May 19, 2023

Zakynthos with Kids 🇬🇷

Zakynthos enchants with its stunning beaches, towering white cliffs and turquoise waters.

Hoardes of travelers go to Shipwreck Beach on Zakynthos, but not many make it to Mizithres 👆

Most travel blogs we read said Zakynthos wasn't the best Greek island for kids. We did a ton of our own research (as we always do), and went anyway. Our whole family loved it!

Zakynthos enchants with its stunning beaches, towering white cliffs and turquoise waters. You've no doubt seen photos of the famous 'Shipwreck Beach' (pic below), but we found there's much more to Zakynthos than that.

🏨 Where We Stayed

For our 1-week trip to Zakynthos in July 2022, we stayed at Stefania Apartments, a small and quiet family-run hotel right on the sea. It included breakfast, which we've found is key for trips with kids, a little beach, and a pool of course. The breakfast was good, and the hosts were always around (Stefania and her husband), making it feel more like a B&B.

The location of Stefania Apartments, in Kipséli, was quiet and a good base for exploring the rest of the island.

🏄 What We Did

🔎 Explored the island

We alternated between days (or half days) of activity, with days of chilling by the pool. Here's what we found and loved when we went exploring:

Keri Lighthouse Restaurant for an incredible view of Mizithres:

🏖 Best Beaches We Found

Madrakia Beach: A tiny, calm and quiet harbour beach, right next to a great taverna (see where we ate). This was our favourite beach in Zakynthos, perfect for kids and parents alike.👌

Porto Limonas: not so much a beach as a rocky cove surrounded by cliffs, where you can jump in to crystal clear water. Perfect for swimming, floating and snorkeling. You can also rent umbrellas and order food and drinks.

Xigia Sulfur Beach: Another tiny beach, with the added attraction of sulphurous water that comes from nearby caves. This gives it a cool chalky colour, and it's thought to have healing properties. Whilst it's a bit stinky in parts, it's definitely a pretty beach.

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Tip: we recommend going early, as it seems to be on the package tourist route - busloads started arriving around 11am when we were there.

⚓️ Boat Cruise to Shipwreck Beach (Navagio)

Sometimes you just have to see the big attractions, even though you know it's going to be packed with tourists. We booked the Blue Caves to Shipwreck Tour with Theodosis Cruises, which included sightseeing and cave exploration (in shimmering blue water caves the boat barely fit inside), en route to Navagio.

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Tip: go as early in the day as you can, and ask to go on their smallest boat.

Approaching the beach surrounded by soaring cliffs is definitely impressive. One nearby boat was blasting 'My Heart Will Go On' from Titanic 😆, which added to the dramatic atmosphere. Even though we went in the morning, it was still pretty packed. Conclusion: it's worth doing, once.

💦 Tsilivi Water Park

Not usually our first choice of activities, but my 7 year-old Olly had his heart set on it. We found Tsilivi Water Park close to where we were staying, which had good reviews. Just he and I went, while the rest of the family relaxed at the hotel. We had a lot of fun!

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Tip: Go early (I see a theme here). They let us in 20mins before opening and we had the whole park to ourselves. By 10am it was filling up with British kids and their parents (who were already drinking pints!)

🚤 Rented a Boat

The highlight of our trip was the day we skippered our own boat. Cruising around at our own pace, discovering cliffs and caves, jumping off the boat into crystal-clear water, was magic!

We rented a Blue Water 4.80m boat from Fun @ Sea at Keri Beach, and cruised from there around the south coast to Mizithres.

🤩 It was really stunning scenery the whole trip. Swimming through a cave to the empty Mizithres beach felt like discovering paradise (or the scene from The Beach). At the end we visited Marathonisi island, where we spotted a turtle, a sandy beach we could swim to, and even found a floating ice-cream boat, which the kids of course loved!

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Safety Concerns: I'll admit I was nervous about being skipper with young kids on a small boat out in the open sea. But I needn't have been. It was calm as a lake, not too many other boats out, we got clear instructions on everything related to the boat and anchoring, the boat had a good sun shade, the kids wore life jackets, and we brought our own floating ring for Leo, our 1-year-old. But - if you're too nervous to go on your own, you can also hire a professional skipper to come with you.

🍽 Where We Ate

Madriaka: We discovered this little taverna by chance, and it was perfect for our family. The view, the traditional (and affordable) Greek food, the friendly service, and the beach were all great.

Madriaka beach is right in front of the restaurant, so you can have a swim while waiting for your food. 👌 We ended up coming back here a few times.

Nobelos: A beachfront restaurant that's part of a boutique hotel. With a romantic vibe, arguably the best food on the island, a private beach and the sound of tiny waves lapping at the shore, it has a special feel.

It's pricey compared to other restaurants on Zakynthos, but nothing crazy (we didn't drink much which helped). We traveled with my girlfriend's mum, so we were lucky enough to be able to go to Nobelos for a date night.

Fish Taverna Andreas: No frills but next to our hotel, so convenient (key after a day out exploring). It was right on the sea, had a little playground for the kids, and the fried saganaki was great.

🚗 How We Got Around

Hiring a car is the only way to go on Zakynthos. We never spent more than about 40mins driving from one side of the island to the other - ideal for driving with kids, i.e. no: 'are we there yet?'

✈️ Book Your Zakynthos with Kids Trip

We usually do book everything separately: search the best flights, stay in an Airbnb, and book our own car rental. But for this trip we ended up booking on Eliza Was Here.

Why? We were only going for a week and found something that ticked all our boxes for Zakynthos, that was significantly cheaper than booking separately. The whole process and trip went smoothly, especially the car rental (not always the case in our experience).

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Eliza Was Here is a Dutch travel service for finding unique holidays away from the hustle and bustle in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, France and Malta (with flights from Netherlands, Germany and Belgium). They focus on small family-run hotels and B&Bs that don't feel at all touristy.

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