Corfu: The perfect student-budget holiday!

Before we went back to college last summer, Aidan and I really wanted to do a short sun holiday, just the two of us, but being only just back from an albeit short but VERY expensive trip to Paris, we were on a really tight budget! We looked and looked through endless package holidays to Spain, the Canaries etc but nothing really took our fancy.

While having one more look through Skyscanner before calling it quits, I found flights to Corfu in Greece. I had always wanted to go, but thought of Greece as a pretty expensive destination, picturing in my mind only 5 star honeymoons in Santorini or massive party holidays in Ios. To be perfectly honest I had never really given any of the other Islands a thought. The flights to Corfu were roughly the same as to most of the other places we looked at, €180 return each I think it was, and after doing some research found that accommodation, food, drink etc could be just as cheap as well if not cheaper, plus the island seemed packed with so many interesting things to do and see!

Corfu Town

The flights were so reasonable as we had stopovers in London and Milan (I picked up a gorge bottle of Limoncello in Milan airport for dirt cheap though, so whose the real winner here?!) However, if you wanted to spend a little extra its really easy to do a stopover in Athens instead and spend a few nights there. I definitely plan on doing this when I go back! 

We stayed in a town in the north of the island called Sidari. Pretty touristy but still with a good mix of locals and interesting things to see. All the restaurants and bars on the strip were very cheap and offered Greek traditional foods. You'll also find plenty of places to pick up a delicious Gyro and can eat it in the public park next to the monastery in the center of Sidari. I would honestly eat these for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could... 
You'll also find lots of 'Fish Spas' along the strip that you can just walk into which I would definitely recommend trying out (if you're not too ticklish!) they stay open really late and it was a fun and lovely way to end a full day of walking around. 

Sidari is on, and within walking distance, of loads of lovely beaches. The most famous of them is Canal D'amour, a small cove surrounded by really impressive rock formations. It got its name from a funny local belief that if you swim in the canal with your loved one you'll be together forever. The muddy clay that comes off the rocks around the canal is also meant to have healing properties & minerals and you'll see lots of people walking around covered in it! 

The walk from Sidari to Canal D'amour was beautiful, you pass a few other beaches along the way and on one of them we just had to stop! We ended up renting a peddle boat because the water was so clear and it was so cheap (€ 10 for 2 hours!). It was actually a really fun way of seeing some of the coastline & caves. 

 

The two other things I would recommend doing in Sidari is taking a speedboat out to one of the smaller islands and taking a bus to Corfu Town. 

The speedboat trip to the island of Erikousa was probably the most expensive thing we did over there at €25 each, but it was so worth it! We got to spend a full day in what I can only describe as pure paradise. A tiny island populated with a few locals, one hotel, one shop and a tiny church on top of a hill (serious Mamma Mia vibes here). It boasts some of the clearest waters in Corfu. The beach was just amazing; stunning white sand, free beach loungers and umbrellas, the hotel even brought our lunch out to the beach for us at no extra charge! We basically had the beach to ourselves, bar the few people who came on the speedboat with us.

 

 The trip then to Corfu Town was a great way to spend our last day there. The direct bus picks you up and drops you back in the center of Sidari which was really handy as our accommodation was just at the end of the strip. 

I was amazed at how much history there was in Corfu town, traditionally Orthodox Christian, there are loads of interesting and beautiful churches to visit. The old fortress and its church was also really impressive. While not free, you can get student tickets for about 7 euro. Make sure to bring your walking shoes and a good camera to capture the views!

Corfu town was just as cheap to eat with loads of authentic Greek Tavernas, and it was really cheap to get to considering it was an hour away from Sidari, €13 each return. We also got a boat out to a really cool island in the harbor for €3 which had a beach, a restaurant and loads of wild rabbits and pheasants roaming around!

The only thing I would do differently if I were to go back is to rent a car. A lot of people say this as apart from the odd private bus, there's really no public transport in Sidari and there are parts of the island that were meant to be great but we couldn't really get to. Airport transfers were not the easiest either because of this. It ended up taking us 3 hours instead of one to get to our accommodation as the bus had to keep stopping in loads of different towns to leave other people off! This was really the only negative of the whole trip.      

Otherwise, if you're looking for a budget holiday thats somewhere different and away from all the crowds, Corfu definitely ticks all the boxes! Its cheap, relatively easy to get to, and there's SO much more to do here that I haven't already mentioned, we just didn't have the time in one week! There is honestly something for everyone, water-parks, snorkeling, diving, island touring and plenty of historical sights. There's a good night life, but still felt very family-friendly and safe. 

While I'm looking to visiting other parts of Greece soon, I would love to come back here!