Ferry from Santorini (Thira) to Kimolos.

Kimolos is the small, quiet neighbour of Milos in the south-western Cyclades: a handful of villages, white chalky coves and very little traffic. Getting there straight from Santorini is one of the less obvious crossings in the islands, and it suits travellers who want to swap the caldera crowds for somewhere with almost none, without routing back through Athens.

There is only one operator on this line. Fast Ferries runs a conventional ship on a long island-hopping line, which is why a trip that looks modest on the map takes more than four hours. Think of it as a relaxed travel day on a big ship with open decks, rather than a quick hop.

The service runs in every month of the year but never every day. Ferryhopper lists 1 to 4 sailing days a week, and its monthly operator table, based on last year's data, shows Fast Ferries on one, two or three days a week depending on the entry. In practice that means you pick your ferry first and build your hotel nights around it, on both islands.

Our older page for this route named Blue Star Ferries and Seajets with a 2-hour crossing. Neither operator appears in Ferryhopper's listing for Santorini to Kimolos, and no sailing there comes close to 2 hours, so we have dropped those details. The fare, on the other hand, is one of the lowest you will find for a trip of this length.

The ship heads west across open water on a route of more than four hours, so the summer meltemi, the north wind that peaks in July and August, is a real factor, though a conventional ferry copes with it far better than a small high-speed boat. The port authority can still hold departures when conditions are bad. The catch on this route is the timetable: with only a few sailings a week, a cancelled boat can mean waiting days for the next direct one. If that happens, the operator will rebook or refund you, and you can also look at travelling to Milos first, then taking the short hop across to Kimolos.