Mykonos with family

Mykonos handles families better than its reputation suggests, and the reason is arithmetic rather than atmosphere: the island is small, the airport sits a few minutes from the town, and no part of the coast is a long drive from any other. What catches families out is never the distance. It is the last stretch of every journey — the stepped lane, the unshaded car park, the walk down to the sand.

Everything is close, and the final hundred metres is the work

Arriving is easy. Flights land on the island itself, so there is no ferry chain to negotiate with tired children, and a family can be in the water within an hour or two of landing. Once here, the constraint changes shape. Roads funnel through a small number of junctions, parking at the popular southern bays fills early in the day, and the island's taxi fleet is famously small — so a plan that depends on hailing one at a particular hour is not a plan. Buses from the town serve the main southern beaches reliably and are the pragmatic answer for most families.

The Chora itself is the other adjustment. Its lanes are narrow, largely closed to vehicles and stepped in places, which is exactly what makes it lovely and exactly what makes a pushchair a poor choice. A carrier works; wheels frequently do not.

Where the effort actually goes

Which bays suit a family and which only look it

The southern coast is the sheltered one — the northerly wind that blows through the summer hits the north side hardest, and a bay that is idyllic on a still morning can be unswimmable by lunchtime on the exposed shore. So the south is the default with children, with the caveat that it also holds the island's loud beaches: some southern bays run amplified music from the middle of the day and are not family beaches whatever the sand is like. That distinction matters, and it is easy to check before you go rather than after you have unpacked the bags.

Delos is a real day, and a demanding one

The crossing to the ancient city opposite is interesting for a child old enough to care about ruins. It is also open ground with very little shade and no soft option once you have arrived. The Half-Day Delos Tour from Mykonos is the sensible shape of it — guided, across and back in a morning, and finished before the heat does its worst.

Where to sleep

Town or a bay: with children the town wins more often, because it removes the evening drive that families underestimate. Hermes Mykonos Hotel, on the edge of the Chora with a pool above the rooftops and a complimentary airport shuttle, is the shape that works — walkable to dinner, a swim on site for the hour nobody wants to be at a beach, and no transfer to arrange at either end of the trip. A south-coast resort is the alternative, and it trades the walkable evening for a beach at the door.

Note that some of the island's small guesthouses are adults-only. Check that before booking rather than at the desk.