Things to do in Koufonisia

Koufonisia is the smallest island most people have heard of, and its scale is the whole proposition. Ano Koufonisi, the inhabited one, is a few square kilometres of low sandy ground with one village, and you can walk from the port to the far end of the coast path in a morning. There is no need for a car and, in practice, nowhere to drive one. So a page called things to do has to be honest about what that means: this is an island where the doing is walking, swimming and eating, and anyone arriving with a list will be finished by lunchtime on the first day.

The coast path, which is the island’s one real activity. The south shore is the island, and a path runs along it east from the village past a sequence of coves that come in order and each differ slightly. The walk out to the far end and back is a half day with swimming stops built into it, and it is the thing to do here. It costs nothing, books nothing and needs no transport, which on a Greek island in August is close to unheard of.

Chora, the village. Above the port: whitewashed, small, with a windmill above it and enough tavernas and bars to make an evening. It fills in August in a way a place this size feels immediately, which is worth planning around rather than being surprised by.

Kato Koufonisi, the island opposite. Across a channel a few hundred metres wide sits the second island, uninhabited apart from a taverna and a church, with a small boat shuttling across in season. It has beaches and nothing else, which is the reason to go. Crossing a few hundred metres to somewhere with no village on it is the closest thing this island has to an expedition, and it is an afternoon.

The water, and why it looks like that. The clear pale turquoise that gets Koufonisia onto lists is genuinely that colour, and the reason is the sea bed: white sand rather than rock. It is the one piece of physical explanation that makes the photographs make sense.

What is deliberately not on this page. There is no archaeological site to build a morning around, no castle, no monastery walk, no museum. Other pages on this site would list those; here there is nothing to list, and padding the page would misrepresent the island. If that reads as thin, Koufonisia is not the island for the trip you are planning, and knowing that now is worth more than a longer page.

Which is also the recommendation. Two or three nights, longer if the point is to do nothing, which is a legitimate use of Koufonisia and arguably its best one. Ferries run from Naxos and through the Small Cyclades chain, connecting to Amorgos and Schinoussa. There is no airport, and that is a large part of why the island still feels the way it does. Our Koufonisia guide has the practicalities and the beaches take the coast path cove by cove.