Sailing amongst the Greek Islands, holidays are fun, boats are fun, a certain level of organisation makes things a lot easier but freedom to do your own thing is great. On a sailing holiday in the Greek Islands you can get the best of all these things.
There's a lot of companies offering what they call Flotilla holidays, essentially you have sailing boat which you get to sail around but you are part of a Flotilla of maybe 4-5 other boats. There is an itineray of where to sail to each day and essentially you follow the lead boat from Island to Island. There are sailing professionals on board the lead boat to make sure you don't crash, sink or die at any point during the holiday.
To me this sounds like an excellent holiday, Sailing is generally fun anyway and in a big Yacht in such picturesque surroundings it would be brilliant. You eat most nights with the people from the other boats so there's plenty of opportunity to meet people, evenings can be spent in the Taverna or exploring the Island or whatever and then back to the boat, listen to the nightly sounds, chill out, stargaze etc. Obviously you don't spend all the time on the boat and there's plenty of time to go exploring where you like on any of the islands or places we stop at. For those of us who can dive there is also ample opportunity for scuba diving off the boats.
Unfortunatley they do require some people on board to have some sailing experience on Yachts, however this is a generally useful and fun thing to have and there numerous courses in the UK where you can get the necessary qualification's on course's taking from 2 - 4 days. Alternatively you can do a 2 week holiday where you spend the first week getting trained up and the second week doing it on your own. If we only did a one week trip I would go and do a course first to get the certificate.
It doesn't look like it's too expensive either, for a week prices seem to range from between £370 - £600 per person including all flights, transfers and of course accomodation on the yacht. All you'd need extra would be food and drink money for the week. The more people in the yacht the cheaper it is and the less cabins you have the cheaper it is as well.
There are a lot of places around the Med where you can sail including Greece, Turkey and Croatia so there is plenty of choice.
In conclusion this holiday has it all, it's not a drinking holiday ( i.e. there is a lot more to do than just drink ), it's interesting and challenging trying to navigate and sail your boat around, it's in great surroundings - nice weather, clear cool water for swimming in, you can soak in a lot of culture and explore the countryside, you are generally organised by the operator but have a lot of flexibility to suit your selves. What could be better ?
