Hi!

We're planning a Greek vacation to the islands September 2007. There are a lot of islands that sound like we would love to visit. How do you choose? I have a list of the ones I think we'd like to see, but I'm not sure if it would work. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

1 night in Athens to see the major attractions then, Naxos, Antiparos, Rhodes, and Karpathos? We also wanted to do crete, but we only have 2 weeks. I'd like to spend at least 3 days on each island, Will this work or will it be a headache with long ferries and flights? I haven't went into detail about the ferry or flight schedule to each of the islands yet. I decided to take Crete out because we'd need a week there alone.

Thank you!

How to choose a Greek Island, an interesting question. When we were faced with this my wife and I each researched the various islands independently and then we came together to discuss our findings. It turns out we both picked the same island. That was Naxos. The primary reasons. Although it has lots of tourists the economy is not based on tourism. It is an agricultural island with a full time population. We wanted to meet Greeks who lived there full time.
Naxos has villiages, beaches, antiquities, dining and shopping and is not overwhelmed by tourists. Thats how we chose and we have been back 6 times since then.
I commend you for deciding to spend 3 nights at each island. Many people try to do too much and end up seeing a lot and experiencing nothing of Greek life.

Travel between islands can take a lot of time. For instance on one trip we stayed in Paros which is only a couple of miles from Naxos. It took us most of the day to change islands. First we had to check out of our hotel after breakfast and take a bus to the port. We explored for a while and caught a noon ferrry to Naxos. An hour and a half later we arrived in Naxos and it took us another hour to get into our hotel. By the time we were settled it was 3 oclck and most of the day was shot. It can be just as bad flying as there are no inter island flights. To get from Naxos to Rhodes you have to fly back to Athens and take another flight to Rhodes. Your plan is possible but be sure ot research transportation before you start making final decisions. Have fun.

We spent a month in Greece in 2002. You are correct - you definitely need a week for Crete!

Make sure you are back in Athens at least 24 hours before your flight home. Ferry schedules are dependent to a great degree on the weather and can be cancelled. Also, they do not necessarily run every day from point A to point B.

We were going to take the ferry from Mykinos to Santorini, only to discover no such ferry existed! As things turned out, we ended up spending a couple of delightful days in Naxos because of the ferry schedules. I loved Naxos and two days wasn't long enough there. Our trip to Mykinos was primarily to see Delos and two days was more then sufficient.

If you are planning on taking ferries, you need to have some flexibility. We started out by flying from Athens to Rhodes, Rhodes to Crete (to save on time) and then took ferries back to Athens stopping at a few islands on the way. Also, the ferries leave on time and you can't stop off at an island on the way unless you are getting off.

Probably the most difficult island to fit into your itinerary will be Karpathos. To be honest, I wasn't even sure exactly where it was until checking my Greek Island Hopping Guide. I applaud you for shunning the well beaten tourist track of Santorini-Mykonos, but you will have to plan carefully to avoid spending half of your holiday getting to and from Karpathos.

One way would be to fly. Olympic has flights to Karpathos, but not Aegean. There seems to one or two ferries per week between Karpathos and Rhodes, so that would be another possibility. The problem would then be to fit in the Cyclades along with those two Dodecanese islands.

Recommend you stick with one island group, either Dodecanese or Cyclades, and save Athens for the end of the trip just in case of ferry/flight delays.

Thank you for the suggestions! Your answers are what I was thinking in my head anyway, but I always hold out hope that it might work out. My huband and I like to travel to places out of the way and we don't like to follow the crowds to the usual places. I'll work on the itinery a bit and do some more research.

Thanks again!

Dixieland, I wan't trying to discourage you from visiting Karpathos. Greek Island Hopping describes it as "an appealing destination if you are looking for a quiet, relatively unspoilt Greek island..."

Another post on Karpathos appeared the same day as yours, which aroused my curiousity. Olympic Airlines has flights to Karpathos with a connection at Rhodes, so it would be easy to do those two islands together. You could maybe fit in another destination like Patmos, which would give you three very different islands in one trip.

Should you choose the Cyclades, Antiparos is my favourite island, with Naxos a distant second. That's not because Antiparos has more to do - just the opposite in fact. I love the relaxed laid-back atmosphere of Antiparos, which has good beaches and restaurants. If you still want to visit an out of the way island, you could pick one of the Little Cyclades (eg Koufonissia), or Amorgos, which have ferry connections with Naxos. Don't leave the out of the way island until last, though. You don't want to miss your flight home.

I leave for Rhodes on July 8, sweetie darling. I will post a trip report when I return.

My trip report will probably become another legend on Fodors.

The Great and Powerful Thingorjus.

bookmarqued

Karpathos is one of my favourite islands. If it is your first time to Greece it is hard to put aside the more popular ones but you would not regret it.


http://www.uk.digiserve.com/mentor/k...os/scenery.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/2252/karpatho.html