Choose your island, plan the route, budget it, book it — one honest guide for all 88.
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The most iconic Greek ferry routes — the backbone of any island-hopping trip. Hover over a line for details, click a port to open its island page.
Looking for ferries from mainland Athens to the islands? See our complete ferries guide.
Continuing beyond Greece? See the international ferry routes from Greek islands.
Pick where you're starting and where you want to go. We'll find the fastest direct or 1-transfer route based on real ferry connections.
Eight curated multi-island routes — from the classic Cyclades circuit to the quiet Small Cyclades escape. Each uses real ferry connections and shows approximate nights per stop.
Greek islands are closer to foreign shores than you think. From Corfu, Albania is 30 minutes away. From the east Aegean, Turkey is a short ferry across. Here are the proven international ferry connections from Greek islands — a different kind of island-hopping.
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For travellers who want to live the holiday, not plan it.
Aegean Blueprint covers 88 Greek islands — Crete and Evia are each split by region, because one page cannot do either of them justice. Most guides try to cover all of them, and end up saying nothing useful about any. Search results give you the same twenty stock photos of Oia and a PR-written paragraph that could be about any island in the Aegean. AI-generated lists read like they were written by someone who has never tasted a tomato.
This site is for people who don't want choices. They want the gist, without the fluff.
Most island guides list 30 beaches and call it a recommendation. This one picks the one you should actually go to, and tells you why the other 29 didn't make it. The same goes for the where-to-stay, the where-to-eat, the day plan, the side trip.
How this site earns: the ferry and car-hire links are affiliate links — book through one and the site takes a small commission, at no extra cost to you. That is what keeps it free. What money does not buy is a place in it: nobody has ever paid to be recommended here, and no score has ever been sold. Each island gets an honest score across beaches, history, nightlife, access and price — not a marketing brochure, not an algorithm, just one person's take, cross-checked with friends and family who actually live on each island.
Each island page gives you a short, opinionated list: the beaches worth your time, one mapped itinerary of 2 to 5 days, and the two or three tavernas I would actually send you to. Not twenty options ranked by affiliate payout — a selection someone has to stand behind.
Greek, based in Athens, 50+ islands visited over 20+ years. Not a travel influencer, not a PR-sponsored blog. A single person writing down what he actually thinks.
This matters because the alternative is what everyone else does: aggregate reviews from TripAdvisor, run them through an SEO mill, translate the output into every language, and publish it as a "guide." The writing reads fine. The advice is worthless.
If you're driving in Greece, Stergios also built mydiodia.gr — a Greek motorway toll and route calculator that shows you how much time you'd lose to save €1 of tolls.
For each island you get a deliberately narrow selection — not everything with a name on it, just what is worth your days:
Three or four per island, rated on sand type, depth, and how exposed they are to the meltemi. Not every cove that happens to have a name.
2 to 5 days depending on the island, mapped with driving distances. Beaches, villages, archaeological sites, places to eat. No "optional side-trips."
Two or three per island, named and linked, often with a phone number. Where I would take a friend who had one night — not every place on the harbour.
One thing this site deliberately does not do: name a single hotel. On any island worth going to, the good rooms in August are gone by spring — so one pick would be advice you cannot use. The itinerary tells you which village or bay to sleep in instead, which is the decision that actually shapes the trip.
Pick an island. Pack a bag. Go.
Every island gets rated 1 to 5 on five dimensions, plus an overall number and one practical fact (how much you need a car). These aren't computed by an algorithm and they aren't scraped from TripAdvisor. They're one person's informed judgment — mine — based on having been there, or on careful research and local contacts for the few I haven't.
If you want to know why Milos is 4.7 and Tinos is 3.7, the short answer is: I think so, for the reasons below. The longer answer is: disagree with me — I'd rather have that conversation than pretend there's a formula.
Five rated dimensions, each scored 1 to 5, plus a sixth number for car reliance — a fact, not a quality score. Here's what those numbers actually mean.
How good the swimming is.
Archaeology, museums, churches, old towns, living tradition.
From beach clubs to late dinners.
How hard to reach from Athens, and onward.
Week for two in August: hotel + food + getting around.
Practical fact, not a quality score. How much a car shapes the trip.
The overall number leans most on Beach and Culture — that's what most people come for — but it's not a formula. A quiet, affordable island with one great beach and one real ruin can outscore a famous one that doesn't offer anything unique. Milos is 4.7, Tinos is 3.7. I set numbers by judgment, then check them by ranking islands against each other in my head.
Use the five underlying numbers if your trip has a specific goal. The overall is for sorting the table when you don't yet know what you want.
When I get reader feedback or visit an island again, the page updates. When a restaurant I recommended closes, the link comes down within a week. The goal is not to be an encyclopedia — it's to be the most current opinionated recommendation you can trust for the next 6 months.
Five numbers can't describe an island. A few things they miss:
Hit the 💬 Feedback button at the bottom right of any page and pick "Suggest a rating correction." Explain what you'd change and why. If you make a good case, I'll update the number. The five dimensions and the reasoning stay in the open.
Spotted an error? Have a suggestion? Want to recommend an island, beach, or restaurant we should add? Tell us — we read everything.