Twenty-nine Greek islands have an airport with year-round commercial flights, and every one of them has its own page on this guide. That is the single most useful fact about winter travel here: most islands worth visiting in winter can be reached without depending on a ferry.
Flying in winter
Winter international flights concentrate on a handful of airports — Athens and Thessaloniki above all — and the islands are then a short domestic hop away, most of them via Athens. Domestic routes are flown mainly by Aegean, its regional arm Olympic Air, and Sky Express. Many smaller islands have a few flights a week rather than one a day, often on subsidised routes, so let the timetable shape the trip rather than the other way round.
Ferries in winter
Ferries keep running, on a smaller timetable. The big conventional ships on the main lines — Piraeus to Crete, the main Cyclades and the Dodecanese — sail through the season, while many high-speed catamarans are laid up until spring and small-island connections drop to a few sailings a week.
The wind gets a vote
Strong wind is the winter ferry's real problem. When gale-force winds are forecast, the coastguard can ban sailings from affected ports, and cancellations are often announced the evening before or the same morning. Check the forecast for your whole route, not just the departure port.
Which to choose
| Going to | Best winter option | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Crete | Fly, or the overnight ferry from Piraeus | Busy airports, and ships that sail all year |
| Rhodes, Kos, Kalymnos, Leros | Fly | Year-round airports; the ferry from Piraeus is a long haul |
| Syros, Paros, Naxos, Santorini | Either | Year-round flights and year-round conventional ferries |
| Kasos, Kastelorizo, Astypalaia, Skyros, Ikaria | Fly — and book early | A few flights a week; small-island ferries are the first to go |
| Corfu, Kefalonia, Zakynthos | Fly | Year-round airports on the Ionian side |
| Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Limnos | Fly | Year-round airports; by sea it is an overnight trip |
Every island page on this guide shows its airport, its winter openness rating and what stays open. Start from the airport you can actually reach, and the trip follows.
The other practical guides
Practical information for travellers, not legal, medical or insurance advice. Emergency numbers, entitlements and provider networks change — confirm anything critical with the official source before you rely on it.