A Greek island summer is really a summer of ferries: the fast boats out of Piraeus to the Cyclades, the Ionian hops around Corfu and Kefalonia, the slow overnight crossings that drop you somewhere new at dawn. Between the sailings there are timed sunsets at Oia, beach clubs to book and a hundred tavernas to find down unmarked lanes. All of it runs smoother with a live connection — and whether you need to buy one depends on where you're coming from.
EU traveller? You might already be covered
Greece is in the EU. If you're on an EU or EEA plan, "roam like at home" means your data works across the islands at your normal rates — no eSIM required.
You'll want a travel eSIM if any of these apply:
- You're coming from outside the EU — the UK, Switzerland, the US, or elsewhere.
- Your home plan's roaming cap won't survive two weeks of ferry apps and photos.
- You'd rather keep a clean, separate data line.
If that's you, set up a Greece eSIM on home Wi-Fi before you fly and switch it on when you land.
What you'll actually use data for
- Ferry schedules and tickets — the one thing you'll check constantly, and the one thing that ruins a morning if it won't load at the port.
- Maps and scooter/taxi apps on islands where the "address" is a beach and a bend in the road.
- Timed sunset and restaurant bookings at the popular spots on Santorini and Mykonos.
- Photos and video calls from every caldera and cove.
Three to five gigabytes covers a week or two of island-hopping for most people; add more if you're the group hotspot.
Tip: Island signal is fine in the towns and patchy on the far beaches and between islands at sea. Cache offline maps and screenshot your ferry bookings before you leave Wi-Fi, so a dead spot at the dock never costs you a sailing.
Where the islands connect to the mainland — and beyond
The Ionian islands sit a short ferry from the Albanian coast — Corfu to Sarandë is barely an hour — so plenty of summers pair the two. The Albanian side, which is outside EU roaming, is covered in An Albanian Riviera summer: data from Vlorë to Ksamil. Across the Aegean, the Dodecanese are a hop from the Turkish coast — see A summer on the Turkish coast: staying online in Turkey — and further east, Cyprus rounds out an eastern-Med summer in A Cyprus summer: staying online on the Mediterranean. And if Greece is home rather than a holiday, the cost of keeping in touch across the border is in Family in Albania, life in Greece: cheap data on both sides.
Off island-hopping this summer? Grab a Greece eSIM before you go and spend the ferries watching the water, not the loading spinner.