Beaches in Kimolos

The whole case for swimming on Kimolos is comparative. It is ten minutes from Milos, it is the same geology and the same light, and it gets a small fraction of the visitors. So the water looks like the water people fly to Milos for, and there is nobody on it. The trade is that the bays are small, mostly undeveloped, and several are reached on foot or by boat rather than by parking next to them.

Prassa, in the northeast, is the one to aim for. Pale sand and the clearest water on the island. If you are here for one swim, this is where it should be.

Bonatsa and Aliki, on the south, are shallow and sheltered. They are the calm-water end of the island and the pair to use when the north is doing something you would rather avoid.

Kalamitsi is small and calm. A pocket rather than a stretch, which on an island this size is most of what is on offer.

The thermal water near the port. There is warm water at the shore close to Psathi, in the same volcanic family as Milos. It is a curiosity rather than a facility, and worth knowing about rather than planning around.

Polyaigos, which is the best water day here and is not on Kimolos. Boats run to the large uninhabited island opposite, a protected area and one of the emptiest places in the Cyclades. If you have one day and good weather, that is what to spend it on, and it is the reason a lot of people come to Kimolos at all.

What “mostly undeveloped” means for your bag. No assuming a taverna behind the sand, no assuming shade. The island is small, dry and low, so there is very little natural shelter from the sun, and several bays need a walk or a boat to reach. Carry water, carry shade, and treat lunch as something you brought.

Reading the water. Same wind that governs Milos governs here, because they are ten minutes apart, and the island has bays facing several ways. Read the sea when you arrive rather than a description written months earlier. What the sea is like covers the mechanism.

How to fit it in. Two nights, or a day trip from Milos if that is all the time there is. Ferries run from Pollonia on Milos in about ten minutes, and there is no airport. Our Kimolos guide has the island, things to do covers the kastro village and the mushroom rock, and Milos is where most people come from and compare it to.