Choosing a Greek island: Santorini, Mykonos, Crete or Corfu

The short answer

XTOUR does not rank Santorini, Mykonos, Crete and Corfu, and it does not say which suits whom. What it can show is that the four are different kinds of place, and that it records each one differently. Santorini and Mykonos are island destinations. Crete is covered through two cities, Heraklion and Chania. Corfu is covered through Corfu Town, not the whole island.

That difference decides where the sites are. On Santorini, every site XTOUR maps is on the island itself. On Mykonos, XTOUR maps nothing on the island; its one heritage record there is Delos, a separate island. On Crete, the two city museums are in their cities, but Knossos and the other Minoan palaces are not. In Corfu Town, the fortresses and the Church of Saint Spyridon are in the town, while the Achilleion is not.

The table describes XTOUR's own coverage on 9 October 2026; how the GNTO groups the islands is explained in Greek island groups explained. A site's status can change from one day to the next: Hellenic Heritage publishes closures on its announcements page, and the sections below name the notices XTOUR read.

Santorini: one island, all its sites on it

Greece's national tourism organisation (GNTO) places Santorini at the southernmost point of the Cyclades and says it comprises a complex of islands, Thera, Thirasia, Aspronisi, Palea Kameni and Nea Kameni.[1] The Municipality of Thira covers that whole cluster.[17] XTOUR's destination is the main island, Thera, and the explainer on Santorini, Oia, Fira and Thira sorts out the names.

Everything XTOUR maps on Santorini lies on that island: the Bronze Age town at Akrotiri, which Hellenic Heritage says was buried in the Late Bronze Age eruption, probably at the end of the 17th century BC,[15] Ancient Thera on Mesa Vouno, the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Fira, and the medieval castles of Oia and Skaros. The GNTO's page dwells on what made the island's landscape: a caldera shaped by successive explosive phases, and an arid island that still grows vines, yellow split peas and tomatoes.[1]

One status note matters for planning. On 26 June 2026 Hellenic Heritage, the official platform of the Ministry of Culture and ODAP, announced that Ancient Thera would be closed from 27 June 2026 until further notice.[16] The guide to Akrotiri and Ancient Thera sets out what that means and where the official pages disagree, including on when Akrotiri was buried.

Mykonos: the island, and Delos beside it

The GNTO places Mykonos in the heart of the Cyclades and calls it the island of the winds; its page describes the Hora, the Little Venice neighbourhood and the windmills beside it, which it calls the island's trademark.[2] XTOUR has no place record on Mykonos itself yet.

What XTOUR does map is Delos, and Delos is a different island. Hellenic Heritage describes it as a tiny island, 5 kilometres long and 1.3 kilometres wide, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990, and gives its directions as a boat from Mykonos.[10] Wikidata places both the island of Delos and its archaeological site in Mykonos Municipality.[11] So Delos shares a municipality with Mykonos but not an island. XTOUR treats Mykonos as the place a Delos visit sets out from, never as the place that contains it, and the Delos explainer explains the site and its museum.

Crete: an island too large for one destination

The GNTO calls Crete the largest island in Greece and gives it an area of 8,340 square kilometres, a coastline of 1,046 kilometres and a population of 624,408. Its Crete page's list of where to go has eight entries, Agios Nikolaos, Gavdos, Elounda, Heraklion, Ierapetra, Rethymno, Sitia and Chania, one of which, Gavdos, is a separate island. It also says that in 2025 the Minoan Palatial Centres of Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Zakros, Zominthos and Kydonia were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.[3]

XTOUR covers two of those places as destinations.

Heraklion. The Municipality of Heraklion describes the city as the largest urban centre on Crete, the capital of the region and the economic centre of the island, in the centre of the northern coast, and lists the Archaeological Museum among its museums.[6] Knossos is not in the city: the municipality's own page places the centre of Minoan civilisation south of Heraklion,[7] and Hellenic Heritage says the palace was recently inscribed by UNESCO together with five other Minoan palaces.[8] Hellenic Heritage's announcements show how a site's day can change: on 3 October 2026 it announced that Knossos would stay closed that day because of severe weather.[9] XTOUR's Knossos record treats Heraklion as the base for the site, not as the place that contains it. The guide to Knossos and the Heraklion Archaeological Museum explains how the site and the museum divide the story, and the guide to Phaistos and Malia covers the other two palaces.

Chania. The GNTO places Chania at the western end of Crete. It says the Minoan palace of Kydonia, whose excavations are scattered throughout the city, has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2025, names the old town's districts of Topanas, Splantzia, Ovraiki and Kasteli and the old harbour with its Egyptian lighthouse, and places the Archaeological Museum of Chania in the historic quarter of Halepa, to the east of the city. The same page describes Chania as a base for Balos, Elafonissi and the Samaria Gorge.[4] The Samaria Gorge guide sets out who decides when the gorge opens.

XTOUR also maps the palaces of Phaistos and Malia, Gortyn, the Venetian fortress on Spinalonga and Arkadi Monastery on Crete, but it has no destination in their municipalities and its records give none of them a base. The GNTO's page names Spinalonga in its paragraph on Elounda and Arkadi in its paragraph on Rethymno's hinterland.[3] XTOUR has no Rethymno, Agios Nikolaos, Elounda or Sitia destination.

Corfu: the town, not the whole island

Corfu, or Kerkyra, names both the island and its main town. Wikidata keeps them as two items and records that they are different, while naming the town as the island's capital;[12] the GNTO also calls the city of Corfu the island's capital.[5] XTOUR's destination is the town. Why one Greek place can carry an English name and one or more Greek spellings is explained in Greek letters on signs and place-name spellings.

Its sites are fortifications and a church. The Ministry of Culture's Castle Route page says the Old Town of Corfu, its two fortresses and its perimeter fortifications were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007, and that together they made Corfu the only Ionian island not to fall to the Ottomans, despite attempts in 1430, 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716.[13] Hellenic Heritage's Old Fortress page says the fortress withstood three Ottoman sieges, and that the two rocky peaks of its peninsula gave the Byzantine town the name Koryfo, from which "Corfu" derives.[14] The Castle Route page lists five invasion attempts and Hellenic Heritage three sieges; XTOUR reports both figures and does not reconcile them.

Outside the town, the GNTO's page speaks of more than two hundred mountain villages and of the identification of Corfu with Homer's island of the Phaeacians.[5] XTOUR maps one place outside the town, the Achilleion at Gastouri, with Corfu Town as its base, not the place that contains it. The guide to Corfu's Old Town and its fortresses covers the town's sites in detail.

Getting there is not something XTOUR answers

The GNTO's pages for Santorini, Mykonos, Chania and Corfu each list air routes from Athens and Thessaloniki airports to the island's airport,[5][4][2][1] and the Municipality of Heraklion names Nikos Kazantzakis International Airport and the Port of Heraklion among the city's facilities.[6] XTOUR does not repeat the flight durations those pages give, has no ferry data, and publishes no route, timetable or travel time between any of these islands or from the mainland.

How to use the comparison

XTOUR's reading is that the useful question is not which island, but which sites, and where they lie relative to the place you would stay. On Santorini every site XTOUR maps is in the destination itself, and in Corfu Town every one but the Achilleion. On Mykonos, the heritage visit XTOUR covers is on another island. On Crete, the sites XTOUR maps are spread between and beyond two cities, and XTOUR gives no times between them. The Greece travel guide sets these islands beside XTOUR's mainland bases.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish ferry or flight times, routes, fares or timetables, opening hours or prices for any site named here, beach information, weather or seasonal patterns, crowd levels or accommodation. It does not rank the islands or say which one suits a particular traveller. It has no destination for Crete or Corfu as whole islands. The one other Greek island XTOUR records as a destination is Rhodes, covered in the guide to the Palace of the Grand Master and the Medieval City of Rhodes.