Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to The Greek Islands

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4 star:		(4)
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Primarily geared towards the independent low-budgeter, the book is packed with accurate, practical detail and covers more remote island villages than other similar books. Reads like an encyclopedia and thus compliments other books (eg. the Facaros/Cadogan book and this are a great combination) Better than Let's Go or Lonely Planet for solely islands travel. Doesn't have a very good Athens portion. I'd suggest getting the Facaros book first and then if a return trip or looking for more minute and/or remote detail get this to compliment.

This book does an amazingly good job of covering so many Greek islands so well. If it covers the island you're interested in (and it probably does), you'll be provided with plenty of accurate, interesting, helpful detail on any just about any specific area or village of the island which interests you. While agree the Athens part could be a bit beefed up (as we all invariably end up in Athens at some point or another for varying bits of time) the island sections far make up for it.

Two other books Lonely Planet and Greek Island Hopping are aimed at the budget traveller visiting the smaller islands. This one and Lonely Planet also cover the whole of Crete. Greek Island Hopping has more detail about actual travelling and about the boats themselves and more maps, but only touches on the northern ports of Crete. I like all three. Greek Island Hopping wuuld be most useful if you want to find out how to get to a small island, or how to get off one.

Before purchasing this book I reviewed a number of books on the Greek Islands at my local library and settled on this Rough Guide version as being the most up to date, the most complete, and the most readable and frank (looked at Insight, Lonely Planet, Fodors (Greece), and others). I am traveling to both Corfu and to Crete this year and feel that the treatment is at the appropriate level for my one week stay on each of those large islands and a one-week sail through the other Ionian islands. I will supplement this with a sailing book/charts on the Ionian Sea and a Michelin Green Guide of Greece which emphasizes the archaeological sites and history. The upside is that with one purchase I now have info on other Greek Islands for future travels in the Sporades, Cyclades, etc. I have successfully and happily used Rough Guides in the past for European regions such as Bretagne.

It is geared toward students and those on a tighter budget. Although, the info is valuable to any budget. It is fairly similar to Let's Go and Lonely Planet. Nicer than Let's Go and probably in a dead heat with Lonely Planet. It reads like an encyclopedia and is packed with good information on just about everything, down to the smallest detail in many instances. The Athens section is inadequate.

Though still doesn't have all the info needed to make island visit choices, it contains more than most guides - wish there were more pictures.