Naxos Greece: Our Favorite Island

Naxos Greece

Greece is our favorite country. We go at least once a year, typically to Naxos and/or Paros every other year, and then to other islands or mainland destinations in the off years. Naxos remains our favorite island.

Naxos Greece

I wrote about our first two trips to Naxos in this post, but now that we’ve spent over 35 days on the island over the years, and given that things have changed since those early trips, I feel like a completely new post is in order.

Why Naxos is the Best Island in Greece

First, we’ve only visited eleven Greek islands. We will keep exploring, and of course I’ll write about other islands we fall in love with, but for now Naxos remains our favorite. The reasons:

No cruise ships. I’ve said this before, but cruise ships are terrible for small islands. Most destinations have a natural tourism balance based on the number of hotel rooms. Greek islands are wonderful even when all of those hotel rooms are filled. But when you add 8,000-15,000 people off cruise ships, it completely changes the balance and makes for a negative experience for locals, for normal tourists and for cruise visitors. Santorini and Mykonos used to be wonderful (I’ve been visiting Mykonos for 30 years and Santorini for 13 years), but the cruise ships in the summer lead to the main towns being overrun, and over the years we’ve seen smaller shops close up, only to be replaced by upscale clothing stores and international chains. Santorini and Mykonos aren’t charming anymore. The Greek islands without cruise ships still are.

The locals. When we’re walking from our hotel into town, we’re passing apartments where people live year-round, and hearing a lot more Greek than English. Even in town we hear more Greek than on neighboring islands. That’s a much better feeling than when everything is based around tourism.

The airport is very close to Naxos Town and the ferry port is in town. Every trip we walk to and from the port several times to take ferries to neighboring islands. Even with luggage it’s an easy walk. That’s not the case on Santorini and Mykonos, and even on islands like Paros and Kos the ferry and airport are far from each other, and not necessarily near where you want to stay.

The island is large enough to have places to explore, and a lot of good restaurants, but small enough that we don’t need a rental car the majority of the time.

Naxos is near a lot of other islands, so there are good day trip options.