Elafónisos

Although long a best kept secret, recently improved air connections with nearby Kythera have seen little Elafónissos hit the travel magazines, with sumptuous pictures of Fragó Bay, endowed with two of Greece’s most gorgeous beaches of powder soft sand, Símos and Sarakíniko, kissed by the clearest of Caribbean green-blue waters.

Elafónisos is becoming a victim of its success, however: too many people (mostly Greek holiday makers) jam on it in August, making the very short ferry hop (you could swim there, really) over just for a day at the beach, when the island deserves visitors who linger for a few days or weeks, to relax, to forget the rest of the world at least for a while.

In 2013, a group of citizens who love the island founded Elafonisos Eco to help it go forward in a sustainable matter, taking ideas from other small ‘eco islands’ such as Astypálaia and Tílos to preserve its natural beauty, plant trees, build water kiosks (to keep people from buying yet more plastic bottles), to clean up the plastic in the sea and encourage bicycle use, etc; Prince Albert of Monaco has taken an interest.