Sifnos to Kimolos Ferry: Times, Prices and the Day Trip Question

This is the section that matters most, and it’s the one no booking engine will tell you.

The first scheduled sailing from Sifnos to Kimolos frequently departs around midday — 12:15 or 12:20 in recent seasons — with the last leaving in the evening. That’s because these boats aren’t dedicated shuttles; they’re legs of the longer Piraeus line running south through Sifnos towards Kimolos and Milos, and they reach Sifnos when they reach it.

A midday departure and a 40-minute crossing means arriving on Kimolos mid-afternoon. Combine that with the return timetable and a same-day round trip on scheduled ferries often doesn’t work at all — or leaves you two hours ashore.

So check both legs on your specific date before assuming. If the pairing works on your dates, excellent. If it doesn’t, read the next section.

Most visitors who spend a day on Kimolos from Sifnos do it by excursion boat, not scheduled ferry — and that’s the right way to do it.

Day cruises run from Sifnos through the summer, and they typically combine Kimolos with Poliegos, the uninhabited island just east of it, which has some of the clearest water in the Cyclades and is reachable only by boat. You get swim stops, a sensible departure time, a guaranteed return, and no timetable anxiety.

For the practical details, see our Kimolos and Poliegos day trip guide and boat tours from Sifnos.

Use the scheduled ferry when you’re actually going to Kimolos — staying a night or more, continuing to Milos, or travelling with a vehicle. Use a boat tour when you want a day on the water.

Along with Serifos, this is among the cheapest crossings from Sifnos, and for good reason: five operators serve it, all of them running it as part of longer routes rather than as a standalone service. Competition plus incidental capacity keeps fares low.

Take the conventional sailing. On a 40-minute hop there is nothing to gain from a premium seat.

Summer (June to September): roughly 8 to 10 crossings a week, with up to two on the busiest days, spread across five operators.

Winter: drops sharply — around two sailings a week. The connection persists year-round as part of the lifeline network, but it isn’t something to plan a winter itinerary around.

Note that different operators post noticeably different durations on this pairing: 40 minutes with Magic Sea Ferries, 50 with Aegean Sea Lines and Fast Ferries, an hour with Blue Star. On a crossing this short those differences are minor, but they explain why quoted times vary so much between booking sites.

Summer schedules are published in March. Check live availability for your dates.

Kimolos’s harbour is Psathi, a tiny working port on the east coast with a few tavernas and rooms, and very little else.

Chorio, the island’s only real village, sits on a hill about 1 to 1.5 km inland and uphill. It’s a whitewashed Cycladic village with an archaeological museum, a ruined Venetian kastro at its heart, and — this is the appeal — almost no visitors.

Getting up there:

• A local bus connects Psathi with Chorio and the island’s other settlements. Frequency is limited and seasonal.
• A taxi costs around €5 for the short run up.
• Walking is perfectly feasible without heavy luggage — 15 to 20 minutes uphill.

Sources disagree about how reliably the bus runs, so if you’re arriving on a late sailing with bags, plan for a taxi and treat the bus as a bonus. Arrive 20–30 minutes before departure on the way back; Psathi is small but the boats don’t wait.

Coming the other way you’ll dock at Kamares, 5.5 km from Apollonia, the capital.

Buses meet arrivals and reach Apollonia in about 15 minutes for around €2, cash to the driver. Services also run to Artemonas, Platis Gialos and Vathi shortly after ferries dock. Taxis wait at the quay, though only around ten serve the entire island — book ahead in August.

Kamares has a good sandy beach, tavernas along the front and pottery workshops within walking distance, so it’s a reasonable first night rather than just a transit point. See where to stay in Kamares, or compare the villages if you’re still choosing.

Kimolos sits about a kilometre off Milos, and the two are very well connected — a small local ferry crosses from Pollonia on Milos to Psathi in around 20 minutes for a few euros, several times a day in season.

That opens a useful routing: Sifnos → Kimolos → Milos, breaking a journey that’s otherwise a single hop into two short ones with a night on a genuinely quiet island in between. Many of the conventional sailings on the western line do exactly this anyway, calling at Kimolos between Sifnos and Milos.

See our Sifnos to Milos ferry guide — and note that the Kimolos stop is precisely why some Sifnos–Milos sailings take an hour longer than others.

Vehicles are carried, including campers, at around €21 on average.

Worth doing? Only if you’re continuing to Milos with it. Kimolos is tiny, most of it is walkable or reachable by the local bus, and the roads to the remoter beaches are rough. If Kimolos is your destination rather than a waypoint, leave the car on Sifnos.

The crossing is short and served by several conventional vessels, which makes it more weather-resilient than the high-speed-only routes — conventional ferries keep running in conditions that ground catamarans.

The bigger risk here is frequency, not weather. With 8 to 10 sailings a week rather than several a day, a missed or cancelled boat can mean waiting until tomorrow. If you’re connecting onwards from Kimolos, don’t build a tight schedule around a single sailing.