Rhodes

Updated October 2026

Overview and Things to Consider

Rhodes is two things wearing one name. There's the island, the largest in the Dodecanese, which British, German and Polish charter passengers treat as a week of sun lounger and buffet. Then there's the city on its northern tip, about 56,000 people wrapped around a walled medieval town the Knights of St John built between 1309 and 1523. UNESCO listed it in 1988. People still live inside those walls, around 6,000 of them by Wikivoyage's count, which is why the Old Town still works as a neighborhood rather than a museum with gift shops. Some of it is a museum with gift shops. Sokratous Street at noon in July is exactly that.

You'll love Rhodes if you like your history layered. Inside one walk you pass the Knights' inns and their Gothic palace, Ottoman mosques and fountains, the oldest synagogue in Greece and Italian Fascist-era public buildings along the harbor. You'll love it if you want an island that works as a hub, with ferries to a dozen smaller islands and to Turkey. You'll hate it if you came to Greece for a whitewashed village where nobody speaks English and the taverna has no laminated photo menu. That version of the Dodecanese exists, and it's a boat ride away on Symi or Halki.

The 2026 moment is volume. Rhodes airport handled 7.09 million passengers in 2025, up from about 4.97 million in 2016, and the first eight months of 2026 ran another 3.6% ahead. Almost all of that growth is international charter traffic packed into April to October. The July 2023 wildfires, which forced around 19,000 people out of resorts and villages in the south, dented the island's reputation for one summer, and passenger numbers kept climbing anyway. What did change is the bill, with a climate resilience fee on every room night and higher ticket prices at state sites.

Some of the famous stuff is overrated. The Palace of the Grand Master is a 1930s Italian rebuild. The Valley of the Butterflies is a valley of moths, and fewer of them every year. Faliraki is what happens when an island lets a beach turn into a nightclub.

How Rhodes Got Here

The city is younger than the island's other towns. Lindos, Ialysos and Kamiros were the three old cities, and in 408 BC they joined to found a new capital at the northern tip. It grew rich on sea trade and shipbuilding. In 305 BC Demetrios Poliorketes besieged it with a 55-meter battering ram and a siege tower called Helepolis, and gave up a year later. The Colossus, the bronze statue of the sun god that followed, was finished around 280 BC and stood only until an earthquake in 226 BC. No trace of it survives, so treat anyone pointing at the Mandraki harbor mouth with suspicion.

The town you'll walk through is the Knights' work. The Hospitallers took Rhodes in 1309 and spent two centuries turning it into one of the strongest Christian fortresses anywhere, hiring Italian engineers to design walls that could take gunpowder artillery. It held off the Mamluks in 1444 and the Ottomans in 1480. In 1522 Suleiman the Magnificent arrived with a fleet of about 400 ships, and after six months the Knights negotiated their exit on January 1, 1523, later moving their base to Malta. The Ottomans turned most of the churches into mosques and added the mosques, baths and mansions you still walk past today.

Italy seized the island in 1912 and stayed until 1943, when Germany took over. The Italians demolished Ottoman houses built against the walls, turned the old cemeteries around the walls into a green belt, put up the theater, the Governor's Palace and other civic buildings in the New Town, and rebuilt the Palace of the Grand Master from 1937 to 1940 as a holiday residence for Victor Emmanuel III and Mussolini. In July 1944 the Nazi authorities deported more than 1,700 of the city's Jews, and about 1,200 were murdered at Auschwitz. Rhodes was united with Greece in 1947, and about 6,000 Italian colonists left. The city you see is the sum of all of it, Knights' walls, Ottoman domes and Italian civic buildings, packed into one walk.

Getting There and Around

Almost everyone arrives at Rhodes International Airport "Diagoras" (RHO), on the west coast near Paradeisi, about 14 kilometers southwest of town. Fraport Greece has run it since April 2017. From roughly April to October it's a charter hub, with seasonal and charter flights from across Europe, led by the UK and Germany, plus flights from Israel. Outside that window the picture flips. In January 2025 the airport counted 56,028 domestic passengers and two international ones. In winter you connect via Athens or Thessaloniki on Aegean or Sky Express.

The municipal west coast bus, run by RODA, connects Rhodes Town with the airport every 15 to 45 minutes for most of the day, 5:15 a.m. to midnight on weekdays under the August 2026 timetable, using the stop on Averof Street behind the New Market by Mandraki. Wikivoyage readers report €2.50 at the ticket booth and €3.50 bought on board by card, and a 35-minute ride. Heading to the east coast resorts instead, KTEL line 25 ran from the airport to Faliraki about hourly, 7:30 to 23:30, from May 4 to September 30, 2026, for €3.50 one way. Outside those dates, check the KTEL site or take a taxi.

Greece is in Schengen, so US, Canadian, UK and Australian passport holders get 90 days in any 180 without a visa, counted across all Schengen countries. The EU's Entry/Exit System became fully operational at Schengen borders on April 10, 2026, replacing passport stamps with fingerprints and a photo for non-EU visitors, though the UK Foreign Office says Greek authorities have indicated they won't collect biometrics from UK travelers. Expect longer lines anyway. ETIAS, the €20 online pre-authorization, has slipped again and is now expected in 2027. UK passports must be less than 10 years old on arrival and valid three months past your departure.

Inside town you walk. The Old Town is car-free in practice, about 200 unnamed lanes inside the walls, and the New Town, Mandraki and Elli Beach are an easy walk from the northern gates. Beyond town, KTEL Rhodes runs the east coast to Faliraki, Lindos and the south, and RODA covers the west coast and airport, each selling its own tickets. Taxis are dark blue with white roofs. Wikivoyage lists a flat fare of around €5 within city limits. The UK Foreign Office suggests Uber or Free Now where available, but I couldn't confirm either works on Rhodes, so plan on taxi ranks.

What's Changed Since 2016

Traffic is up by about 40% in a decade. Rhodes airport handled about 4.97 million passengers in 2016, the last year before Fraport took over in April 2017, and 7.09 million in 2025. January to August 2026 ran another 3.6% ahead, with July and August at 1.33 and 1.38 million passengers. The growth went into the same summer months, so the summer crowd got heavier, not longer. The UK alone sent 1.65 million passengers in 2025, Germany 1.16 million.

In July 2023 the island burned. A wildfire that started on July 18 spread for days through the center and southeast, a state of emergency covering Lindos was declared on July 20, and villages including Laerma, Pefki, Lindos and Kalathos were emptied. About 19,000 people were moved by land and sea, the largest evacuation the island had seen, and Jet2 and TUI canceled flights for days. The emergency was lifted on August 2. The evacuations were in the center and southeast, far from Rhodes Town at the northern tip.

Since 2025 Greece charges a higher climate resilience fee on every room night. From April to October it's €2 at one- and two-star hotels and rooms to let, €5 at three stars, €10 at four and €15 at five-star hotels and villas, and short-term rentals pay €8 in summer and €2 in winter. Cruise passengers landing on islands other than Santorini and Mykonos pay €5 a head from June to September.

Border checks changed on April 10, 2026, when the EU's Entry/Exit System went fully live and passport stamps ended. ETIAS, the separate €20 online pre-authorization, comes later and is now expected in 2027. If you're crossing to Turkey and back, you'll go through the system twice.

State sites cost more than older guides say. The Ministry of Culture lists the Lindos acropolis at €20 and Kamiros at €10, while €10 buys the package covering the Archaeological Museum, the Palace of the Grand Master, the Decorative Arts Collection and Our Lady of the Castle. And since February 16, 2024, same-sex couples can marry in Greece.

What the Usual Advice Gets Wrong

"The Palace of the Grand Master is the Knights' original castle and the Old Town's top sight." A gunpowder magazine exploded in 1856 and wrecked most of it. What stands now was designed by Italian architect Vittorio Mesturino and built from 1937 to 1940 as a holiday residence for the Italian king and Mussolini, whose name is still on a plaque near the entrance. See it on the €10 package ticket, which also covers the Archaeological Museum in the Knights' Hospital, the better building.

"Lindos is an easy half-day on a coach tour." That's exactly why the coach version is miserable. Tour coaches arrive in the morning and usually leave by noon. Take the KTEL bus instead, €6 from Rhodes Town with departures from 6:15 a.m. in early October, climb to the €20 acropolis when it opens at 8:00, and stay for an evening swim, or come back after the last coaches leave.

"Rhodes is a year-round island with mild winters, so go in January and have it to yourself." You'll have it to yourself because nothing is flying in. International traffic drops by more than 90% from October to November and stays tiny until April, December and January each average about 5 inches of rain, and state sites drop to short winter hours, Lindos 8:30 to 15:10 and closed Tuesdays. April, May and October are the off-peak months that work.

"After the 2023 fires, Rhodes isn't worth visiting." The fires hit the center and southeast, not Rhodes Town, and the airport handled 7.09 million passengers in 2025, up from 6.92 million in 2024. The real lesson is about summer. Fire season runs April to October, so enable emergency alerts on your phone, follow @112Greece, and never park or picnic in dry pine forest on a windy day.

"The Valley of the Butterflies is full of butterflies." They're Jersey tiger moths, a Rhodes subspecies, drawn in from late May by the sweetgum trees. They have no stomach, so every time a visitor claps or shouts to make them fly they burn energy they can't replace, and the population is declining. Go quietly in early summer or skip it.

Ideas to Consider for Your Visit

Have you thought about walking the Old Town in two shifts, early and late? Before 9 a.m. the Street of the Knights is empty enough to hear your footsteps on the cobbles, and after 6 p.m. the cruise and coach crowds are gone. In between, duck into La Juderia, the old Jewish quarter, where the Kahal Shalom Synagogue, the oldest in Greece, stands beside the Jewish Museum of Rhodes, set up in 1997. Then find Mevlana at 76 Sokratous, a tiny Turkish coffee house that Wikivoyage writers describe as a survival of Ottoman Rhodes in the middle of the souvenir strip.

Lindos by public bus beats any tour. The KTEL timetable for October 1 to 15, 2026 shows 19 departures a day from Rhodes Town, the first at 6:15 a.m., for €6. Ride early, climb through the whitewashed lanes to the acropolis gate for 8:00, and see the temple of Athena Lindia and the 2nd-century BC trireme relief carved into the rock before the heat arrives. Then walk down to St Paul's Bay for a swim. The last bus back leaves Lindos at 20:45, so dinner in the village works.

Have you thought about Symi as an overnight, not a day trip? Dodekanisos Seaways sails from Rhodes, with a low fare of €28 instead of €48 on its Panagia Skiadeni ferry, bought by the day before travel, on set dates with limited seats. Day boats leave Gialos harbor around 6 p.m., and the island changes when they do. Stay a night or two, climb the 500 steps of the Kali Strata to Chorio, and order Symi shrimp and atherinopita, the island's small-fish pie, down at the harbor.

The west coast makes a good car day. Ancient Kamiros, one of the three cities that founded Rhodes, is a Dorian town with a temple of Athena at the top of the hill, €10 and open 8:00 to 20:00 in summer. Pair it with Embonas, the wine village halfway up Mount Attavyros (1,215 meters), or the climb to the summit, which Wikivoyage puts at two to three hours on loose rock. By bus it's a long day.

Prasonisi, at the island's southern tip, is joined to Rhodes by a sandbar, and the south end is where windsurfers and kitesurfers go for the wind. Don't drive across the sand without a 4x4. KTEL runs Lindos to Prasonisi at 10:30 and 14:30 for €5.10 in early October, returning at 13:00 and 16:00, and the coast from Gennadi south is the least built-up on the island.

Eat Rhodian, not generic Greek. Look for pitaroudia, lakani, which is goat with chickpeas, matsi, a handmade pasta used in koulouria, and synoro cheese. For something sweet there's melekouni or zvigoi, the local loukoumades, and to drink there's souma, a clear grape spirit, and wine from Embonas. Wikivoyage readers point to the fish grill on Sofokleous Street and small family places off Sokratous over the big terraces on the main drag.

The Part Most Guides Miss

The Acropolis of Rhodes, on the highest ground of the ancient city, is free, open-air and permanently open, and about 2 kilometers southwest of the Old Town, and almost nobody on a package week bothers with it. It wasn't fortified like most Greek acropoleis. It was a terraced zone of temples and public buildings, and today you get the restored columns of the Temple of Pythian Apollo, an 800-seat marble odeon and a 210-meter stadium the Italians rebuilt. Come up late in the afternoon, when the heat drops and the tour groups are back on their coaches. It's the one place in Rhodes where you get the ancient city to yourself.

Where to Base Yourself

Old Town (inside the walls). The best base for anyone without a car. You wake up inside a UNESCO site, have it to yourself before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m., and walk to the bus stations and ferry docks. The adults-only Rhodes Youth Hostel on Ergeiou is the budget pick, with dorms listed from about $33 in October, and small guesthouses around Dorieos Square cost little more. The catch is noise from late bars, no vehicle access to most lanes, and a steep walk with luggage over the cobbles.

New Town (Mandraki and Elli). Better if you want a beach and a modern room. Elli Beach is at the tip of town, the bus stations and Mandraki harbor are on the doorstep, and STAY Hostel, 0.26 kilometers from the center, lists dorms from about $20. Locals live and eat here, so tavernas are less geared to tourists. The catch is that it's a working city, with traffic, parking that's tough in summer and none of the Old Town's atmosphere after dark.

Lindos. Worth a night or two for evenings, when the coaches are gone and the acropolis glows over the bay. The village has only around 700 permanent residents, and its lanes are entirely pedestrian, so donkeys and mopeds are the only traffic. The catch is that most beds are sold through tour operators, restaurants serve the same international menu, and the KTEL ride to town is about 56 kilometers. Skip it in July and August.

Realities to Be Aware Of

A budget day comes in around €35 to €60 before food, built from a dorm at $20 to $33 (about €18 to €29), two KTEL rides at €3.50 to €6 and one paid site at €10 to €20. Mid-range and comfortable stays depend more on the month than the hotel, since the island prices to its charter calendar. Add the resilience fee to whatever you're quoted, from €2 a night at a one-star room in summer to €15 at a five-star hotel.

Rhodes is low crime, and most trouble is self-inflicted or traffic-related. Wikivoyage warns that some taxi drivers switch the meter off and name a price at the end, so keep it running. Quad bikes are a known hazard, and the UK Foreign Office warns that many travel insurance policies exclude them. Faliraki earned a reputation in 2003 for drunken violence, and police there now run a zero-tolerance line. Respect beach flags, since red means stay out.

Rhodes Town averages highs around 87°F (31°C) in July and August, but Lindos runs hotter, with its station averaging July highs of about 96°F (35.5°C). Wildfire season runs April to October, and starting a fire, even by accident with a cigarette, is a crime in Greece. Autumn storms hit hard. On October 2, 2026, Greece's meteorological service raised a red alert for the Dodecanese and Crete through October 4, with thunderstorms, heavy rain and winds up to 10 Beaufort locally.

Same-sex marriage has been legal in Greece since February 2024, and Rhodes Town is easygoing. The Lindos acropolis has no wheelchair access, and the Old Town's cobbles are hard going for anyone with limited mobility. Think about crowds by the hour as well as the month. Lindos fills when the tour coaches arrive in the morning and thins after they leave around noon, and cruise ships dock at the Central port right beside the Old Town.

If Rhodes Is Part of a Longer Trip

Rhodes is the ferry hub for the southeast corner of Greece. Blue Star Ferries runs daily between Piraeus and Rhodes, a crossing of 15 hours 40 minutes or more, with stops that can include Kos, Kalymnos, Leros, Symi, Tilos, Nisyros, Kastellorizo and the Kasos-Karpathos-Crete line. Dodekanisos Seaways' catamarans Dodekanisos Express and Dodekanisos Pride string Rhodes together with Symi, Kos, Kalymnos, Leros, Lipsi, Patmos and on to Samos, Ikaria and Fournoi. That makes Rhodes a good start or finish for a north-to-south island hop that ends with a flight, rather than doubling back to Piraeus by sea.

Turkey is right across the water. Yeşil Marmaris Lines and other operators run Rhodes to Marmaris, and Yeşil Marmaris also sails Bodrum to Rhodes. US, UK, Canadian, Australian and EU passports enter Turkey visa-free for 90 days in 180. Leaving Rhodes for Turkey is a Schengen exit, so you'll pass through the Entry/Exit System both ways.

For a longer routing, flights are seasonal in a way that matters. From April to October you can fly direct to much of Europe and to Israel, and in winter almost everything goes through Athens. If Rhodes is one stop on a bigger loop, pair it with Istanbul or Cyprus by way of the Turkish coast, and route the long-haul legs through Athens. AirTreks builds multi-stop tickets where an open jaw, flying into Athens and out of Istanbul, often beats a return to the same airport.

Yearly Things to Consider

Charter flights set the calendar. The season opens in April, peaks from June to September, when the airport handles more than a million passengers a month, and shuts off in November. Rain follows the same curve in reverse. June to September averages under a third of an inch a month, while December and January get about 5 inches each. Mid-May is the sweet spot for walking and history, with highs around 75°F (24°C), almost no rain and the first tiger moths arriving in Petaloudes.

October is the month to aim for if you want to swim. The sea is still around 75°F (24°C), about the same as the afternoon air, and the coaches thin out. The tradeoff is weather risk. Autumn storms can stop ferries for a day or two, and the red alert of October 2 to 4, 2026 forecast winds up to 10 Beaufort and stopped ferries on October 2, so don't plan a tight ferry connection to a flight home in late October.

Ideas for Itineraries

3 Days in Rhodes

Day one is the Old Town. Walk the Street of the Knights before 9 a.m., use the €10 package ticket for the Archaeological Museum and the Palace of the Grand Master, then spend the afternoon in La Juderia and the Kahal Shalom Synagogue. End late in the afternoon at the Acropolis of Rhodes. Day two is Lindos on an early KTEL bus, the acropolis at opening time, a swim at St Paul's Bay and the evening bus home. Day three is a Dodekanisos Seaways boat to Symi and back, or stay over if you can.

5 Days in Rhodes

Do the three-day plan, but make Symi an overnight stay and add a day on the west coast. Rent a car for that day and drive to ancient Kamiros, then up to Embonas for lunch and a wine tasting below Mount Attavyros, and back along the coast past Ialysos. On the last day, take it slow in the New Town, swim at Elli Beach and eat the Rhodian dishes you haven't tried yet, pitaroudia, lakani or matsi, in a taverna off the main tourist streets.

1 Week in Rhodes

Split the week between Rhodes Town and the south. Spend three nights in the Old Town for the city, Lindos and Kamiros, then two nights in Lindos or Gennadi with a bus or car day to Prasonisi for the wind and the sandbar. Finish with two nights on Symi, staying in Chorio above the harbor or at Pedi by the beach, with a boat to one of the beaches you can't reach by road, such as Nanou or Agios Georgios Dysalonas. You'll come back to Rhodes Town for the airport or ferry onward.

2 Weeks or More in Rhodes

Two weeks lets you treat Rhodes as a base rather than a destination. Settle into the Old Town or the New Town near Mandraki for the first week, with the bus network for Lindos, Faliraki's beaches out of season and the west coast. In the second week, island-hop by Dodekanisos Seaways north through Tilos, Nisyros or Kos to Kalymnos, Leros or Patmos, or cross to Marmaris and work east along the Turkish coast. Off season, the Old Town's guesthouses and cafes are quiet enough for a few days of remote work, though winter flights mean connecting through Athens.

Sources

What this guide is built on. Every page below was read for this guide; prices and rules were checked in October 2026.

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