Knights’ fortresses in the Dodecanese, Venetian towns in the green Ionian, car-free harbors near Athens and volcanic coves in the western Cyclades: our advisor’s guide to choosing the right islands.
Photo: Apostolos Zafeiriou / Unsplash
Greece has more than two hundred inhabited islands, and they are far from interchangeable. The Cyclades are dry, windswept and whitewashed; the Dodecanese, close to the Turkish coast, carry the stamp of medieval knights and an Italian interlude in the twentieth century; the Ionian islands off the west coast are green with olive and cypress and were ruled by Venice for centuries. Choosing a group that suits your style, then exploring it in depth, is the secret to an island trip that feels relaxed rather than rushed.
Our main Greece guide covers Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Crete and the mainland classics. This guide picks up where it leaves off, with the islands our clients most often ask about next: Rhodes, Symi and Patmos in the Dodecanese; Corfu, Kefalonia and Zakynthos in the Ionian; Hydra and Spetses, an easy hop from Athens; and Milos and Folegandros, the Cyclades for travelers who have already seen the famous caldera.
Our take: Late May, June and September give you the warm water, open tavernas and reliable ferries without the August crush.
Ferries run mostly within island groups, and connections between groups often route back through Athens or Piraeus. There are no practical ferry links between the Ionian and the Aegean at all, so combining Corfu with Rhodes means a flight. For a week, we suggest one group with two or three islands; for two weeks, two groups linked by a flight and a night in Athens.
Conventional ferries are slower but more comfortable in wind, while high-speed catamarans cut journey times in calm weather. Sailings are run by private companies under the oversight of the Greek coast guard, which can keep boats in port when the wind is too strong. Schedules for the summer season are usually published in spring, and the most popular routes sell out in August. We arrange tickets and private transfers so you never have to worry about the port.
A crewed yacht is the most relaxed way to see the Saronic, the Ionian or the Dodecanese, anchoring in coves that ferries never visit. The Ionian is especially popular for first-time sailors because of its gentle afternoon breezes and short hops between harbors.
Getting there: Seasonal nonstop flights connect several US cities with Athens, and many travelers connect through European hubs. From Athens, short domestic flights reach Rhodes, Kos, Corfu, Kefalonia, Zakynthos and Milos, and ferries leave from Piraeus, Rafina and Lavrio. U.S. citizens may stay in Greece, part of the Schengen area, for up to 90 days in any 180 without a visa, and State Department guidance is to carry a passport valid at least three months past your Schengen departure date. Expect fingerprints and a photo to be taken under the EU’s Entry/Exit System the first time you enter the Schengen zone. ETIAS, the authorization the EU plans to require of visa-exempt visitors, has not started, so no application is needed yet.
Travel advisory: As of October 2026, the U.S. State Department rates Greece at Level 1, “Exercise Normal Precautions,” its lowest level (issued October 23, 2025). The advisory notes that petty crime is common in popular tourist areas and that large demonstrations can occur with little notice and disrupt transportation. No part of Greece is rated higher. Review the full advisory on travel.state.gov and sign up for STEP before you travel.
On Hydra, Symi and Spetses, stone mansions built by nineteenth-century sea captains and merchants have become boutique hotels with courtyards, high ceilings and harbor views.
Inside the walls of Rhodes Town and in Corfu’s Venetian lanes, small hotels occupy restored medieval and Venetian buildings, putting you steps from the evening stroll.
On Milos and Folegandros, whitewashed suites with private terraces look straight down to the sea, often with plunge pools carved into the rock.
Corfu, Kefalonia, Zakynthos and Rhodes have the islands’ widest choice of family resorts and private villas with pools, ideal for multigenerational groups.
Advisor tip: Booking with us as Fora advisors often brings extra perks at select island hotels, such as daily breakfast, a property credit or an upgrade when available.
The Knights of Saint John ruled Rhodes from 1309 until the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent took the island after a long siege in 1522, and they left behind one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Inside its massive walls, the Street of the Knights is lined with the inns where knights from different European homelands lodged, climbing to the Palace of the Grand Master, which was heavily restored during the Italian period of the 1930s. Below the walls, the old harbor is where the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, is thought to have stood.
An hour’s drive down the east coast, Lindos is pictured here: a tumble of white houses beneath an acropolis where the Temple of Athena Lindia shares the summit with the knights’ fortifications. Climb early, before the heat and the day-trippers, then wander lanes of captains’ houses with pebble-mosaic courtyards and swim in the small, almost enclosed St. Paul’s Bay. Rhodes is large and varied, with quiet villages in the hilly interior and wine from the slopes of Mount Attavyros. Standout experience: A private early-evening walk along the medieval walls and moat with a historian.
Photo: JOGphotos / Unsplash
Sailing into Gialos, Symi’s harbor, is one of the great arrivals in the Aegean. Rows of neoclassical houses in ochre, rose and cream rise up the hillsides, built in the nineteenth century when the island prospered from shipbuilding and sponge diving. A long stone stairway called the Kali Strata climbs from the harbor to the upper village of Chorio, rewarding the effort with sweeping views. In May 1945, the German surrender of the Dodecanese was signed on Symi, and a plaque by the harbor marks the event.
Most visitors arrive on day boats from Rhodes and leave by late afternoon, which is exactly why staying a night or two is worthwhile. Once the boats leave, the harbor belongs to the locals and the tavernas serving tiny Symi shrimp, fried crisp and eaten whole. On the island’s southern tip, the Monastery of the Archangel Michael at Panormitis is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Dodecanese, and water taxis reach pebble coves that cannot be reached by road. Standout experience: Dinner on the harbor after the day boats have gone, watching the lights come on up the hillside.
Photo: Dimitris Kiriakakis / Unsplash
Patmos is a small island with a large place in Christian history. According to tradition, Saint John wrote the Book of Revelation here, in a cave now enclosed by a chapel halfway up the hill from the harbor at Skala. Above it, the fortified Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, founded in 1088, crowns the white village of Chora, and its treasury and library hold icons, manuscripts and imperial decrees from the Byzantine era. Together the monastery, cave and old town are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Patmos has no airport, which helps keep it peaceful; most travelers arrive by ferry from Piraeus or by fast boat from nearby Kos, Leros or Samos. Chora’s lanes of captains’ mansions are wonderful to wander at dusk, and the island’s beaches range from the sandy, tree-shaded Psili Ammos, reached on foot or by boat, to the colorful pebbles of Lambi. Easter here is deeply moving, with the ceremony of the washing of the feet in Chora on Holy Thursday. Dress modestly for the monastery and cave, and check opening hours, which are shorter than at most sites. Standout experience: Sunset from the windmills above Chora, looking across to the neighboring islands.
Photo: Robert Koorenny / Unsplash
Corfu Town is unlike anywhere else in Greece. Venice ruled the island for four centuries and the Ottomans never took it, so the old town, inscribed by UNESCO in 2007, is a maze of Venetian lanes and pastel facades between two great fortresses. The French left the arcaded Liston promenade, modeled on Paris’s Rue de Rivoli, and the British, who governed from 1815 until the island joined Greece in 1864, left a governor’s palace and a cricket ground on the vast Spianada square, where matches are still played. On Holy Saturday, residents hurl clay pots from their balconies in one of Greece’s most exuberant Easter customs.
Beyond the town, Corfu is green and mountainous, with olive groves planted under Venetian rule still covering much of the island. The northeast coast, where the writer Lawrence Durrell lived in the 1930s, has small coves and views across a narrow strait to Albania, while Paleokastritsa on the west coast is known for its monastery and turquoise bays. Corfiot cooking reflects its Venetian past: try pastitsada, beef or rooster braised in spiced tomato sauce over pasta, and sofrito, veal in garlic and wine. Standout experience: A private boat day along the northeast coast, stopping in fishing villages for lunch.
Photo: Michel Struharova / Unsplash
Kefalonia, the largest of the Ionian islands, is wilder and more mountainous than Corfu. A powerful earthquake in 1953 destroyed most of its villages, sparing only the north around Fiskardo, which still has its Venetian-era houses. Myrtos Beach, pictured here, is the island’s signature view, a curve of white pebbles and impossibly blue water beneath steep cliffs. Nearby, the tiny village of Assos sits on an isthmus below the ruins of a Venetian castle. Mount Ainos, at the island’s center, is a national park covered in a fir species found only in Greece.
Below ground, Melissani is a cave lake whose roof collapsed long ago; around midday, sunlight pours in and turns the water an electric blue as boatmen row you across. Kefalonia’s own white grape, Robola, makes crisp, lemony wines in the mountain vineyards of the Omala valley. Neighboring Ithaca, the legendary home of Odysseus, is a short ferry ride away, and to the south, Zakynthos is famous for the Shipwreck Beach, seen from the clifftop or by boat, and for the loggerhead turtles that nest in protected Laganas Bay. Standout experience: Rowing across Melissani in the midday light, then a tasting of Robola.
Photo: George Prentzas / Unsplash
Hydra is one of the easiest island escapes from Athens, reached by fast boat from Piraeus, and one of the most distinctive. Cars and motorbikes are banned, so donkeys, mules and water taxis do the work, and the only sounds in the harbor are bells, boat engines and conversation. The grey stone mansions rising around the port were built by ship-owning families whose fleet played a major role in the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Artists and writers have loved the island for decades; the singer Leonard Cohen bought a house here in 1960, and summer art exhibitions still draw visitors from Athens.
There are few sandy beaches, so swimming happens off rocks and platforms along the coastal path to Kamini and Vlychos, or by water taxi to coves farther along the coast. Neighboring Spetses, greener and covered in pine, honors its own revolutionary heroine, Laskarina Bouboulina, whose family mansion is now a museum, and each September it celebrates the Armata, re-enacting a naval victory of 1822 with fireworks and the burning of a replica ship. Both islands work well as a first or last stop near Athens. Standout experience: An evening walk along Hydra’s waterfront path to Kamini for dinner by the sea.
Photo: Despina Galani / Unsplash
Milos is a volcanic island, and its coastline shows it: cliffs streaked red, yellow and white, and coves carved from soft volcanic rock. Sarakiniko’s bone-white, wave-sculpted rocks look almost lunar, and the sea caves and stacks of Kleftiko, shown at the top of this guide, are best reached by boat. In the fishing village of Klima, pictured here, colorful syrmata, the traditional boathouses with living quarters above, sit right at the water’s edge. The famous Venus de Milo was found by a farmer near the village of Plaka in 1820 and now stands in the Louvre.
Plaka, the hilltop capital, is the place for sunset, and below it are early Christian catacombs among the largest in Greece. Mining has shaped Milos since antiquity, when obsidian from here was traded across the Aegean, and minerals are still quarried today. With dozens of beaches facing every direction, there is almost always a sheltered one when the wind blows. Milos pairs well with Folegandros, a smaller, steeper island a short sail away, where the cliff-edge Kastro quarter of Chora is built so that the outer walls of its houses form the fortification itself. Standout experience: A full-day boat trip around Milos, swimming at Kleftiko and coves only reachable from the sea.
Photo: Despina Galani / Unsplash
Santorini’s caldera and Mykonos’s beach-club energy remain bucket-list draws, and both connect easily by ferry with Milos and Folegandros. For details on both, see our Greece guide.
Every island has its own table. In the Dodecanese, try pitaroudia, chickpea fritters from Rhodes, and Symi’s tiny shrimp; in the Ionian, Venetian-influenced dishes such as pastitsada and bourdeto, a peppery fish stew; and in the Cyclades, local cheeses, capers and slow-cooked goat. Island festivals called panigyria, held on saints’ days mostly in summer, bring whole villages together for food, wine and traditional music late into the night, and visitors are often welcome to join.
As of October 2026, the U.S. State Department rates Greece at Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions (issued October 23, 2025), its lowest level. Petty crime in tourist areas and occasional demonstrations are the main cautions. See travel.state.gov for the current advisory, and enroll in STEP.
Two, or three at most, within the same group. Each move costs half a day or more.
Corfu, Kefalonia and Rhodes have the widest range of sandy beaches, villas and family resorts.
Yes, but by air. There are no practical ferries between the two seas, so plan a flight through Athens.
Hydra bans cars and motorbikes, and Spetses limits cars in its main town.
Year-round on main routes, with the fullest timetables from late May to late September.
The right island group, the ferry and flight connections that make it flow and the harbor-view rooms that go first are what make a Greek islands trip great. As Fora travel advisors with IATAN accreditation and Virtuoso affiliations, we’ll choose the islands and hotels that fit your style, seek out added amenities at select properties and take care of every connection, from ferry tickets to private boat days.
Novera Travel will be happy to arrange your international flights when you’re traveling first class.
Call +1 33 22 NOVERA – +1 (332) 266-8372 or email info@noveratravel.com
