Eight days, 237 nautical miles, 28.5 hours under way. Round trip from Kos.
Shortest leg 15 miles, longest 60. Nothing under two and a half hours.
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A complete day-by-day route from Kos through Nisyros, Symi, Rhodes and Tilos, with anchorages, timings and the stops we'd plan ourselves. Enter your email and we'll send the full PDF to your inbox.
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Day 1: Leros
Board in Kos and go. Three and a half hours southwest.
Leros was an Italian naval base. Lakki is a Rationalist town, wide boulevards and curved concrete, built by Italian architects in the 1930s and dropped onto a Greek island.
Dinner at Mylos tou Kefali.
Passage: 3.5 hours, 25 nm. Mooring: Lakki Harbour, Agia Marina or Partheni Bay. Beach: Gourna Bay. Dining: Mylos tou Kefali.
Day 2: Kalymnos
Fifteen miles, the shortest day.
Kalymnos was the sponge-diving island. It's now one of the better-known rock-climbing destinations in Europe, and the cliffs above Myrties are full of routes. Vathy is a fjord, a green cut into limestone with a village at the end.
Tilos banned hunting and it's a bird island as a result. Eristos is a long, mostly empty bay. There isn't much to do, which after Nisyros is the point.
Dinner at La Ostra.
Passage: 2.5 hours, 20 nm. Mooring: Livadia Port or Eristos Bay. Beach: Eristos. Dining: La Ostra.
Day 5: Chalki
Twenty more. Chalki has one village, Emporio, a row of neoclassical houses facing the harbour.
The Old Town is the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe, walls and all, built by the Knights of St John. Lindos is the acropolis above the bay. Anthony Quinn Bay is the anchorage people know.
This is the busy day of the week, and it lands differently on day six than it would on day one.
Dinner at Nomad.
Discover the destinations
From the Cyclades to the Caribbean, see the destinations our fleet covers, summer and winter.
Passage: 4 hours, 35 nm. Mooring: Rhodes Marina, Mandraki Harbour or Lindos anchorage. Beach: Anthony Quinn Bay. Dining: Nomad.
Day 7: Symi
Thirty miles north.
Gialos is neoclassical mansions in ochre and rose stacked up both sides of a narrow inlet, and you come into it by sea. Symi made its money on sponges and shipbuilding, and the architecture is from that period.
Panormitis monastery is at the south end. Pedi is the quieter anchorage.
Dinner at Agora.
Passage: 3.5 hours, 30 nm. Mooring: Symi Harbour (Gialos), Pedi Bay or Panormitis. Beach: Agios Georgios Dysalonas. Dining: Agora.
Day 8: Kos
Sixty miles, six and a half hours. The longest day is the last one.
People who want to be at sea. A lot of charter guests want a floating villa that repositions quietly overnight, and this route isn't that. You'll be under way most mornings.
It suits couples and adult groups. It suits anyone who found the Cyclades crowded. It doesn't suit small children, and it doesn't suit a group with one reluctant passenger.
The sequence is the argument for it: an Italian Rationalist town, a sponge island, a live volcano, a bird sanctuary, a village of a few hundred, a medieval city, and Symi.
Practical notes
Round trip from Kos, so one airport.
This is the Greek route closest to Turkey, in the southeastern Aegean. Season and conditions for your specific dates are a conversation with your broker, not something to read off a page.
