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Island Hopping Cyclades

Help! I need advise please!

I've never been to Greece before, but will be leaving from Lisbon mid July- to explore Greece by myself for 3-4 weeks, then off to Dubrovnik afterwards.

If I'm flying into Athens, I'm thinking to explore in this order: Mykonos, Delos,Sifnos, Paros, Naxos, Folegandros, Santorini, and Crete.
Or should I fly in to Crete, and travel the reverse order?

I'm thinking to book Airbnb places to stay, is this a good idea?

I'm finding this a daunting task, as I have limited travel experience. I've thought about doing this through a tour, although the singles supplement is very expensive. Btw, could anyone recommend local tour companies?

Appreciate any insights!

Posted by
8050 posts

You probably need to find a good site for Ferry schedules. As an example, you can easily get from Athens to Mykonos, a day trip to Delos from Mykonos (no staying on Delos), but Mykonos to Sifnos is a hard ferry plan. You can get to Paros easily, but may have to spend a day or two in Paros to get to Sifnos. Then, maybe get back to Paros, but wait a day or two to get to Naxos. From Naxos, Folegandros is again a "can't get there from here" situation, but you can get to Santorini. You can also get to Folegandros from Santorini, but not from Folegandros to Crete, but you can from Santorini to Crete. All that adds days and if ferry schedules do not link up, more days. No organized tour will do the schedule you want in the time you have.

Basically, ferries run specific schedules or lines like trains. You can be standing on one island in Greece, see another island, but no connection other than heading back to Athens(Piraeus) or mashing ferry schedules.

Since your experience is limited, maybe contact a travel agent in Greece, explain what you want to do, and then hand it over to them, just be prepared to drop 2-3 destinations.

Posted by
3397 posts

Did you look at a map? Sequence makes little sense... Sifnos is the outlier, hard to make connections because it's in the WESTRN Cyclades. The most time-efficient sequence would be:

• FLY to CHANIA (Western Crete)... devote at least 5 days to Crete ending in Heraklion
• 9:30 AM ferry to SANTORINI - limit to 48 hours, for the"famous View" - try to time it for F-S-S, Weekdays are cruise-ship Hell
• daily ferries to FOLEGANDROS -- beautiful CHORA where u want to stay, 3 days is plenty...
• In July - daily 11:30 ferry to NAXOS - convenient but small ferry, bouncy ride; W & Su a large stable ferry 12:30
• Many daily ferries Naxos- PAROS (1 hr)
• MYKONOS??? VERY overpriced/crowded in High season. Consider a day-excursion from PAROS that takes you to both Mykonos AND Delos & gets you back to PAROS to enjoy the sunset.
• from PAROS, the BEST & Fastest & most STABLE daily ferry is 18:25 -19;15... a car-carrying catamaran, heavier more stable.
• once on SIFNOS, many options for return to mainland.

You won't have to buy tickets for any of these online before y our trip -- when u get to an island just buy tickets at an agency for the next "hop". Only one that MAY be in demand in High season is Heraklion - Santorini... only 2 per day, high demand. If you buy when you arrive in Crete, for 5 days hence, should be fine.

You can do it on your own IF willing to put in time & effort. In High Season, on a budget, you are going to have to strategize for lodgings --- Go to booking.com for each destination, plug in your desired dates (i.e. CHANIA July 15 - 18). a list of places will pop up. But look in upper RH corner & click on a box labeled "map view". All places available thru booking will show on a town map as Blue Balloons. Red centers mean fully booked for your dates; white centers still have rooms. when you touch a balloon, you see room rate. In July, you don't have luxury of waiting til you get to a place... you MUST book ahead. Yes, you CAN do AirBnB & can proably get better rates... but Booking.com will give you an "educ ation" as to what the going rates are, and what the good locations are. Otherwise you're a babe in the woods. GOOD LUCK!

NOTE: If you are limited in travel experience and plan a MONTH in Greece I hope to Hxll you are investing in a good Guide Book - NOW. I cannot imagine how someone can plan to spend thousands and thousands on a major trip, and still not invest $20 for a reliable guide book. You cannot do a D-I-Y without experience just using a smart-phone! For you, probably lonely Planet Greek Isles is the best most compact one. Buy it today.