How does one go about getting to IOS?

From the US this can be tricky with direct flights only departing from New York's JFK airport and taking 8 to 9 hours, landing at Athens' Eleftherios Venizelos Airport, which is located in the suburb of Spata. From Europe in the summer, months there are up to 10 flights daily from every major city, more if you count carter flights. Commercial flights from Europe take you to Athens or Thessaloniki. You will want to fly into Athens. Upon arrival you will need to make you way to the port city of Piraeus, I recommend taking the bus, it's cheap (2.90 Euros), clean, air conditioned and just as fast as taking a taxi. The bus to Piraeus is the E96 Athens Airport Express - Piraeus it takes about 1 hour to 1.5 hours. During the summer months boats to Ios are plentiful, the traditional boats from Piraeus generally take about 8 to 9 hours and leave in the morning between 7AM and 8AM and then again later between 5PM and 8PM. For Summer 2004, it looks as though Hellas Flying Dolphins will be reinstating high-speed service to Ios (I took one of these fast boat from Piraeus to Mykonos and HIGHLY recommend them). Cutting the time it will take to get to Ios down to 4 hours. Be prepared for a long journey it can take almost 2 days to reach Ios from some cities, but it is worth it.

The ferry schedules available on the Net (and from MOST sources) should be uses as guides and should not be considered concrete in any case. The summer schedules for the most part are not published unlit mid-May and then some of the routes published are still awaiting government approval when they begin operations. During the summer months, ferry companies change their routes adding island to some routes and deleting islands from others. The only schedules that come close to being accurate are the ones you find posted at the port by the port police and then they will only have the next two or three days posted.

During the summer of 2001 I had the chance to make many journeys both long and short using a verity of ferries; Hydrofoil, Flying Cat (Catamaran with cars), Sea Jet (Catamaran No cars/people only), rear docking ferries, and forward docking, more on which ferries to avoid later.