Santorini is roughly 300 kilometers southeast of Athens, floating in the Aegean Sea like something a movie set designer dreamed up. The caldera, the sunsets, the blue-domed churches — you already know what it looks like because it’s on every Greece travel poster ever printed.
The question isn’t whether to go. It’s how to get there.
You have two realistic options: ferry or flight. Both work. Both have trade-offs. And the “right” choice depends entirely on your budget, your schedule, and how you feel about open water. Here’s everything you need to make the call.
Mykonos is one of those places that barely needs an introduction. Whitewashed streets, windmills, beach clubs, a pelican named Petros who wanders the harbor like he owns the place (he does). It’s been Greece’s party island since the ’60s, but it’s also genuinely beautiful — the kind of place where even the narrow alleys look like someone art-directed them.
Getting there from Athens is straightforward. You can take a ferry or fly. Both are well-established routes with multiple daily options in season. The choice comes down to how much time you have, how much you want to spend, and whether you’d rather watch the Aegean from a deck or a window seat at 20,000 feet.
Here’s something that surprised me about Athens: you can be sitting on a Greek island, swimming in turquoise water, eating fresh seafood by a harbor — and be back in your Athens hotel by dinner. The Saronic Islands are that close.
Aegina, Poros, and Hydra sit in the Saronic Gulf, between 40 minutes and two hours from Athens by ferry. They’re the easiest island escape you’ll find, and they’re completely different from each other. One has a famous temple and the best pistachios in Greece. One is covered in pine forests and smells like a candle shop. And one has banned cars entirely and replaced them with donkeys.
Athens is great. I could spend a week here and not get bored. But some of the best things in Greece are just a bus ride or ferry away — and if you don’t venture out at least once, you’re missing a huge part of what makes this country special.
Cliff-top monasteries that look like they belong in a fantasy movie. Ancient sites where oracles once spoke prophecies. Islands where cars are banned and donkeys are the Uber. All of it within day-trip range from Athens.
