Clothes-Free Travel
A-Z TRAVEL — Naturist Edition: G is for Gavdos, Greece
The little Bohemian island that time almost forgot
This is the Greece I’ve heard friends talk about from ages past. Quiet, remote, and largely unspoiled.
TEXTILE TIP: While Gavdos has long held a reputation for its Bohemian culture and clothing-optional beaches, it’s not really a naturist destination in the same way as so many places in France, Spain, and Croatia. In fact, visiting in July or August, you will find the naturists well outnumbered by the textiles. But somehow, everyone simply agrees to live aside one another. To us, that’s about as good as it gets.
Sometimes, life gets to be a little hectic — especially when you’re traveling, then you come right back to work and realize how much you missed while you were traveling. All the while, I kept hearing my friend Adrienne’s voice — I wonder when Dan is going to make his next A-Z post?
Here it is, Adrienne. I’m back on track!
As fate would have it, my choice for the G place is the island of Gavdos, a place where the inhabitants are more likely concerned about keeping tabs on their goats than their MEDIUM stats. This place would rank pretty high in the “you gotta wanna get there” contest.
To do so, you need to find your way to the southern shore of Crete. There are plenty of flights to Crete, but none that I know of go anyplace near a port with a boat that will take you to Gavdos.
In recent years, a young couple has been running a day trip from Chora Sfakia (near naturist hotel, Vritomartis) on the south shore of Crete to Gavdos. As best I recall, it’s about an hour on their little wooden speedboat where they drop you for about four hours to explore the island.
Suffice it to say, four hours is not enough.
Our first trip to Gavdos was one of those four hour stays, which simply illustrated to us that we needed more than four hours.
The next time, we rented a jeep upon arrival on Crete and caught the much slower car ferry. That’s a four hour crossing, unless they cancel due to high winds, which apparently happens quite frequently.
While not quite as moonscapy as the Canary Islands, Gavdos is pretty rugged. But the beaches are unparalleled in many ways, not the least of which includes opportunities for naturism.
We were there in high season, as were many “textiled tourists,” but there were still significant encampments of the last Bomenian holdouts with seemingly permanent tents set up along the sea. Even the most crowded beaches weren’t very crowded. And there were always a few naturists to be found.
We stayed in a cute little inn with less than a dozen rooms on the center of the island. There are no naturist accommodations on the island, but sunbathing was possible on the veranda outside our room.
The innkeeper served traditional Greek fare — and ice cream — on the veranda, along with with the local liqueur that would likely have cured COVID right from the start. And there are no fancy wine lists on the island. Just local wine from a recycled water bottle. You’ll develop a palate for that during your stay — or not.
Mostly, Gavdos feels like the Greece I’ve heard friends talk about from times past. Gone are the days of $5 rooms, but the sense that you’re in part of the world that modernity has ignored is prevalent.
No big supermarkets or gas stations on the island, either. We made sure we had enough gas in our jeep to get us through our stay. Rumor had it there were a couple places to purchase petrol from a barrel, but as one would imagine, there was a significant surcharge for getting that barrel to the island.
This is not a place known for modern conveniences.
The trade off however came in the form of long walks through the mountainous countryside to any number of secluded beaches.
Too warm for shorts and a t-shirt? No problem.
While the Canary Islands, considered to be part of Spain, actually lie farther south than Gavdos, the southern tip of this little island gets the big chair delineating the landmark. It’s quite a walk to get there, but most definitely the quintessential photo op.
One more bit of trivia. It’s thought that the Apostle Paul may well have visited Gavdos, though it may have not been intentional. Some accounts speak of his boat being washed ashore, lending credence to that ferry captain deciding when or not it’s safe to sail into the Libyan Sea.
We were set to return to Gavdos in 2020, where we had actually found an AirBNB available for a week, but we all know how that ended. We have yet to return, but in writing up this story, I’m feeling Gavdos Gravity calling my name!
Meanwhile, I’ve twice written about Gavdos previously on my Wordpress blog…
I’m reticent to get the word out there as the charm of the place is that lack of swarming humanity. But then again, it will always be in that category of “You gotta wanna get there!”
That tends to thin out the crowds a bit.
A shout-out to all my Globetrotter friends who’ve participated in the A-Z travel challenge. Anne Bonfert, Adrienne Beaumont, Michael Rhodes, Jerry Dwyer, Nishan Fuard, Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages, Sam Millichap, Robert G. Longpré, Darren Weir, Ronald Smit