 to EUR 50. Hydra has no cars. Not “few cars”, none: goods move by mule and water taxi, and the silence in the town after the last day-trip boat leaves is the most surprising thing on this route. Boutique rooms run around EUR 120 to EUR 350 a night, so it is not the cheap option, but two nights here will do more for you than four somewhere busier.

Skip this route if you have come for long sandy beaches or nightlife. The Saronic islands are rocky, small-scale and quiet, which is the point.

2. The Classic Cyclades: 7 days, Athens to Santorini

Athens 1 night, Paros 2 nights, Naxos 2 nights, Santorini 2 nights. Ferry difficulty 2/5.

If you asked me for one route to give a first-time visitor with a week, this is it. Every hop is short, every hop runs multiple times a day in summer, and the trip builds instead of peaking early.

Fly into Athens, overnight near the centre or in Piraeus, and take a morning ferry to Paros: two hours forty on a SeaJets catamaran, four and a half to five hours on the Blue Star, from around EUR 35. Paros is the most useful island in the Aegean network, because almost every inter-island route in the Cyclades passes through or near it. That means if a later boat cancels, you have options. Stay in Naoussa rather than Parikia if you can: the old fishing harbour with the half-sunken Venetian fort is one of the loveliest evening spots in Greece.

Then Naxos, twenty-five minutes to under two hours away depending on the boat, and cheap: fares run from EUR 5.50 on the slow crossings up to EUR 82.40 in the top classes. Naxos is the island I would move to. It is big enough to have mountains, a real farming economy, unfinished marble kouroi lying in olive groves, and the best beaches in the group along the west coast. This is the one island on this route where you should rent a car, at roughly EUR 35 to EUR 55 a day in high season.

Finish on Santorini, an hour and five minutes to three hours from Naxos, from about EUR 31.50, with up to eight crossings a day and service all year. Santorini earns its reputation and also deserves the complaints: the caldera at dusk is one of the great sights in Europe, and Oia at that same hour is a scrum. Stay in Imerovigli or Pyrgos instead of Oia, walk the Fira to Oia caldera path early, and you will get the good version. Our Santorini travel guide has the detail, and where to stay in Europe covers the neighbourhood question more widely.

Skip this route if you have fewer than six full days on the ground. At five you will be checking in and out constantly.

3. The Postcard Run: 7 days, Mykonos to Santorini

Mykonos 3 nights, Paros 1 night, Santorini 3 nights. Ferry difficulty 2/5.

The version most people want, and there is no shame in it. Both islands take direct international flights in summer, so you can fly into Mykonos and out of Santorini and never see Athens, which saves you two travel days. Open-jaw flights are the biggest efficiency gain available on any Greek trip.

Mykonos first, because the nightlife is better tackled while you still have energy. Beyond the beach clubs, the island has the whitewashed lanes of Chora, the pelicans on the waterfront, and the windmills above the town. Our Mykonos travel guide goes deeper. More importantly it has Delos, twenty minutes offshore, which is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Mediterranean and one of the very few reliable day trips in the Cyclades. Go early, take a hat, and allow three hours.

The direct Mykonos to Santorini catamaran takes about two hours ten on the fastest SeaJets Supercat and starts around EUR 50. Here is my argument for breaking it: that crossing runs through the most exposed water in the central Cyclades and is one of the first to go when the meltemi blows. Stopping one night on Paros costs you almost nothing, splits the journey into two short legs and gives you a fallback if the weather turns. If you would rather run it direct, book the earliest sailing of the day, which is the least likely to be cancelled.

Then three nights on Santorini. Use one of them for a caldera sailing boat to the volcanic islets of Nea Kameni and the hot springs, and one afternoon for the Bronze Age excavation at Akrotiri, which is the better site and the emptier one.

Skip this route if your budget is tight. Mykonos and Santorini are the two most expensive islands in Greece, with high-season rooms commonly EUR 150 to EUR 250 a night at the budget end and EUR 300 upwards at the top. Swap in Paros and Naxos and you will pay roughly forty to sixty per cent less for comparable quality. See the cheapest places to travel in Europe if budget is the deciding factor.

4. The Western Cyclades Quiet Line: 10 days

Athens 1 night, Milos 4 nights, Folegandros 2 nights, Santorini 3 nights. Ferry difficulty 3/5.

This is my favourite route in the guide and the one I would take myself. It uses the western Cyclades line, which is quieter than the Paros and Naxos corridor and links up to Santorini at the end, so you still get the famous finish without spending the whole trip in the crowd.

Milos is two hours thirty-five from Piraeus on the fastest SeaJets catamaran, three to five hours on a conventional ferry, from about EUR 33. It is a volcanic island with more than seventy beaches and a coastline that does not look Greek at all: Sarakiniko is a white pumice moonscape you can walk out over, and Kleftiko on the south-west coast is only reachable by boat. Rent a car here. Four nights sounds generous until you see how spread out it is.

Folegandros is one to two hours forty from Milos, and the lead-in fare is startlingly low, from about EUR 7. It is a cliff-edged island with one small Chora perched 200 metres above the sea and almost nothing else, which is the appeal. Take the walk up to the Panagia church at sunset. Bring cash: small islands like this can have a single ATM and it does run out.

Then Santorini, fifty minutes to three hours away depending on the operator, from about EUR 7 on the cheapest sailings, with up to two departures a day year-round.

Skip this route if you are travelling in the shoulder season and need certainty. The western line thins out fast either side of summer, and the very cheap Milos to Folegandros and Folegandros to Santorini fares reflect a small number of sailings, not a bargain.

5. Cyclades to Crete, Open-Jaw: 10 days

Athens 1 night, Naxos 3 nights, Santorini 3 nights, Crete 3 nights. Ferry difficulty 2/5.

The best-value route here if you want variety, because it ends on an island the size of a small country. Fly into Athens, ferry down the Cyclades chain, then take the short crossing from Santorini to Heraklion and fly home from Crete.

The Santorini to Heraklion leg is the hinge. It is easier than people expect: an hour and thirty-five on the high-speed, about three hours on the Blue Star, up to three crossings a day, all year. The fare gap is dramatic. Conventional sailings start around EUR 15 while the high-speed starts around EUR 92, with business and VIP classes up to about EUR 130. The high-speed saves roughly an hour and a half on the direct crossing. Take the slow boat and put the difference toward a rental car.

On Crete, three nights means choosing one end. I would go west to Chania, for the Venetian harbour, the Samaria Gorge and the Balos and Elafonissi lagoons, and fly home from Chania rather than backtracking to Heraklion. If ruins matter more to you, stay east for Knossos and the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Trying to do both in three nights means five hours of driving you did not budget for. Our Crete travel guide splits the island properly, and the best beaches in Europe covers Balos and Elafonissi alongside their rivals.

Skip this route if you dislike driving. Crete without a car is a fraction of Crete.

6. The Dodecanese Loop: 12 days

Rhodes 5 nights, Symi 2 nights, Kos 3 nights, Patmos 2 nights. Ferry difficulty 3/5.

The Dodecanese is where I would send someone who has done the Cyclades and found them beautiful but a bit bare. These islands were under Italian rule from 1912, formally ceded to Greece in 1947, and Knights Hospitaller before that, and it shows in the architecture in a way nothing in the Cyclades does. If ancient sites are the draw, our Europe bucket list sets them in context.

Rhodes has one of the best-preserved medieval walled towns in Europe, UNESCO-listed since 1988 and one you can sleep inside, plus the ancient acropolis at Lindos an hour down the coast. Five nights, with a car for two of them.

Symi is forty to fifty minutes away on the Dodekanisos Seaways catamaran, longer on slower boats, with deck tickets from around EUR 7 to EUR 11 in the low season. The harbour at Gialos is a bowl of neoclassical mansions in ochre and ice-cream colours stacked up the hillsides, built on sponge-diving money, and arriving by sea into it is one of the great entrances in Greece. Two nights, because the day-trippers leave at four and the town changes completely.

Back through Rhodes to Kos, two hours five to two hours forty, from about EUR 15, with roughly fifteen sailings a week. Kos is flatter, greener and more package-holiday than the others, but it has the Asklepieion, the Roman ruins in the town centre, and excellent cycling.

Finish on Patmos, an hour and a half to just over two hours on Dodekanisos Seaways, around four hours twenty on the Blue Star. Patmos is where the Book of Revelation was written, and the Monastery of Saint John and the Cave of the Apocalypse are UNESCO-listed. It is also, unexpectedly, one of the most elegant small islands in Greece. Patmos has no airport, so plan the exit: ferry back to Kos or Rhodes for the flight home, and give that leg a spare day.

Skip this route if you only have a week. The Dodecanese connections are good but not dense, and compressing this to seven days means two islands, not four.

7. The Ionian Green Route: 10 days

Corfu 3 nights, Paxos 2 nights, Kefalonia 3 nights, Zakynthos 2 nights. Ferry difficulty 4/5.

The Ionian is the other Greece: green, wooded, rainier in winter, Venetian rather than Ottoman in its history, and facing Italy rather than Turkey. The sea is calmer here because the meltemi does not reach it, which makes it the best group for anyone who gets seasick or is travelling with small children. The Croatia travel guide covers the other big Mediterranean island-hopping country if you are comparing.

The catch is the connections, and I want to be straight about it. There is no ferry from Athens. Between the big Ionian islands the sailings are seasonal and sparse, and you will often route via the mainland ports of Kyllini, Patras or Igoumenitsa. On the Corfu to Lefkada leg specifically, sources actively contradict each other: some list a sailing of around five hours forty running three times a week, others say no ferry currently operates. I could not confirm it either way, so I have left Lefkada out of this route. Check with the operator directly if you want it.

Corfu first, and specifically Corfu Town, which is a UNESCO-listed Venetian old town with two fortresses, arcaded streets and a cricket ground on the esplanade left over from the British protectorate. Mid-range rooms in town run roughly EUR 50 to EUR 120, rising sharply on the beach strips in August.

Paxos is fifty-five minutes to an hour forty-five away, from about EUR 15, with up to thirteen crossings a day in high season, the first around 06:45 and the last around 18:35. That density is the exception in this group, not the rule. Paxos is tiny, olive-covered and has three harbour villages and the sea caves of Antipaxos offshore.

Then south to Kefalonia and Zakynthos, which connect to each other and to the mainland in one to two and a half hours for roughly EUR 12 to EUR 20. Kefalonia has Myrtos beach and the underground lake at Melissani. Zakynthos has Navagio, the shipwreck cove that appears on every Greece poster ever printed, and here the 2026 detail matters: the port authority has closed the beach itself to boat landings and swimming until 31 October 2026 over landslide risk. Boats still hold offshore and the clifftop viewpoint above Anafonitria stays open, so you can see it, you just cannot stand on the sand. Our most beautiful places in Europe guide includes it.

Skip this route if you are travelling outside June to September. The Ionian sweet spot is short, ferry frequency drops noticeably by October, and Ionian timetables are often published only weeks before the season starts.

8. The Sporades Slow Route: 8 days

Skiathos 2 nights, Skopelos 3 nights, Alonissos 3 nights. Ferry difficulty 2/5.

The most underrated route here. The Sporades sit off Volos in the north-west Aegean, they are covered in pine forest right down to the water, and the hops between them are absurdly short.

Fly into Skiathos, which takes direct European flights in summer, or come by road to Volos and cross in an hour and a quarter to two and a half hours for about EUR 27 upwards. Skiathos has more than sixty beaches on an island you can drive across in half an hour, including Koukounaries, which is consistently rated among the best in Greece.

Skopelos is twenty-five minutes to an hour away, from about EUR 15. It is the greenest of the three, has almost no mass tourism, and it is where Mamma Mia! was filmed, which has aged into a mild local joke rather than an industry. The clifftop chapel of Agios Ioannis Kastri is the one from the wedding scene.

Alonissos is five to thirty minutes from Skopelos on a standard ticket of about EUR 12 to EUR 17, the shortest hop in this guide. It sits inside the National Marine Park of Alonissos and the Northern Sporades, the largest marine protected area in Europe, set up for the Mediterranean monk seal. Boat trips into the park are the reason to come. Plan your flight home from Skiathos, not Alonissos, which has no airport: the hop back takes fifty minutes to two hours, so build in a night on Skiathos at the end. For more of this sort of thing, see underrated places in Europe.

Skip this route if you want the white-and-blue Cycladic look. The Sporades are stone, terracotta and pine, and they look like a different country.

9. The Grand Cyclades Fortnight: 14 days

Athens 2 nights, Milos 3 nights, Sifnos 2 nights, Paros 2 nights, Naxos 3 nights, Santorini 2 nights. Ferry difficulty 3/5.

Two weeks, six stops, five moves, and still only a bit over two nights per island on average, which shows you how much time the hops eat. This is the one route that stretches my own three-or-four-island rule, and it works only because a fortnight gives you the slack to absorb a cancelled boat. This route crosses from the western Cyclades line to the central one, which is the move that makes it interesting and also the one that needs the most attention when you book.

Athens for two nights, then Milos for the volcanic coastline, Sifnos for the food, which is the reason people who know the Cyclades keep going back to it and which has a real claim on modern Greek cooking through the chef Nikolaos Tselementes, and then across to Paros, the network hub, where you rejoin the busy line. Naxos gets the longest single stay because it rewards it: the Tragaea valley villages, Mount Zas, the marble quarries and the beaches.

I have deliberately put Santorini last and given it only two nights. On a fourteen-day trip you will have had a fortnight of quiet coastline, and Santorini in full season is loud, expensive and crowded. Two nights, one caldera sunset, one boat trip, then fly home from the island rather than ferrying back to Athens.

Skip this route if what you want is to relax. Five moves in fourteen days is a lot of packing. If that is the trip you want, take route 4 and add nights to Milos.

Note the gaps across all nine routes, because they are real. There is no Ios here, no Amorgos, no Small Cyclades, no Serifos, no Andros or Tinos, and nothing from the north-east Aegean at all. That is a limit of what I can route reliably with published 2026 sailings, not a verdict on those islands. Amorgos and the Small Cyclades in particular are wonderful and I have left them out only because the connections need more slack than a fixed itinerary can promise.

The ferry legs: crossing times, fares and who runs them

The legs used in the nine routes above, plus the ones you are most likely to substitute in. Times run from the fastest catamaran to the slowest multi-stop conventional sailing, which is why some ranges look absurd: the Piraeus to Santorini spread of four hours fifty to eleven hours thirty is real. It is the difference between a direct SeaJets high-speed and a Blue Star that calls at four islands on the way.

From	To	Crossing time	Typical lead-in fare, one way	Main operators
Piraeus	Mykonos	2h40m to 5h55m	from about EUR 38	SeaJets, Fast Ferries, Golden Star, Blue Star
Rafina	Mykonos	2h05m to 4h40m	from about EUR 38	Fast Ferries, Golden Star, SeaJets
Piraeus	Paros	2h40m to 5h10m	from about EUR 35	SeaJets, Blue Star, Fast Ferries
Piraeus	Naxos	3h15m to 5h30m	from about EUR 43	SeaJets, Blue Star, Fast Ferries
Piraeus	Santorini	4h50m to 11h30m	from about EUR 46	SeaJets, Blue Star, Golden Star
Piraeus	Milos	2h35m to 7h10m	from about EUR 33	SeaJets, Aegean Sea Lines, Minoan, Fast Ferries
Mykonos	Paros	35m to 2h30m	from about EUR 36	SeaJets, Blue Star, Fast Ferries, Golden Star
Paros	Naxos	25m to 1h50m	EUR 5.50 to EUR 82.40	Blue Star, Fast Ferries, Golden Star, SeaJets
Naxos	Santorini	1h05m to 3h	from about EUR 31.50	Blue Star, SeaJets, Golden Star
Ios	Santorini	35m to 1h10m	EUR 6.50 to EUR 64.70	Blue Star, Fast Ferries, Golden Star, SeaJets
Milos	Folegandros	1h to 2h40m	from about EUR 7	SeaJets, Fast Ferries, Hellenic Seaways
Folegandros	Santorini	50m to 3h	from about EUR 7	SeaJets, Fast Ferries, Maistros Santorini
Mykonos	Santorini	2h10m upwards	from about EUR 50	SeaJets, Blue Star, Golden Star
Santorini	Heraklion (Crete)	1h30m to 4h30m	conventional from about EUR 15	Blue Star, SeaJets
Piraeus	Heraklion (Crete)	about 9h30m overnight	cabin fares vary	Minoan Lines, Superfast
Piraeus	Chania (Crete)	8h to 9h overnight	cabin fares vary	ANEK / Superfast
Rhodes	Symi	40m to 1h20m	deck from about EUR 7	Dodekanisos Seaways and local operators
Rhodes	Kos	2h05m to 2h40m	from about EUR 15	Dodekanisos Seaways, Blue Star
Kos	Patmos	1h30m to 4h20m	varies widely by date	Dodekanisos Seaways, Blue Star
Corfu	Paxos	55m to 1h45m	from about EUR 15	Ionian Blue Wave, Kamelia Lines, Kerkyra Lines
Piraeus	Aegina	40m to 1h25m	EUR 10.50 to about EUR 19.50	Aegean Flying Dolphins, Hellenic Seaways, Saronic Ferries
Piraeus	Poros	1h to 2h30m	from about EUR 17	Hellenic Seaways, Saronic Ferries
Piraeus	Hydra	1h05m to 2h20m	about EUR 40 to EUR 50	Hellenic Seaways (Flyingcat), Aero Highspeed
Milos	Sifnos	40m to 1h20m	from about EUR 15	SeaJets, Aegean Sea Lines, Fast Ferries
Sifnos	Paros	55m to 3h05m	from about EUR 15	SeaJets, Aegean Sea Lines, Fast Ferries
Kefalonia	Zakynthos	1h to 2h30m	about EUR 12 to EUR 20	Levante Ferries and local operators
Kefalonia	Ithaca	20m to 50m	about EUR 2 to EUR 5	Levante Ferries
Skiathos	Alonissos	50m to 2h	from about EUR 15	Aegean Flying Dolphins, SeaJets
Volos	Skiathos	1h15m to 2h25m	from about EUR 27	Aegean Flying Dolphins, SeaJets
Skiathos	Skopelos	25m to 1h	from about EUR 15	Aegean Flying Dolphins, SeaJets
Skopelos	Alonissos	5m to 30m	EUR 11.90 to EUR 17.40	Aegean Flying Dolphins, SeaJets

Two things to take from it. First, conventional ferries are dramatically cheaper than catamarans on the same route, and the gap is widest on the longest legs: Santorini to Heraklion is about EUR 15 on the Blue Star and about EUR 92 on the high-speed for a difference of roughly ninety minutes. Second, the very low lead-in fares, the EUR 5.50 Paros to Naxos and the EUR 6.50 Ios to Santorini, are deck or economy tickets on specific sailings, not the price you will pay on a Saturday in August.

On vessel choice: large conventional ro-pax ferries are slower, cheaper, more stable in rough water and far less likely to be cancelled. High-speed catamarans are faster, dearer, and the first thing the port authority stops when the wind picks up. If you are prone to seasickness or the forecast looks unsettled, the slow boat is the right answer twice over.

Athens ports and the Piraeus gate problem

Athens has three ferry ports, and getting to the wrong one is the most expensive mistake available to you on the morning of a crossing.

Piraeus is the big one, the largest port in Greece, and serves the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, the Saronic, the north Aegean and Crete. Rafina is smaller, sits closer to Athens airport, is reachable only by road, and serves Mykonos, Andros, Tinos, Naxos and Syros among others. Lavrio is the quiet third option for Kea, Kythnos and Syros. Your ticket says which one. Read it the night before.

Piraeus is also enormous, and the gates are spread around a working commercial harbour rather than clustered in one terminal. Walking from E1 to E9 takes real time. This is the gate map, from Blue Star’s own port plan:

Gate	Where it sails	Typical vessels
E1	Dodecanese, plus the Santorini to Anafi, Heraklion, Sitia, Kasos, Karpathos, Chalki and Rhodes line	Blue Star Chios, Blue Star 2, Blue Star Patmos, Lefka Ori
E2	Chios, Mytilene (Lesvos), Psara, Oinousses	Nissos Samos, Ariadne
E3	Serifos and Heraklion; Milos and Chania	Asterion II, Nissos Rodos, Elyros, Kissamos
E6	Main Cyclades gate, foot passengers only	Blue Star 1, Blue Star Naxos, Blue Star Delos, Blue Star Paros
E7	Main Cyclades gate, passengers and vehicles; also Syros, Mykonos, Ikaria, Fourni, Samos	Blue Star Myconos and the vehicle-carrying Cyclades sailings
E8	Argo-Saronic islands	Conventional Saronic ferries
E9	Aegina, Agistri, Poros, Hydra, Ermioni, Spetses, Porto Heli, plus extra Cyclades departures	Aero Highspeed 1 to 5

Free shuttle buses run around the port ring, and there is a stop near the metro station. Our Athens guide covers the city end of the journey. My rule is to be at Piraeus forty-five to sixty minutes before a sailing and thirty minutes at island ports, which matches what the operators advise. If you are taking a vehicle, make it ninety minutes, because vehicle loading closes thirty to forty-five minutes before departure.

Athens airport to the ports

Route	How	Cost	Time	Notes
Airport to Piraeus	Metro Line 3 (blue), direct	EUR 9 one way	60 to 70 minutes	Runs to Piraeus station, a short walk or shuttle from most gates
Airport to Piraeus	X96 express bus	EUR 5.50 (EUR 2.70 reduced)	About 90 minutes	Runs 24 hours, every 15 to 30 minutes; the only option on an early sailing
Airport to Rafina	KTEL Attikis bus	Commonly cited around EUR 4, sources quote EUR 3 to EUR 5.50	30 to 40 minutes	Roughly 04:30 to 22:30, every 30 to 60 minutes; boards near Exits 2 and 3
Central Athens to Piraeus	Metro or taxi	Varies	20 to 25 minutes	Useful if you overnight in the city before an early boat

If you land after about 20:00 and have a morning ferry, sleep in Piraeus rather than central Athens. It is no beauty spot, but it removes the one variable that can wreck the whole trip.

Arriving at the island ports: the bit nobody photographs

Three things about island ports that will save you an afternoon.

Santorini docks at Athinios, not below Oia. Athinios is a commercial ramp at the bottom of the caldera cliff with a switchback road above it, and it is chaos on arrival: coaches, hotel transfers and taxis all fighting for the same strip. Arrange a transfer in advance if you can, take the KTEL bus to Fira if you cannot, and do not expect a taxi rank. The cable car between Fira and the old port is for the caldera cruise boats, not the ferries, so it is no help getting off the Blue Star.

Mykonos has two ports and they are not walkable from each other. Almost all conventional and most high-speed ferries use the New Port at Tourlos, a couple of kilometres north of Chora. Some smaller boats and the Delos excursions use the Old Port in town. Check which one your ticket says before you book a taxi, and check it again for the return.

Plan your luggage around steps and cobbles. Cycladic towns are stairs, marble lanes and no lifts, vehicles are often banned inside them, and on Hydra there is no vehicle at all beyond a mule. A hard case with four wheels is the wrong bag for this trip. Larger ports and most island bus stations have paid left-luggage if you have a late boat and an early checkout.

Know what class you have bought. Deck or economy is a seat in a lounge or on the outside deck, and is what the lead-in fares in the table above refer to. Air seat or numbered seat is a reserved place, usually worth the small premium on a crossing over four hours. Business and VIP buy you a quieter lounge. Cabins exist only on the overnight sailings to Crete and the north Aegean, and they are the first thing to sell out.

Booking Greek ferries: schedules, lead times and refund rules

When the timetables come out

Operators publish official summer schedules between February and March. Some routes appear six to eight months ahead, others only a couple of months before travel, and Ionian timetables are notoriously late, sometimes weeks before the season starts. If you are planning a July trip in November, you can shape the route but you cannot lock the boats yet. Sketch the itinerary, book flights and the first and last night of accommodation, then come back in March.

How far ahead to book

For June to September, book at least one to two months ahead, and sooner for high-speed sailings. What sells out first, in order: high-speed catamarans, cabins on overnight crossings, and vehicle spaces. Large conventional ferries have far more capacity and are the last to fill. The specific sailings that vanish fastest are the Friday and Saturday Piraeus departures to Santorini and Mykonos, which can fill within weeks of the schedules opening.

Outside high season, buying at least twenty-four hours ahead is enough on most routes, but allow ten days around Easter, Christmas and New Year, when Greeks are travelling to their home islands and tourists are not the constraint.

Refunds and changes, which is where the money hides

These rules are the difference between a cancelled ferry costing you nothing and costing you the fare. Blue Star Ferries, whose conditions are the clearest published in Greek shipping, works on this ladder in high season:

When you cancel	What you get back
14 or more days before departure	Full refund, or convert to an open ticket
Fewer than 14 days, down to 7 days before	75% refund, or convert to an open ticket
Fewer than 7 days, down to 12 hours before	50% refund, or convert to an open ticket
Inside 12 hours, up to departure	50% refund, no conversion
After departure	Nothing

Two mechanics matter alongside that. Only the agency that issued your ticket can invalidate it, and it cannot be done by phone, so if you booked through a platform you cancel through that platform. And Blue Star open tickets are valid for two years from issue, with the fare difference payable if you travel on a dearer date, which makes conversion a genuinely useful option rather than a fob-off.

SeaJets does not publish an equivalent ladder in a form I could confirm on its own site, so I am not going to invent one. Read the conditions at the point of purchase for any SeaJets sailing, because it is the operator you are most likely to be booked on for the fast crossings and the one whose catamarans cancel most often.

What the booking platforms charge

Platform	Booking fee	Cancellation fee	Change fee
Ferryhopper	None on ticket bookings	EUR 6 per booking, waived with FlexiCancel or Support Plus	EUR 6 per booking for support-handled changes, waived with the add-ons
Direct Ferries	Charged, calculated on booking value, shown only at the final step	GBP 10 / EUR 12 online, GBP 20 / EUR 25 offline	Fare difference plus GBP 10 / EUR 12, waived within 24 hours of booking
Ferryscanner	No fixed fee published; advertises the same price as booking direct	Free cancellation on most routes, shown per route at booking	Per route, shown at booking

My practical advice: use an aggregator to find the sailing, because comparing five operators’ own sites is miserable, then decide where to buy based on how likely you are to change. If your dates are firm, buy wherever is cheapest. Our Europe travel tips collects the equivalent booking rules for trains, buses and flights. If there is any chance of a change, Ferryhopper’s flat EUR 6 is the cleanest of the three, and the free-cancellation routes on Ferryscanner are worth checking.

Download your e-tickets before you leave for the port. Most major Greek operators support them, but boarding procedure varies by operator and port wifi is not something to rely on.

What a Greek island hopping itinerary costs in 2026

Two taxes changed the arithmetic recently, so start here.

The Climate Crisis Resilience Fee

This replaced the old stayover tax and it is charged per room per night, not per person, and collected when you check out. Rates depend on the type of accommodation and the season, and they have been in force since 1 January 2025 with no announced change for 2026.

Accommodation type	April to October	November to March
1 to 2 star hotel	EUR 2 per night	EUR 0.50 per night
3 star hotel	EUR 5 per night	EUR 1.50 per night
4 star hotel	EUR 10 per night	EUR 3 per night
5 star hotel	EUR 15 per night	EUR 4 per night
Furnished rooms and apartments	EUR 2 per night	EUR 0.50 per night
Short-term rentals (Airbnb type)	EUR 8 per night, or EUR 15 if a detached house over 80 sqm	EUR 2 per night, or EUR 4 if detached and over 80 sqm
Furnished tourist villas	EUR 15 per night	EUR 4 per night

On a ten-day trip in a four-star hotel that is EUR 100 you had not budgeted for, and on a short-term rental it is EUR 80. It is small money in the scheme of a Greek holiday, but it is cash on departure and it surprises people.

The cruise passenger levy, and why it affects you even if you are not on a cruise

A cruise levy came into force on 21 July 2025 and continues through 2026, payable by every cruise passenger disembarking at a Greek port. From 1 June to 30 September it is EUR 20 per person at Mykonos and Santorini and EUR 5 elsewhere. In April, May and October it is EUR 12 at those two islands and EUR 3 elsewhere. From 1 November to 31 March it is EUR 4 and EUR 1.

The reason this matters to an independent traveller is what it sits alongside. Santorini has a hard cap of 8,000 cruise passengers a day, and for 2026 the occupancy assumption used to count a ship against that cap rose from 80 per cent to 100 per cent, so a 3,000-berth ship now consumes 3,000 of the 8,000 slots rather than 2,400. Scheduled cruise arrivals for 2026 are down 18.27 per cent on 2025, at 595 ships against 728. In plain terms, Santorini in 2026 has meaningfully fewer cruise-day crowds than it did, and the caldera path in the late morning is less of a scrum than it was two years ago.

Mykonos has the levy but no daily cap, and cruise calls there have grown by roughly sixteen to seventeen per cent despite it. So the crowd relief is a Santorini story, not a Cyclades one.

Daily budgets and what rooms actually cost

Item	High season	Notes
Budget traveller, all in	EUR 65 to EUR 90 per day	Hostels or basic rooms, tavernas, conventional ferries
Mid-range traveller, all in	EUR 100 to EUR 200 per day	Accommodation, food and transport combined
Santorini and Mykonos rooms	EUR 150 to EUR 250 budget; EUR 200+ mid-range; EUR 300 to EUR 1,000+ luxury	The two most expensive islands in Greece
Paros and Naxos rooms	EUR 70 to EUR 120 mid-range	Roughly 40 to 60 per cent below Mykonos for comparable quality
Corfu rooms	EUR 50 to EUR 120 in town; EUR 120 to EUR 180 mid-range; EUR 250 to EUR 600+ beachfront	August is the dearest month
Hydra rooms	EUR 120 to EUR 350	Boutique-heavy, no budget tier to speak of
Folegandros rooms	Commonly EUR 70 to EUR 200	Small island, limited stock, and rates climb steeply in August
Mid-tier island rooms generally	EUR 40 to EUR 70 per room in peak season	Achievable on Naxos, Milos, Sifnos, Skopelos
Economy car rental	EUR 35 to EUR 55 per day	7+ day rentals typically unlock 10 to 20 per cent off
ATV or quad	EUR 25 to EUR 50 per day	See the licence warning below
Scooter	EUR 15 to EUR 35 per day	Paros 50 to 125cc around EUR 35 a day, falling to about EUR 23 on a week
Ferry tickets	Under EUR 10 to around EUR 100 per person	Depends on distance, operator and vessel type

The largest single lever on your budget is which islands you choose, not how you travel between them. Swapping Santorini and Mykonos for Naxos and Milos on a ten-day trip saves more than every ferry ticket you will buy. If cost is the main constraint, our Europe on a budget guide has the wider picture, and the Europe packing list will stop you buying things you already own.

The ATV and quad licence trap

Quad and ATV rental is everywhere in the Cyclades and the rules are genuinely murky. For the common 200 to 350cc tourist quads a full category B car licence is generally sufficient, because they are registered as light quadricycles rather than motorcycles. Quads under 125cc technically require an A1 motorcycle licence, which runs against every instinct you have. The requirement depends on engine size, power category and how the individual vehicle is registered, so it is not uniform across islands or operators.

What is uniform: a provisional licence is never accepted, for any engine size, on any island, with any operator. Non-EU visitors should carry an International Driving Permit alongside their national licence. The legal minimum age is 18 but most reputable operators want 23 or over with a year of licence held, especially on Santorini and Mykonos. Police checks do happen, notably on the Parikia to Naoussa road on Paros in August, and if you are driving outside your entitlement your rental insurance is void.

The meltemi, and what to do when your ferry is cancelled

The meltemi is a dry northerly wind that blows across the Aegean between June and September, strongest in July and August. It is the reason Greek island trips go wrong. It is also the reason the Cyclades are as clear and as bearable as they are in high summer, so it is not purely an enemy. See Europe weather by month for how the Aegean compares with the rest of the continent.

The Cyclades take the worst of it. Mykonos is literally the island of the winds, and Andros and Tinos are just as exposed, with Naxos and southern Crete also catching it. The Ionian barely feels it at all, which is one of the strongest arguments for that group if a cancelled boat would ruin your trip.

What gets cancelled follows a predictable order. Small high-speed vessels may stop from around Beaufort 7, a near gale of roughly 50 to 61 km per hour. Cancellations become common at Beaufort 8 and above, and most operators cancel from Beaufort 9. Large conventional ferries usually keep running when the catamarans do not, and SeaJets cancels more often than the others simply because its fleet is mostly catamarans. The most exposed leg on the popular routes is Santorini to Mykonos, which crosses the open central Cyclades and is delayed or cancelled at wind strengths well below those that stop the other sailings.

Six things that reduce the damage:

• Book the earliest sailing of the day. Wind typically builds through the afternoon, and an early boat that gets cancelled still leaves you later options.
• Prefer conventional ferries on any leg you cannot afford to lose. Particularly your last hop before a flight.
• Never take a ferry back to Athens on the day of an international flight. This is the rule I would tattoo on people. Overnight in Athens, or fly out from your last island.
• Build a slack day into any trip of ten days or more. Put it on the island you would least mind an extra night on.
• Route via Paros when you need optionality. More lines pass through it than anywhere else in the Aegean, so it has more escape routes.
• Watch September and October. Winds pick up considerably in the shoulder season, which is otherwise the best time to go. Do not book tight connections then. Our shoulder season Europe guide covers the trade-off.

If a sailing is cancelled by the operator you are entitled to a refund or a rebooking, but the practical outcome is that everyone on that boat is now competing for the same seats on the next one. Get on the phone or the app immediately rather than joining the queue at the port office.

Ferry or fly between the islands?

Flying looks tempting on paper and is usually the worse call. Direct flights between islands are limited and many of them route through Athens, which turns a two-hour ferry into a five-hour day. Within an island group the ferry is almost always the better answer.

Where flying earns its keep is at the ends of the trip. Fly into one end of your route and home from the other. Mykonos, Santorini, Heraklion, Chania, Rhodes, Corfu, Kos, Zakynthos, Skiathos and Kefalonia all take direct European flights in summer, roughly late April to late October, which makes open-jaw routing easy. Athens to Naxos is a useful exception at forty to forty-five minutes and roughly 147 weekly flights as of September 2026, flown by Aegean, Olympic Air and SKY express.

Island	Airport	Direct international flights in summer?
Santorini	JTR	Yes
Mykonos	JMK	Yes
Crete (Heraklion / Chania)	HER / CHQ	Yes
Rhodes	RHO	Yes
Kos	KGS	Yes
Corfu	CFU	Yes
Zakynthos	ZTH	Yes
Kefalonia	EFL	Yes
Skiathos	JSI	Yes
Paros	PAS	No, domestic from Athens only
Naxos	JNX	No, domestic only, year-round from Athens
Milos	MLO	No, domestic only
Syros	JSY	No, domestic only
Astypalaia, Ikaria, Karpathos, Leros, Kalymnos, Chios	Various	No, domestic only from Athens or Thessaloniki

One timing note if you are flying out. Allow around thirty-five to forty minutes from central Athens to the airport plus at least an hour for check-in, more in summer. Piraeus to central Athens is another twenty to twenty-five minutes on top. If trains rather than boats are your thing elsewhere in Europe, see train travel in Europe.

Do you need a car on each island?

Renting on every island is expensive and mostly unnecessary. Rental companies also vary on whether you may take their car on a ferry, and some prohibit it outright or require advance permission, so renting separately on each island is usually simpler than moving one car around.

Island	Car worth it?	Why
Naxos	Yes	Big, mountainous, the best of it is inland
Milos	Yes	Beaches scattered around a wide coastline
Crete	Yes, essential	The size of a small country
Rhodes	Yes	Lindos and the west coast are a long way from the old town
Kos	Optional	Flat and excellent for cycling instead
Paxos	No	Three villages and one road; a scooter is plenty
Corfu, Kefalonia, Zakynthos	Yes	Ionian public transport is thin
Skopelos	Yes	Beaches and villages spread along one long road
Paros	Optional	Good bus network between the main towns
Santorini	No	Buses, taxis and tours cover it; parking in Oia is a nightmare
Mykonos	No	Buses and taxis to the beaches work fine
Folegandros	No	Small enough to walk and bus
Hydra	Impossible	No private cars exist on the island

Swaps: if you like the famous one, try this instead

Every route above can be rebuilt cheaper or quieter with one substitution. These are the swaps I actually make.

Instead of	Try	What you gain	What you give up
Mykonos	Paros	Similar Cycladic town in Naoussa, far better ferry connections, roughly 40 to 60 per cent less per room	The nightlife, and Delos on the doorstep
Santorini	Folegandros	The same cliff-edge drama with a fraction of the people, and very cheap ferry links	The caldera itself, and the restaurant scene
Santorini	Milos	Volcanic landscape, 70-plus beaches, better value	The sunset view everyone came for
Ios	Naxos	Better food, mountains, family-friendly, more to do beyond the beach	The party scene
Corfu	Paxos	Tiny, olive-covered, and connected up to thirteen times a day in summer	An airport, and Corfu Town’s Venetian core
Rhodes	Symi	The most beautiful harbour arrival in the Dodecanese	Beaches, and enough to fill four days
The Cyclades entirely	The Sporades	Pine forest, a marine park, five-minute hops, almost no crowds	The white-and-blue look
Any island trip in August	The same trip in June or late September	Full ferry schedules, warm sea, noticeably fewer people, lower rates	Guaranteed heat, and some late-season sailings

Which route suits which traveller

• First time in Greece, one week: Route 2, the Classic Cyclades. Short hops, dense ferries, a good build.
• Honeymoon: Route 3, the Postcard Run, or Route 4 if you would rather be alone than photographed. Our Europe honeymoon guide has more.
• Families with young children: Route 7, the Ionian, or Route 8, the Sporades. Calmer water, shorter crossings, greener islands, and more shade. See Europe with kids.
• Solo travellers: Route 2 or Route 9. The Cyclades have the hostel infrastructure and the social scene; the western line does not. See solo travel in Europe.
• On a budget: Route 9 without Santorini, or Route 8. Conventional ferries, mid-tier islands, rooms at EUR 40 to EUR 70. Also read backpacking Europe and the best places to visit in Europe in summer.
• History and ruins: Route 6, the Dodecanese, or Route 5 for Knossos and Akrotiri in one trip.
• Walkers: Route 4. Milos and Folegandros both have real coastal paths, and the Fira to Oia caldera walk finishes the trip. See hiking in Europe.
• Five days or fewer: Route 1, the Saronic Sampler. It is the only one that works at that length.
• Second or third Greek trip: Route 4 or Route 8. Both are what people move on to once the Cyclades headline islands are done.

Nine mistakes that wreck Greek island trips

1. Too many islands. The most common error by a distance. Each change costs most of a day. Three islands in ten days is a good trip; six is a logistics exercise.
2. Ferrying to Athens on the day of your flight home. One cancellation and you have missed an intercontinental flight. Fly from your last island, or sleep in Athens the night before.
3. Assuming a map distance means a ferry route. The Cyclades and the Saronic islands have no direct connections. Neither does Athens and the Ionian. The network is spokes, not a web.
4. Going to the wrong Athens port. Piraeus, Rafina and Lavrio are an hour apart in traffic. Check the ticket the night before.
5. Arriving at Piraeus twenty minutes before sailing. The gates are spread around a working commercial port. Give yourself forty-five to sixty minutes, or ninety with a vehicle.
6. Booking the fastest catamaran on every leg. You pay several times the fare for an hour saved and take on far more cancellation risk.
7. Planning island day trips. Greek ferry timetables are built for transport, not sightseeing, and the return sailing usually lands too late or not at all. There are three dependable exceptions and you will find them in the FAQ below.
8. Turning up on a small island with no cash. Folegandros, Lipsi and Kasos may have a single ATM, and it can run out. Taxis often want cash anyway.
9. Booking a July trip in November and expecting locked schedules. The timetables are not out yet. Shape the route, book the flights, return in March for the boats.

Entry rules for 2026

Two changes at the Schengen border affect non-EU travellers. The EU Entry/Exit System began a progressive rollout on 12 October 2025 and became fully operational on 10 April 2026. It registers your name, travel document, fingerprints, facial image and entry and exit at the external borders of 29 European countries, which in practice means a slower first crossing and faster subsequent ones. Member states may partially suspend it in exceptional circumstances at peak travel times later in 2026.

ETIAS, the pre-travel authorisation, is not yet live and, as of late September 2026, has no start date. It was pencilled in for the last quarter of 2026, but the EU’s official ETIAS pages now say only that the date will be announced several months before launch, and trade reports point to 2027. It is an authorisation, not a visa. Our Schengen visa and ETIAS guide tracks both, and the first-time Europe itinerary covers the rest of the paperwork.

I found no new-for-2026 Greek ferry regulation or port fee.

Final thoughts

The best Greek island hopping itinerary is almost always shorter than the one you first sketch. Pick one group. Take three islands if you have ten days, four if you have fourteen. Put the famous island last, not first, so the trip builds. Book the early boat, prefer the slow one on the legs that matter, and leave a day of slack somewhere you would not mind being stuck.

If you would rather widen the net beyond the islands first, our roundup of the top places to visit in Greece covers the mainland sites too. Do that and the ferries stop being the stressful part of the trip and become the good part: standing on the back deck with a coffee at seven in the morning, watching a bare brown island get slowly bigger, with the whole day ahead of you. That is the thing people come back for, and no timetable can schedule it.

If Greece is one leg of a longer trip, our Italy and Greece itinerary joins the two, and the best Mediterranean destinations guide sets Greece against its neighbours. For a wider shortlist, try the best places to visit in Europe and the best countries to visit in Europe.

Hannah Brooks has spent fifteen years travelling, living and writing across Europe, from the Arctic tip of Norway to the south of Sicily. She has planned hundreds of European itineraries for readers and is Senior Europe Editor at EuropeanTourism.org.

Photo credits

All photographs are used under the licences shown. Thank you to the photographers.

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