Which Greek Islands Have the Best Beaches?

For the most beaches on one island, Milos; for lagoon beaches and more than 1,000 km of coast, Crete. Those are the two islands the guides name. GNTO’s couples page counts 80 beaches on Milos and Lonely Planet “more than 70”, rating it best for underwater exploration, while Condé Nast Traveller’s UK edition picks Crete for beaches. For long stretches of sand, GNTO describes the beaches of Paros and Naxos, and Condé Nast Traveler’s US edition labels Paros for its “welcoming locals and long beaches”. The famous cliff-backed beaches of the Ionian come with rules this year.

As of early October 2026, three well-known beaches are restricted, and Crete has storm damage:

• Navagio (Shipwreck Beach) on Zakynthos is closed to landing and swimming until 31 October 2026. Boats may pass through a buoyed zone in the bay, for 20 minutes at most and 15 boats at a time, and may not anchor or come within 50 m of the shore. You can still see it from the viewpoint on the cliff above.
• Red Beach on Santorini has been closed to visitors since 2013 because of rockfalls, and more came down in February 2025. Boats stay offshore.
• Myrtos on Kefalonia had a landslide on 9 July 2026. Signs ban umbrellas, sunbeds and sitting near the foot of the cliff.
• On Crete, storms and floods since 1 October 2026 have pushed the sea over Chania’s old harbour and washed away part of the road to Sitia. Each tour’s calendar shows the dates actually on sale.

Milos: the most beaches

Milos is a volcanic island, and GNTO describes Kleftiko as “a cluster of sheer white volcanic rocks”. Sarakiniko, on the north coast, has no entry fee or visitor cap and is reached by car and a short walk. Kleftiko is usually visited by boat from Adamas or Pollonia, but you can also walk there on a trail of about 3 km that starts near the Agios Ioannis Siderianos monastery, reached on unpaved roads. Since November 2023 boats must keep 25 m from the cliffs and rock islets at Kleftiko, and swimming inside that zone is banned all year.

The featured trip on the Milos page is SAILING MILOS O.E.’s full-day sail from Adamas, from $141 as of October 2026 and rated 4.9 from 2,125 reviews. It passes Sarakiniko, stops to swim at the uninhabited island of Polyaigos (Poliegos on the same listing) and at Gerakas, and serves lunch at Kleftiko before returning to Adamas around 7 pm. It sails in three boats of up to 25 people each, and there is no hotel pickup. For a smaller day, Milos Watersports paddles from Fyriplaka beach to Tsigrado and Gerakas by kayak, for ages 10 and up (from $68, rated 5.0 from 553 reviews).

Milos has no international flights. Olympic Air and Sky Express fly from Athens in about 40 minutes, and SeaJets sails from Piraeus in 2 h 30. The port fund caps cruise passengers at 1,500 a day at Adamas.

Crete: Balos, Elafonisi and a long coast

Crete has more than 1,000 km of coastline, in GNTO’s words, and the two beaches most people ask about, Balos and Elafonisi, are in the far west, reached from Chania or Kissamos.

Balos is reached by road, with an entry fee charged where the access road ends, or by boat from Kissamos. The Kissamos council voted the €1 fee, which is also collected at Kissamos port from boat passengers; visitors reported paying it in June 2025, and no 2026 figure has been published officially. There is no visitor cap and no booking system. A limit of 1,200 visitors per three-hour slot is only a municipal proposal, made in August 2026. The Balos boats on the Crete page include a full-day catamaran from Kissamos port that adds the island of Gramvousa, with brunch and lunch (from $175, rated 4.8 from 1,133 reviews). It takes up to 120 travellers, and the castle on Gramvousa charges its own entry.

Elafonisi costs nothing to enter. Cars have been kept off the beach since 2023 behind a barrier; the private car parks charge about €3 to €5 a day, and the walk from them is about 650 m. Camping, fires and collecting sand or flowers are banned, the municipalities have cut the umbrellas from 1,000 to 200, and none is allowed on the islet itself. Quality Travel’s bus day from the Chania area gives you four hours there (from $29, rated 4.7 from 2,754 reviews), and the operator notes that the pink tint of the sand depends on the season, the light, the weather and the tides. Elafonisi is not Elafonisos, an island off the Peloponnese.

Paros, Naxos and Antiparos: long sand

GNTO describes Paros’s “expansive sandy beaches” and the long sandy beaches of Naxos at Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna and Plaka, and Lonely Planet sends families to Naxos for its shallow water. On Paros, Golden Beach (Chryssi Akti) and Nea Chryssi Akti face the channel toward Naxos and are both windsurfing centres; the municipality calls Nea Chryssi Akti long, sandy, organised and crowded.

The featured boat on the Paros page goes south to Antiparos. Glaraki Cruises’ wooden boat leaves Antiparos at 9:30 and Pounta on Paros at 10:00 for the Blue Lagoon at Panteronisi, the sea caves along the south coast of Antiparos, lunch at Despotiko and a last swim in Faneromeni Bay, with 25 guests at most and children’s life jackets on board. For the island choice itself, see Naxos vs Paros and the Naxos page.

Kefalonia and Zakynthos: cliffs, caves and rules

Myrtos, on Kefalonia (Cephalonia), lies below a cliff. After the landslide of 9 July 2026, Efthymios Lekkas, president of the earthquake planning agency OASP, said “we are at acceptable risk levels, but larger landslides cannot be excluded”. The island tours listed here stop at the viewpoint above Myrtos, and one says plainly that “beach access and swimming are not included”. The featured boat on the Kefalonia page leaves Argostoli instead for White Rocks beach, the islet of Vardiani and the red sand of Xi beach.

On Zakynthos (Zante), the wreck on Navagio is the Panagiotis, which ran aground there in 1980 (GNTO). Landing has been banned since a run of rockfalls, one of which injured seven people in 2018. Happy Days Zante’s land-and-sea day, the featured trip on the Zakynthos page, sees the cove twice: from the clifftop viewpoint, about five minutes’ walk on a rocky path, and from a glass-bottom boat that goes on to the Blue Caves and drops you at a beach for about an hour. It costs from $40 plus the boat, which is not in the price: €25 per adult and €15 per child aged 3 to 11, in cash on the day, or €50 a person for the semi-private boat. Its rating is 4.8 from 6,439 reviews. The listing warns that on extremely hot days civil protection may close the road to the viewpoint for fire risk.

The National Marine Park of Zakynthos, which takes in Laganas Bay, protects the beaches where loggerhead turtles nest, and its rules apply there. The nesting beaches are open to the public from 07:00 until sunset; keep to a strip about 5 m from the sea and away from caged nests; no umbrellas are allowed at Gerakas (not the Gerakas on Milos), Dafni or Marathonisi; and Sekania is closed. In the bay, Zone A is closed to all boats, and Zones B and C have a 6-knot limit.

Santorini and Corfu

GNTO says Santorini’s beaches are black, red and white sand, but no guide we checked picks it for beaches; Lonely Planet’s label for it is “volcanic drama”. Red Beach is closed, and the caldera catamarans stop at the hot springs and off Red and White beaches without mooring at either. More on the Santorini page.

Corfu (Kerkyra) is Lonely Planet’s island for boating. The day cruise featured on the Corfu page leaves Corfu port at 08:20, or Lefkimmi on another option, for the sea caves of Paxos and a swim off Mesovrika or Voutoumi beach on Antipaxos. It costs from $51 and is rated 4.6 from 4,453 reviews; food and drinks are not included.

Is Corfu or Crete better, and which is hotter?

For beaches, the guides favour Crete: Condé Nast Traveller’s UK edition picks it, and Lonely Planet files Corfu under boating. On heat, EMY’s long-term averages give Corfu the hotter midsummer and Crete the warmer, drier edges of the year.

Recent summers run hotter than these averages; July 2024 was the hottest July in Greece since 1960.

Is Crete or Santorini better for beaches? Crete, on the guides’ vote and on the length of its coast; Santorini’s case is the caldera. Crete vs Santorini weighs the whole trip.

Rules on every Greek beach

A 2024 law created a list of beaches in Natura 2000 areas where sunbeds, umbrellas, motor vehicles, amplified music and events of more than ten people are banned: 198 beaches at first, 251 since April 2026. Taking sand, pebbles or stones from any beach is a crime under Greek law, which sets a prison sentence of at least a year for altering the seashore. The sea reaches about 26 °C along the coast in summer and falls to 11 to 12 °C in winter (HCMR), and EMY counts April to October as the warm, dry season.

Each island page has its own featured tour and calendar:

Prices, ratings and review counts from our October 2026 data check; operators use seasonal pricing, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.

Sources: GNTO (visitgreece.gr), Lonely Planet, Condé Nast Traveller (UK), Condé Nast Traveler (US), the Government Gazette, the Milos Port Authority and port fund, the Ministry of Environment, the Municipality of Paros, OASP, the National Marine Park of Zakynthos, EMY, HCMR, Olympic Air, Sky Express and SeaJets; tour details from each listing. Checked October 2026.