Know before you go

Getting to Greece: the gateways and the onward ferry

Almost every Greek island trip is a flight plus a boat. Which boat, and how long it takes, is what decides whether the first day is a holiday or a transfer.

Athens, Faliro and the Saronic Gulf at night — Athens, Faliro, the Saronic Gulf and Aegina at night on October 20, 2024.jpg · George E. Koronaios · CC BY-SA 4.0

There are three ways into the islands. A direct flight to an island airport, which only a handful of islands have. A flight to Athens and a sailing from Piraeus, which reaches almost everywhere given enough hours. Or a flight to a regional gateway such as Santorini or Rhodes and a short hop from there, which is usually the quickest route to the smaller islands in the same group.

The gateway is a property of the destination. Below is which one serves what, taken from the routes in these guides.

Via Athens

9 islands

Via Santorini

4 islands

Via Rhodes

2 islands

The last leg

Every island guide carries its own table of legs with the scheduled crossing time. Those are route durations rather than a timetable: sailings change with the season and the operator, and in high summer a strong meltemi can cancel the small-boat services outright. The practical response is to leave a spare day before the flight home, particularly on the islands whose only connection is a single daily boat.

Doing the arithmetic before booking

The mistake worth avoiding is booking the flight first and discovering the boat afterwards. A flight landing at four in the afternoon and a final sailing at five is not a connection, it is a night in the gateway town, and on some routes the next departure is the following morning. Work backwards instead: find the island, find its crossing, then pick the flight that lands with hours to spare rather than minutes.

Allow for the airport-to-port leg as well. In Athens the airport and Piraeus are an hour apart on the metro, longer with luggage and a queue for tickets, and on Santorini the port is on the far side of the island from the runway. Those transfers are rarely in anyone's plan and always in the day.

The return needs more slack than the outbound. A cancelled sailing on the way out costs a day of the holiday; the same cancellation on the way back costs the flight. On islands served by one boat, a spare night near the gateway is cheap by comparison.

Which airport, and the connection after it

There are two shapes of trip. Fly to Athens and take a boat from Piraeus, which reaches every island in this guide and is the only option for most of the small ones. Or fly directly to an island with its own airport, which cuts a day off each end and limits the choice to about a dozen destinations. The island guides list which gateway serves each island, and the quiet islands page lists the ones with runways.

If the plan involves a boat on the same day as the flight, the arrival time decides whether it works. Piraeus is about forty minutes from the airport by metro, the fast boats to the Cyclades leave in the morning and the conventional ferries mostly around the middle of the day, so an afternoon landing usually means a night in Athens whatever the timetable suggests. That night is not a loss.

The return leg needs a buffer

Wind cancels sailings, and it does so in the summer as well as in the shoulder months. Planning to arrive back in Athens on the morning of an afternoon flight is the one arrangement that regularly goes wrong on these islands. A day in hand, or a flight from an island airport instead of a boat, removes the only genuinely stressful part of a Greek island trip.

Getting there

Which airport should the flight land at?

That is decided by the island, not the other way round. Athens serves Amorgos, Astypalea, Donoussa, Iraklia and others. Santorini serves Anafi, Antiparos, Folegandros, Koufonissia. Rhodes serves Symi, Tilos.

Do the small islands have airports?

Most do not, and that is much of why they stay quiet. The exceptions in these guides are the ones reached by a short internal flight: Astypalea, Karpathos, Kassos, Kastelorizo, Milos. Everywhere else arrives by sea.

How long does the ferry leg take?

Anything from fifty minutes to seven hours, depending on the island. Each island guide lists its own legs with the scheduled crossing time, so the arithmetic can be done before the flight is booked, not after.

Which UK airports have direct flights?

Direct services into the Greek gateways run from London and London Gatwick among others, and most UK regional airports connect with a single change. Route lists change every season, so treat any list as a starting point and check the airline.

Is it worth flying into Athens instead of an island?

Often, yes. Athens has the widest choice of flights and the most onward sailings from Piraeus, and it is a city worth a night at either end rather than an airport to pass through.