Folegandros Travel Diary | Greece
If you keep up with my travels, you know that I was super blessed to visit Greece twice this season — in April for our wedding anniversary and again earlier this month for work! I was especially excited to find Folegandros on my work-itinerary since its not only a place I’ve never visited, but also a place I’ve never even heard of; it seems to be a hidden gem of the Cyclades. Even after being featured in Condé Nast Traveler as Greece’s Most Beautiful Undiscovered Island and seeing a huge increase in tourism afterwards, it remains so quiet, private, and peaceful. The island’s entire population is only 765 but it felt like it’d be a tiny fraction of that! We hardly saw anyone, but we were nearing the end of the Summer season.
Folegandros has three main villages, Karavostasi, Chora, & Ano Meria. We stayed in Karavostasi literally right across from the port, at Anemi Hotel. I liked staying away from the “city center”, Chora, even though the whole island is super quiet. I really enjoyed the additional privacy and seclusion, it felt good to just relax and check out. We did have a rental car so it was very easy for us to visit Chora and explore the whole island. The drive from the hotel to Chora was seriously less than 10 minutes & parking was unbelievably simple. The centre is closed off to motor traffic so after parking we explored on foot and you’ll see from the photos below that the streets are so charming. I wasn’t sure what to expect as my only frame of reference was Santorini; which of course is stunningly beautiful but Santorini comes with hoards of tourists and commercialization. Folegandros maintains its authentic traditional charm and Chora is actually one of the oldest medieval villages in all of the cyclades. Chora sits on the edge of a 200 meter cliff & its said that the views are second to Santorini! Just a 45 minute ferry ride from Santorini, I think adding Folegandros to your itinerary is well worth it! Just take a look at the photos below to believe it!
Thanks again Anemi Hotel for taking care of us & of course Seajets for getting us to Folegandros!