Getting to Corfu with children is easier than almost anywhere else in Greece; getting around it once you land is harder than people expect. The island has a proper airport on the edge of its own town and no ferry chain to negotiate, so a family can be swimming a couple of hours after landing. What catches people out is the size of the place afterwards.
Arriving is the easy part
Most Greek islands ask a family for a flight, a transfer, a boat and another transfer, usually with the boat at the least convenient hour. Corfu asks for a flight. The airport sits beside the town rather than an hour from it, the coast roads lead away in both directions, and if you have chosen a base within reach of the airport the day ends at a pool rather than in a queue.
That single structural fact is why Corfu absorbs so many families who would otherwise find the islands too much work. It also explains the resort strips: the island has been receiving direct holiday traffic for decades, and the infrastructure that grew up around it is genuinely practised at families rather than improvising.
The two coasts hand you different water
| Coast | What the water does | What it asks of you |
|---|---|---|
| East and north-east | Sheltered coves, flat almost every day, calm swimming | Small pebbly bays rather than long sand; less room to run |
| West | Open Ionian, real sand, surf on breezy days | Watching the water; a shorebreak can be too much for small children |
| The far south | Long shallow sand, warm and gentle | Distance from the town, and a resort culture that suits some families and not others |
Choose the coast for the age of the children and the rest follows. Under-fives generally do better on the sheltered side, where a bay stays flat and a parent can sit down. Older children who want to swim properly and body-surf are better served on the west, where the sand is longer and the water has some life in it.
Shade is the underrated part
Corfu is green, and it stays green through a summer that turns most of the Aegean to dust. Olive groves cover a great deal of the island, so the drive is shaded, the villages are shaded, and there is somewhere to put a pram that is not full sun. Anyone who has taken small children to a bare Cycladic island in August will understand exactly how much that is worth.
The wind is the other quiet advantage. There is no equivalent here of the northerly that hardens the Aegean summer, so a family's beach day is rarely written off by a gale, and boat trips are far less likely to be cancelled.
What actually goes wrong
The day trip that is too far. Corfu is long and its roads are slow, so the beach that looked like a short hop on the map takes a large piece of the day, and the drive back with tired children is the part nobody plans for. Treat anything at the opposite end of the island as a whole day out or leave it alone.
The other reliable mistake is booking a base by its photograph. Corfu contains both the quietest coves in the Ionian and a couple of the loudest resorts in Greece, sometimes within a short drive of each other. Read the surroundings, not just the room.
One thing to settle first
Decide the water before you decide the room. Which coast the children will actually swim on determines the base, the drive and the shape of every day, and the stay and cost pages assume you have already made that call. Which month to come is worth its own look too, since the shoulder weeks are appreciably calmer.
More on Corfu