The Rough Guide to the Greek Islands

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.

Having just completed a 2 week sailing trip in the Greek Islands in September 2005 (Cyclades) I thoroughly endorse the Rough Guide to the Greek Islands. Several of my crewmates had a variety of guide books including the Lonely Planet, DK Eyewitness, Cadogan, and an outstanding Cyclades picture guide that seems only available in Greece. All were good and useful in different ways but overall, the Rough Guide proved itself to be the guide book of choice for information on each island (7) we visited whether tiny, small, medium or large. The intelligent opinions, overviews, brief history, listings and recommendations for each place were very good and up to date. The Rough Guide was much more useful than the rather weak Lonely Planet that I'd only give 3 stars (decent maps save it from 2 stars) that was consistently left behind. Rough Guide's maps were a bit simple (always) but each gave a good general overview that actually helped to understand each islands general type and layout at a glance. Of course a decent map from the tourist information office or scooter rental shop is always more useful for more thorough exploration especially on larger islands but the Rough Guide maps were a good start nonetheless - and sometimes better than the ad infested maps available for free. My one gripe is that I wish a section on Athens was included - most people use Athens to arrive and depart from and probably spend a couple of days there at the start or end of their trip. If you plan to spend time here it may be worth getting the Rough Guide to Greece which seems to contain the entire Greek Island text. However, for my purposes, the Greek Islands edition proved an excellent guide for my trip and proved indispensible time and again in guiding us to islands worth visiting and those less deserving of our time - tourist traps politely dismissed (Nousa on Paros for example was exactly on target). Anyway, once on an island, the Rough Guide was very good at selecting good places to eat and visit (we slept on board the boat but checked out a few of the accommodation listings out of interest - good). No guide book is perfect - it's always well worth taking a few for perspective, but I'd recommend the Rough Guide as your basic guide over the Lonely Planet any day of the week. Personally I love DK guides too for the visual overview of islands and sights but as I mentioned there's an even better pictorial guide with excellent history and details of each islands places of greatest interest. It may only be available in Greece (printed in Athens) but the Englisg translation is very good and it's definitely worth picking up over there. I also liked the Cadogan very much for it's history and guidance. But if I was only allowed one guide book (never!), it'd have to the Rough Guide

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.

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.

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.