How many islands fit in one day? Usually four.
Which boat reaches the good lagoon before the crowd. Whether lunch and the park fee are in the price. How rough the crossing gets after eleven. Reviews of the island days you can actually book.
Four island days that decide the rest of the trip.
A longtail out of Krabi, a lunch cruise through the Elaphiti, a Red Sea reef stop and a Greek gulet. What each costs and what the people on board said.
01The Andaman classicPremium 4-Island Day Trip by Longtail Boat with LunchHong, Lading, Pakbia and Tup, in a longtail with the engine open at the back. Lunch on the sand, park fee usually extra.
02The Adriatic dayFull-Day Dubrovnik Elaphite Islands Cruise with Lunch and DrinksThree Elaphiti islands off Dubrovnik with lunch and drinks aboard a big steady boat. The one to book if the sea worries you.
03The Red Sea stopOrange Bay Island Boat Trip w/ Breakfast and LunchOrange Bay and the Giftun reefs out of Hurghada, breakfast and lunch on board. Water clear enough to count fish from the deck.
04The Greek guletFull Day Boat Cruise to 3 IslandsOut of Kos harbour to three islands under sail, swim stops between each. A full day for the price of an airport transfer.
Six coastlines where the island boats leave from the end of the street.
Limestone stacks in the Andaman Sea, a Dalmatian archipelago you can cross in an afternoon, Red Sea reefs an hour offshore, Cycladic anchorages, Palawan lagoons and the Bay of Islands. Six places to sail from, and the best day out of each.
In Thailand the choice is the boat, not the island.
Every operator sells the same bays. What changes is the hull under you: a longtail that takes an hour to reach Hong and lands you almost alone, or a speedboat that fits six stops in and pounds the swell after lunch.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Premium 4-Island Day Trip by Longtail Boat with Lunch
By longtailSlower, wetter, half the price. Two or three bays, no queue at either.
By speedboatSix stops before four o’clock. Sit at the back if the forecast is up.
Out to Phi PhiMaya Bay, Pileh Lagoon and the monkeys. Book the early departure.
Into Phang Nga BaySea caves by canoe, then the leaning rock everybody photographs.
All 91 Thai island days →
In the Adriatic the islands sit a short crossing apart, and lunch is on one of them.
Split and Dubrovnik sit an hour from more islands than a week can hold. The Blue Cave needs a flat sea and an early number in the queue; the Elaphiti three need nothing but an appetite.
Longtail, speedboat, catamaran or a proper sailing yacht.
The hull decides the day. Speedboats cover ground and slam; catamarans stay flat and are the answer if anyone on board gets sick; a chartered yacht buys you the anchorage nobody else reaches, and costs like it.
On an island boat lunch is usually in. The national park fee usually is not.
Read the inclusions before the itinerary. Most full-day boats feed you and lend you a mask; almost none of the Thai ones cover the park fee at the landing, which is collected in cash at the jetty. Towels, fins and a wetsuit in Croatian spring are the other three things people are surprised by.
The island days more people book than any others.
Every island trip we have reviewed →The boats that sell out in high season, from a $19 harbour ferry to a full day under sail, and what earns each one its slot.
1
New York City: Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island with Ferry
Take a self-guided ferry trip from New Jersey to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. You’ll see Lady Liberty up close, visit the Statue of Liberty Museum and Immigration Museum, and use audio guides in 12 languages. Allow four to six hours, and note that crown and pedestal access are not included.
From · $19
Read our review →
2
Boat Trip: Glimpse of Murano, Torcello & Burano Islands
from $29
3
Volcanic Islands Cruise with Hot Springs Visit
from $29
4
Full-Day Dubrovnik Elaphite Islands Cruise with Lunch and Drinks
from $78
5
Murano & Burano Islands Guided Small-Group Tour by Private Boat
from $36
6
Blue cave, Mamma Mia and Hvar, 5 islands speedboat tour
from $111
7
Blue Cave, Mamma Mia, Hvar and 5 Island Tour
from $109
8
Elaphiti Islands Full-Day Cruise with Lunch
from $78
What a day of island hopping actually costs.
Every trip on the site, grouped by the per-head price. A shared longtail and a chartered catamaran are the same activity separated by two hundred dollars.
Shared longtails, harbour ferries, half-day reef runs and the three-island boats out of Greek and Turkish ports.
The full-day standard: speedboat circuits with lunch, the Elaphiti cruise, Blue Cave days, catamarans with a swim ladder.
Private hulls, small-group sailing days and the multi-day runs that sleep aboard.
Three island stops you cannot reach any other way.
Coastlines are easy to drive. A cave you enter lying flat in a dinghy, a lagoon walled in by limestone and a bay with no road to it are not.
The Blue Cave at Bisevo
The entrance is barely a metre high, so the transfer boat waits outside and a small tender takes you in lying back. Light comes up through a second underwater opening and the whole chamber turns cobalt. It runs on a timed ticket, closes on any real swell, and looks like nothing by mid-afternoon when the sun comes off the angle.
- 1Blue cave, Mamma Mia and Hvar, 5 islands speedboat tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,150 reviews
- 2Blue Cave, Mamma Mia, Hvar and 5 Island Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,320 reviews
- 3Blue Lagoon & 3 Islands Cruise with Lunch from Split★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,756 reviews
The sea caves at Hong
Between the limestone towers there are hongs, collapsed cave roofs that leave a lagoon walled in on every side. You reach them lying flat in an inflatable canoe while a guide paddles you under an arch with a foot of clearance at high water. The tide decides the hour; the boats that go first thing get the caves empty.
- 1Phang Nga Bay Sea Cave Canoeing & James Bond Island by Big Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,666 reviews
- 2James Bond Island Longtail Boat and Sea Canoe Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,364 reviews
- 3Khao Lak: Phang Nga Bay & James Bond Island by Longtail Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,142 reviews
Maya Bay, and the queue for it
The beach in the film closed for four years to let the coral come back and reopened with rules: no swimming in the bay, boats moor on the far side, and everyone walks in through a boardwalk. It shuts completely every August and September. The early departures land before the Phuket fleet arrives, which is the whole game.
- 1Phi Phi Islands Speedboat Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 3,340 reviews
- 2Phi Phi & 4 Islands Sunset Tour by Speedboat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,902 reviews
- 3Phi Phi Early Bird & 4 Islands by Speedboat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,889 reviews
The stops worth choosing a boat around.
A blue cave, a green lagoon, a sandbar that only exists at low water. These are the landings people remember, and the ones the weather cancels first.
Every cave and lagoon trip →
Four island days that will not wait for you.
Most boats can be arranged the night before from a desk on the beach road. These four run on park quotas, tide tables and seasons that close, and they sell out in that order.
- 01PhiPhi, Maya Bay & Khai Island Day Tour with LunchThe bay shuts every August and September, and the boardwalk landing runs on a fixed number of boats a day. Swimming in the bay itself is not allowed at all.
- 02Similan Islands Snorkeling Trip by SpeedboatThe national park closes from the middle of May until the middle of October. Out of season there is no boat, at any price.
- 03Blue cave, Mamma Mia and Hvar, 5 islands speedboat tourThe tender only goes inside on a flat sea, and the cave sells timed entries. A morning slot is the difference between cobalt and grey.
- 04Full-Day Dubrovnik Elaphite Islands Cruise with Lunch and DrinksOne big boat leaves once a day and the lunch is counted in advance. Walk-up space in July is a rumour.
Island days by coastline
Phuket, Krabi, Phi Phi: the Andaman run almost everybody does first.
Koh Lanta
PattayaThe newest island trip reviews.
Everything else off the pier →
Zakynthos Half Day Tour and Cruise Turtle Island and Keri Caves
Read our review →
Cruise to turtle’s island and caves with a glass bottom boat
Read our review →
Speed Boat Trip to Sazan Island, Haxhi Ali Cave and Karaburun
Read our review →
Stevensons Island 2-Hour Cruise and Nature Walk
Read our review →
Saona Island Tour All Inclusive Speedboat and Catamaran
Read our review →
Phu Quoc Speedboat Trip: 3 Islands By Speedboat
Read our review →
Mou Waho Island: 3-Hour Cruise and Guided Nature Walk
Read our review →