Ferrying Around the Cyclades - So Much Fun

Okay, so I've had so many questions about the logistics of our trip and most of them come back to the ferries and accommodation. So, although not as pretty a post as some of the others, this one is going to be really useful.

Where to go

You'll need to decide which islands you want to go to and this will either make your decision about where to fly in to or be made by it. We flew to Athens on an open-jaw ticket which meant we didn't have to return to Athens via ferry to Piraeus and add unnecessary time and costs. Flights to Athens are frequent, which makes them cheaper, generally. We knew we wanted to go to the Cyclades but our decision about what our last island would be was made by the nearest one to Paros and Naxos that had an international airport as we knew we wanted to go back to those two islands. Our trip was built around these and a stop in Athens so the only missing piece was our final island. If we'd had longer, we'd have explored more islands. We decided on Mykonos as our last stop purely based on the return flight.

Budget

It's simple maths that the more ferry journeys you make the costlier it is but we also wanted to limit the longer journeys for the same reason and to maximise our time on each of the islands. The driving factor was giving our kids an adventure but we also know from experience that you can get a really rough sea resulting in either cancelled/delayed ferries or terrible sea sickness. I suffer from it and so does one of our children so we worked on the theory that shorter journeys make that more bearable, if it came to it and easier to rebook cancelled ferries.

We booked all of our ferries with Seajets who offer free travel for children up to 5 and half price travel up to 10 years old.

With seasickness and maximising our time in mind, we also booked a fast catamaran ferry from Piraeus to Paros (our first stop). It saved 1 hour which might not seem a lot but we were glad of it. Keep in mind though that it is the catamarans that are more likely to be cancelled in rough seas so, for your final island stop ensure there is time for a backup booking before flying home.

  

Route

There are common sense routes whichever group of islands you decide to explore. In the Cyclades, it made sense for us to go to Paros before Naxos and then Mykonos. However, the last time we went, our first stop was a longer journey to Santorini then across to Paros and Naxos. We decided against Santorini this time because, as beautiful as it it, the big cruise ships dock and the iconic town of Oia is overrun. On top of that, we wanted predominantly beaches and volcanic Santorini wasn't where we wanted to start with our three and their Greek experience. Maybe another year. We loved it as a couple but it still wasn't my favourite.

Unless you choose remote islands or an obscure route, look up the ferry times but don't book until you've secured your accommodation but do check out the total cost of travel first so you can factor this into your budget. We did our initial planning and budgeting in March for the start of the school summer holidays. Ours cost around £500 (in 2025). Although very busy, none of the ferries we went on were full. The only caveat to that is if you are travelling around Assumption Day in mid-August which is a national holiday. Look up the dates for the year you are travelling as we fell foul of this before and the ferries were difficult to get last minute tickets for.

 

Top Tips (based on what worked for us)

• Make a spreadsheet with all your holiday details, including ferry times as there will be numerous things to keep track of and then save it in the files on any phones you take. Don't just do it on one, in case of a lost or phone. Do the same with your tickets.
• Book all your ferries in one go to make keeping track of booking references easier. Seajets offer a table to input all your dates to give you an overview. Although there are lots of ferry companies, they seem to offer the best timetable. They scan the tickets as you embark so make sure you have these to hand as they'll move on to the next person quickly so as not to slow departure. Keep them on your phones. If you aren't taking a car you can afford to leave booking until close to (and perhaps still the day before as we previously did, if you want a real sense of adventure).
• Piraeus is a big port, as you'd expect, and all the ports get really busy in waves as it seems as though the arrivals/departures are scheduled close together. This means there are some really quiet times in the port too but it won't be close to your departure time so always get there early to avoid any last minute hiccups. The metro goes to Piraeus (line 1) and is very easy. If you need transfers to your accommodation, don't get a taxi from the port if you can avoid it or don't have deep pockets. Instead, ask your hotel/host to book for you so you are likely to get a better rate. In Athens, use Uber or Freenow (it used to be called Beat) rather than hailing a cab as they'll hike the rate.
• The ferry system is slick: boats dock, offload, load and depart incredibly efficiently so wait where you can see your gate number (in the larger ports, there will be one and where the port is smaller it will be obvious). We only had one ferry that was late and that was due to choppy water in another port. The same ferry tried to dock unsuccessfully 3 times for the same reasons before a 4th successful attempt. The kids loved watching this.
• The catamaran ferries are fast so can help you maximise your holiday. BUT, they are also the ones more likely to be cancelled in windy weather: we met an American family who had this between island hops. When we last went (as a couple) we had something similar in massively rough seas (an international wind surfing competition was cancelled bad) and still talk about he substitute ferry where, we think, my husband was the only person not ill! It makes us laugh now though.
• Consider going hand luggage only. We did this and still packed too much. Apart from the obvious, we discovered another bonus is that, when everyone else had to store their suitcases in the car loading area, we could keep our on us and, with the ferries stopping like busses, this gave us peace of mind. Again another family we met minimised their number of bags by taking oversized luggage but found on-island transport was a problem as a result.
• Buy food from small kiosks at/near the ports. Greek bakeries are insanely good so grab food to go from them and save a small fortune. Also buy smaller bottles of water as they're price-capped in Greece. There are lots of kiosks with fridges where we got ours.
• Travel in swimmers so you can head straight to the beach, especially if your accommodation isn't ready, as you won't want to wait. We found they would let us drop bags while cleaning was going on and headed to the beach. Keep sweatshirts and hair ties to hand so you can enjoy the outer decks, especially if you suffer from seasickness and take some of those bags; we spent a fair amount of time on deck which sorted any of that out and we got to enjoy the views too.

I really would recommend island hopping by ferry: it was easy once planned and booked, our children loved the sense of adventure and we hope this was their first introduction to backpacking as a family and will spark their interest as they get older and make their own travel plans.