As Australians, there is almost nothing more exciting than taking a day trip to another country. While in Türkiye, we wanted to do a Bodrum to Kos day trip because we absolutely love Greece. It’s also SO close to Bodrum so we thought why not! Lets get some more stamps in those passports!

However, when researching how to do it, there wasn’t a lot of information and we went on the day trip not really knowing what was going to happen. Now that we’ve successfully done the trip, we’re sharing our experience with you. If you’re interested in doing something similar, we’ll share everything you need to know. We also visited in February so we’re going to share if it’s worth visiting in the off season too.

PLEASE NOTE: Bodrum and Kos are an hour apart in time so please keep this in mind when catching your ferries!

1. How to book tickets
2. What documents do you need?
3. How to catch the ferry
4. What to do in Kos
5. Visiting in Winter
6. Is it worth it?

We decided to book our ferry tickets on FerryHopper as we’ve used them before around the Mediterranean. It’s easy to use and we knew we could book the tickets online in advance, which reassured us. The only company we could book with on FerryHopper was Makri Travel, and they did one trip to and from the island a day. Keep in mind that we travelled in winter so this might explain the lack of ferry choice. Our tickets were roughly €20 each per way after booking fees for the Bodrum to Kos day trip.

If you want more options or want to use a different company, head down to the castle port in Bodrum or the port in Kos. Here you can find other companies selling ferry tickets between Bodrum and Kos that you can buy in person. However, if you’re travelling in summer you’ll want to do this as early as possible. This is a pretty popular route in the high season so it might be worth it to book online to make sure you get tickets.

Of course you can also book ferry tickets on Get Your Guide. Some of them are just the ferry tickets, some include a hotel pickup and some include a bus tour. So it’s worth checking out the website to see if something might suit you!

Because Greece is in the EU and the Schengen Zone and Türkiye is in neither, it is important to pre plan your day trip. You need to think about visas for both countries and obviously take your passport on the trip.

The first thing you need to think about is if you can leave and re-enter Türkiye. As Australians going to Türkiye, we only had one Turkish visa we could apply for. Our visas were multiple entry, and said so on the actual visa document, so we knew we were fine to leave and re-enter. However, if you have a different passport and visa you’ll have to make sure it says “multiple entry” on it otherwise you won’t be able to get back into the country.

The second thing you need to think about is if you can easily enter Greece. Again, as Australians, as of February 2025 we’re able to enter all the countries in the Schengen Zone without any visa, so that was easy for us. If you have a different passport, make sure you can enter Greece and get a visa if needed.

We highly advise doing this trip from Türkiye to Greece, and NOT the other way around. The Schengen area is currently visa free (as of February 2025) for people from certain countries, however the Türkiye visa cost us around $70AUD each. We used this Turkish visa to explore the country for 2 weeks to make the most of the money. Whereas paying this cost for a day trip to Bodrum, doesn’t seem worth it to us. Same goes for the other way. If you need a paid visa to get into Greece, it probably isn’t worth it just for one day.

It seems obvious but we saw people online asking if they need to take your passport on this day trip. You ABSOLUTELY need to take your passport on this day trip. Before you get onto the ferry from either country, you will go through immigration. They’ll stamp you out of one country, then into the other when you cross the water.

Also it is worth noting that this was just our experience with the visas as Australians travelling in 2025. This is NOT legal advice and we advise you to check your own legal requirements for travelling between Türkiye and Greece when you are travelling. It depends what passport you have, and laws can change at any time.

When we booked tickets on FerryHopper, the information we were given about picking up tickets and catching the ferry was very confusing. We got our information via an automated email from FerryHopper. They told us to pick our tickets up from the castle port, and to catch the ferry from the cruise port, 30 minutes’ walk away. When we travelled in 2025, this was WRONG.

We can confirm that you both pick up your tickets AND catch the ferry from the castle port in Bodrum. Thanks to the wonderful staff at our hotel in Bodrum, we found this out the day before we needed to catch the ferry. In Kos, there is only one ferry port so you also do both from the same port there too.

Also confusingly, Makri Travel is a travel agent and you’re actually booking on the Sea Star Kos ferry, run by Tilos Travel.

Make sure you get to the port about 45-60 minutes before your ferry. 45 minutes would be fine in winter, but in summer we’d recommend at least an hour. Head to the Tilos Travel kiosk at the castle port to pick your tickets up. They’ll check your passport, and we were able to get both our tickets to and from Kos there. After that, you’ll pass through a security screening but there was nothing we couldn’t take through. Then there’s immigration where they’ll stamp you out of Türkiye.

Just before you board the ferry, you’ll pass through the duty free store. If you’re wanting to buy anything though, we’d recommend waiting for the return journey as there is a duty free on the Greek side as well. The ferry left roughly on time and took about 30 minutes to get to Kos.

In Kos make sure you get off the ferry as quickly as possible as the Kos passport control only has two windows. There are spots for four officers in these two windows, but when we visited, there were only two officers working to stamp us into Greece. As we visited in winter, we only had to wait 20 minutes.

However as you can imagine in summer there’d be a full ferries worth, or possibly multiple ferries worth of people waiting for 2-4 people to stamp everyone into the country. We have heard stories of people waiting up to a few hours to get through immigration into Greece. It’s important you get to that queue as quickly as possible to have the most time in Kos. Same going the other way, coming into Türkiye there were only 2-4 people working so get off that ferry as quick as you can.

Now that you’re actually in Kos, what is there to do there? From the ferry port, walk around Kos Harbour to get to the old town. Here you’ll find shops, restaurants and bakeries in cute narrow streets. It’s worth noting that it’s definitely not the same vibe as some other Greek islands, but is still a nice area to walk around. We had some delicious gyros at Street Food Kantina, and bought delicious baked goods for dessert at Gianniṓtiko. The other way from the ferry port are some rock beaches like Paralia Kos and Lambi Beach.

As well as wandering around the old town, we really recommend going to check out some of the historical remains. Only a 5-10 minute walk from the old town is the Roman Odeon of Kos which is free to enter. Right across the road is the Western Archaeological Zone and nearby is the Ancient Agora, both free to enter too. You can also visit the Hippocrates Plane Tree, where Hippocrates (who was born on Kos) was said to teach his pupils. The Nerantzia Castle is nearby, but was unfortunately closed when we visited. However it’s nice to walk around the outside and if it’s open, would be worth a visit!

Lastly, if you wanted more history on your visit, you could visit the Archaeological Museum of Kos. During the winter season it is open 8:30am to 3:30pm every day except Tuesday, and costs only €3 each. During the summer season it is open 8:00am to 8:00pm, is closed on Tuesday and costs €6 each. There’s also Casa Romana that has the same opening hours and prices as the museum.

As we said earlier, we visited in February so were worried the town would be empty and quiet. It kind of was, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth visiting! We felt like we had the whole Greek island to ourselves, which was super cool. All the attractions were open, except for the Nerantzia Castle. This means we could wander around and enjoy all the ruins and the old town pretty much by ourselves.

The biggest difference we found was that so many shops and restaurants were shut. A lot of these were spending the off season conducting renovations or were simply away on holiday. Saying that, there were still more than enough places to eat and buy souvenirs. However, we did notice that most places don’t update their closing times on Google Maps. So if like us, you like to find somewhere to eat and scan the menu before arriving, that’s pretty much impossible in winter.

Another thing we found was that the beaches were completely empty, which included all the restaurants on the beaches. We planned some time to just sit on the beach but ended up finding it was a bit uncomfortable and lonely with no one around. They’re worth a walk down if you’ve got time but if not, they’re not the most amazing beaches we’ve been to.

Overall, it’s totally possible to spend a whole day here, even if you can only visit in winter. We had about 7 hours in the town and had a lovely relaxing day looking around. If your visas and time allows, it is absolutely worth it to head on over to Kos. Getting to day trip to another country and explore a new place is always cool, especially one this close to Bodrum. You also get a great view back to Türkiye so we would absolutely recommend a Bodrum to Kos day trip!

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