Customer Reviews

Independent Travellers Greek Island Hopping 2000: The Budget Travel Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best one if you really are moving around from island to island. I found I discarded the others as I travelled. Even if you get stuck somewhere waiting for the slow boat it tells you interesting stuff about the slow boat. One thing they should mention is that when one of those ticket-selling places tells you the next hydroplane is full and you have to wait six hours for the steamer, they only mean they are out of tickets - the place next door may have some. Not great on atmosphere and history.

You don't need it if you're going on a cruise (it's rather snooty about cruises, with that backpacker reverse snobbery)or if you're going to fly to one island and stay there. In fact the details about the boats and timetables may be too much. If you're moving from island to island independently you have to have it. It's the only one that tells you about the boats themselves. Reading this book could even save your life My favorite comment in the 1999 edition was about the boat then called the Golden Vergina. "a large grime bucket-she has inthe past shuddered along, not thanks to an excess of engine vibration but rather with the collective disgust of her passengers. thanks to the conditions on board ... better than no boat all but only just." She was renamed the Express Santina and if you read about the Paros shipwreck you know the rest. 80 were drowned.

Excellent book providing great detail. We used the book when we sailed around the islands and it provided a great guide to most, if not all islands. Very up to date.

Probably most value to those using the ferry service, but excellent none the less for others getting around more than one island.

Indispensable if you are moving from island to island on your own. Package tourist or cruisers can manage without it. I have always enjoyed the accurate details on the boats themselves. This addition has great WEB sites to explore. Maybe it needs more about Athens airport and the mystifying Olympic Airlines terminal. Flights from New York or London to the islands are not listed on Flifo. You have to go to the Olympic Airlines WEB site and get the domestic timetable of flights from Athens. Even flying Olympic from London you have to check in again as a domestic passenger and then go through security and then you find a row of gates with numbers and names of islands. It's simple if you're not half asleep. The first class lounge (ok - not real island hopping but I'm 65) is hidden at the end of the row AFTER security. On the flights that stop at Thessalonika you have to go through passport control twice.

Indispensable if you are moving from island to island on your own. Package tourist or cruisers can manage without it. I have always enjoyed the accurate details on the boats themselves. This 2000 edition has great WEB sites to explore. Maybe it needs more about Athens airport and the mystifying Olympia terminal. Flights from New York or London to the islands are not listed on Flifo. You have to go to the Olympic Airlines WEB site and get the domestic timetable of flights from Athens. Even flying Olympic from London you have to check in again as a domestic passenger and then go through security and then you find a row of gates with numbers and names of islands. It's simple if you're not half asleep. The first class lounge (ok - not real island hopping but I'm 65) is hidden at the end of the row AFTER security. On the flights that stop at Thessalinika you have to go through passport control twice.

For travelers planning their own itineraries through the Greek islands (and Aegean Turkey), this guide can't be beat. It is far more useful than the whole rack of budget travel books. Not only does it provide useful ferry schedule information that is difficult to get elsewhere, it provides enough destination information to supplant traditional guides. Island and port maps are a particular help

While I found this book to be mildly adequate, I found others to be much better. The detail that it provides is simply not sufficient.