Know before you go

Practical Greece: what to settle before you go

Four things decide how a Greek island trip feels: how you get there, how you move once you arrive, where you sleep and how you eat.

The town of Petra on Lesvos
Petra town.JPG · Vidariv · CC BY-SA 3.0

Getting to Greece

Which gateway airport serves which island, and the ferry leg that follows.

Read

Getting around

Ferries, island buses, and the islands where a car changes the trip.

Read

Where to stay

Village rooms, small hotels and what the port town gets you.

Read

Food and drink

How a Greek table works, and what to order when the menu is a recital.

Read

The one thing worth internalising

Almost every difficulty on a Greek island trip traces back to the same mistake: treating the ferry as transport rather than as the thing the itinerary is built around. Crossings take hours, run on their own frequencies, change with the season and stop altogether when the wind gets up. Plan around the boat and the rest of the trip arranges itself.

The second thing is that the islands are not interchangeable. An island with an airport and one with a single daily sailing are different holidays, whatever they look like in a photograph. The island guides say which is which.

The basics

Is Greece expensive?
It depends almost entirely on the island and the month. A room in a village on a small island in June costs a fraction of the same week on Mykonos in August, and eating in a taverna where locals eat is cheap almost everywhere.

Do I need to speak Greek?
No. English is widely spoken anywhere that sees visitors. On the smallest islands a few words go a long way socially, but nothing about the practical business of a trip requires them.

Are cards accepted everywhere?
On the larger islands, yes. On small ones there may be one cash machine, or none, and a taverna that takes cards only in theory. Arriving on a small island with cash is still the sensible default.

What about water?
Tap water is drinkable on some islands and brackish on others, and locals will tell you which within a minute of being asked. Bottled water is sold everywhere; a refillable bottle and a question at the first taverna solves it.

How long should a first trip be?
Two weeks if the plan involves more than one island, because a hop costs most of a day. One week works well for a single island, and works badly stretched across three.