Hello All,
Here are some tips regarding transportation from our recent first-time trip to Greece:
- Planning: When choosing how many stops to fit into your trip, bear in mind that transportation between sites often takes ½ day or more. So 2 days in a town is actually 1.5 days. Minimizing short stays typically increases enjoyability.
- To/From Airport: Shuttles from airport to hotel are easy to find and are a good option for those with long travel itineraries…figuring out public transport in a foreign country when you’ve been awake 24+ hours is not the best. We were unable to find shuttle back to airport at cheaper rate than taxi in Athens. Taxis cost significantly more in middle of night. Metro can take you to Athens airport during day; bus from Syntagma Square (6 euro pp) runs 24/7 and was easy.
- Getting to islands: boat takes longer than we expected from Athens (e.g. 8 hrs to Santorini). Flying to furthest island, then making your way back to Athens on ferries = good option. Depending on time of day, flight can be super cheap ($50) or expensive ($200) plus extra charges for lots of luggage – IMHO, worth it to not lose a whole day in transport. Would have preferred to do islands last to decompress before heading home, but was warned that ferries/flights can get cancelled, causing risk of missing flight back to US, so followed suggestion to do islands first/end in Athens. We tacked on flight to islands at the end of our US-to-Greece travel day, getting it all over with at once. We chose a flight scheduled to depart for islands a few hours after landing in Athens and paid more for the flexible ticket in case our flight from US was cancelled/delayed.
- Ferries: Easy to move within an island group, not so easy to try to move between island groups. Blue Star ferries are the huge, reliable, comfortable ferries that are minimally affected by weather – trade-off is that they’re slower. There are a variety of higher-speed ferries, but trade-off is that they can’t handle weather in the same way. This can = seasickness, rough ride, cancelled trips, etc. We were happy with our choice to use Blue Star. Cheapest “economy” seats = scrambling to find any open deck or café seat, lose your seat if you want to wander. Not recommended for long haul back to Athens, which can get pretty crowded, but worked well for a short hop between islands. A few dollars more = “airplane seats”, which = a cushy airplane-style seat reserved just for you, better for long trips. We chose seats in Lounge 1, which we’d heard was quieter. Food available for purchase on board. Time of year/flexibility of your itinerary determines how important it is to get Blue Star tickets in advance. Can purchase them on Blue Star website and pick them up at port for small fee (50 cents/ticket?). Connections are more limited off-season. It’s not uncommon for boats to arrive to your departure point a little late.
- Driving: You’ll read online that driving in Greece is a white-knuckle experience and that Greece has a very high accident rate. This almost caused us to rely on buses instead, but in the end we were glad we chose to rent a car because this allowed us to go at our own pace and save a lot of time. Buses were going to be almost as expensive and would have used up a ton more of our valuable vacation time. Greek drivers were a little bit crazy (everyone is constantly passing each other, and it’s not uncommon to see people passing multiple cars around a blind curve) but it felt manageable, as my husband is a pretty confident driver. His assessment is that if you are fairly confident/comfortable with driving, driving in Greece feels manageable and even enjoyable, but if you are a more nervous/worried driver, this might make you struggle more and perhaps cause an accident, so perhaps driving isn’t the best fit.