Tranportation from Athens to Crete. What islands are we missing?

10 hours by ferry sounds about right, but there is some variation based on whether it is a direct route or the one that makes a half dozen stops and whether it is an older ferry or a higher speed catamaran. Some are also overnight ferries, slow, but your sleeping. There are a couple of routes to Santorini, the most popular includes Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, and several other small islands. My personal preference would be to break up the trip down into 3 or 4 hour ferry segments, say Athens-Mykonos-Santorini-Crete and then fly back to Athens on Aegean Air...If you want, reverse the itinerary.

Please help with itinerary. Mom and 2 older teenagers We have about 8-9 days in Greece. We are flying into Athens from Italy and then out of Athens after being gone for one month. So if we arrive in Athens at 3 pm. should we do the overnight ferry from Athens to Crete? What is the cost on that with 3 people and I guess it leaves around 9pm to Crete? We arrive on August 15 into Athens. How many days in Crete, Santorini and then are we missing anywhere else? Then we are flying back to the US on Aug. 23 at about 6 pm. Thanks for your help.

There are basically 3 ways to get between the islands in Greece: Olympic Air, http://www.olympicairlines.com, Aegean Air, www.aegeanair.com, and a ferry. There are numerous ferry companies with a variety of schedules. We used Paleologos Travel, www.ferries.gr, for booking our ferry tickets. They provided us with very good service. If you are flying into Athens, I would suggest looking into just flying to Crete, as long as you are at the airport already. As to your question about anywhere else to go, Athens, Create, and Santorini are plenty for 8-9 days.

I agree with Rick. I flew from Athens to a Greek island. If you fly from Italy to Athens, when you arrive at Athens airport, fly from there to Crete.
If you will be in Greece for eight (8) whole days, I recommend : be at Crete for four (4) whole days. (Five nights). A day for riding in boat from Crete to Santorini. Be at Santorini one whole day (2 nights). A day for riding in boat from Santorini to port of Piraeus, and ride in train to Athens. One whole day (2 nights) in Athens.

Hey Ron,Thanks for your help. I already booked a cheap flight by Aegean Airlines from Athens to Crete.Not bad for $50 per person. Now, how long does it take to get from Crete to Santorini and from Santorini to Athens. Do you know what the costs are on those ferry trips? Do you know what time of the day they leave and do ferries leave from Chania and Herikion Crete?

Toni - Check out the ferry booking service I previously mentioned, www.ferries.gr. When I was looking at the schedules last year, it seemed that there were more ferries from Heraklion than Chania. But you can get ferries out of Chania. Be aware that Heraklion also has another English spelling, something like Iraklion. I see that Paleologos has it spelled Heraklio (not everything in Greek translates 100% to English). Which is not to be confused with the island that has a spelling of something like Iraklio. Sorry about the inexact spellings, but I don't have any reference material handy at the moment. As to getting from Santorini to Athens, try checking the afore-mentioned airlines also. I know that there are quite a few such flight per day.