Kalo Taxidi - Accommodation

An extract from my book "Kalo Taxidi"




Accommodation

In season, in many places room touts meet ferries. They can be very persistent and irritating, especially when landing on an island you know and when you know where you wish to stay. On the other hand room touts are a boon when you land in the middle of the night with nowhere to stay. You may find that day time room touts have rooms in out-of-the way parts of town that you would not wish to stay in. On the other hand I have returned many, many times to some rooms that I was led to by a tout over twenty years ago.

One useful tactic is to head to a cafe, buy a drink, and use the cafe as a base whilst looking for somewhere to stay.

In mid-season places can get full! I have heard of tales of travellers sleeping in the open air in mid-season. When I have asked room owners about this, they have sometimes said that rooms are available, but tourists do not wish to pay the mid-season prices. In theory there should be a price list on the door of the room. You will see how the prices are graded during the season, and how steeply the prices rise in mid season. The dates on the graded scale do vary from place to place.

On a very small island there may not be much accommodation, so the island could be full even out of high season. Demand varies from year to year. A glowing article on a particular island could lead to hordes of tourists descending on the place for just as long as the article remained in the memory.

On some small islands you may find that some or all of the people who provide tourist accommodation in summer do not spend the winter on the island. That accommodation would be completely closed in winter.

On some islands there are so many visitors that tourists are not allowed to land. I have heard of this happening in July and August on Lipsi, and also in Paxos.

Enough of the pessimism! I'm sure you'll have no difficulty finding somewhere to stay. For the only problems I have experienced, see my comments on Kalamos - a place that, when I visited, had no accommodation available.


An extract from my book "Kalo Taxidi"