Island Hopping in Greece
There are many ways to experience Greece. Hitting the ancient sites, sailing the islands, or just getting a ferry to the closest island and exploring. The first part of our trip, we decided island hopping by ferry was the adventurous (and more economical) way to go!
In Greece there isn’t a right or wrong island to go to. In fact, there are so many it just makes sense to find a logical path through the islands, with regular ferry service and just go! This is in fact what we did.
Our trip began on the largest of all Greek islands, the island of Crete … I’ll leave this one alone as we spent an amazing three weeks there and it’s worth a post of its own! Crete is the furthest south from the mainland so in our case we could only head north! The logical stop off point for us was the beautiful, often honeymooner island of Santorini...but as we aren’t honeymooners nor was it within our budget, we ferried straight on by to the gorgeous island of Paros. (By the way, we were going to go back because, well, it’s Santorini and you can hardly go to Greece without at least an evening in Santorini but we were detoured by the once in 45 year occurrence of a "medicane" — think hurricane in the Mediterranean). So, Paros … quaint, beautiful, calm, safe, gorgeous, Paros. It has everything you need — stunning beaches, a few painless hikes, a touch of ancient ruins, an ancient marble quarry. It’s about as perfect as one can get. It’s worth a few days if you have them.
There were many options from here. We chose the tiny island of Ios. We were after secluded beaches and beautiful waters and for sure, that’s what we found. To get to the beat of the best on Ios it’s necessary to rent a boat for the day. We weren’t quite brave enough to set sail solo (although it is an option) but our skipper was fantastic — it was perhaps the best money we spent in our two weeks of island hopping. There isn’t tons more to do other than some partying … which we left for those without families and we were quite content with what we saw, even after having to cut our trip short and head to the mainland before evacuations began!
If I had advice for a family trip to Greece and its islands I’d say choose a geographic region … it will save time and money, allowing you more time to enjoy and less time traveling. Whether you choose the Ionian, Cyclades, Dodecanese, Sporades, Saronic or Eastern Aegean islands you’re sure to be happy and you’ll only realize what you’ve missed out on during your next trip to your next set of islands in the gorgeous Mediterranean Sea!
