Corfu International Airport to Glyfada
About 16 km west over the hill; taxis run €35–48 and the green coach from Corfu Town serves it in season.
A wide west-coast beach of golden sand below wooded cliffs, backed by a handful of hotels and beach bars — close enough to town for an afternoon, good enough for a week.
Every way to get there
Our verdict: for Glyfada, a private transfer is the easiest door-to-door option (from €40). Travelling light on a budget? The bus is cheapest (from €5) but slower, with a change in the city.
What it costs for your group
The bus is charged per person, while a taxi or private transfer is one price for the whole car — so the more of you there are, the better door-to-door value looks.
| Group | Bus (per person) | Private transfer | Best value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo · 1 traveller | €5 | €40 | Bus |
| Couple · 2 travellers | €10 | €40 | Bus |
| Family of 4 · 4 travellers | €20 | €40 | Bus |
Which option should you choose?
| If your priority is… | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price | Bus | From €5, though slower with a change in the city. |
| Speed & comfort | Private transfer | Door-to-door, fixed price, a driver waiting for you. |
| A group of 3–4 | Transfer or taxi | One flat fare splits cheaper than several bus tickets. |
| A late-night arrival | Transfer or taxi | Both run 24/7 when buses and the tram have stopped. |
By transport mode
Taxi
One of the shorter resort runs from CFU. The hotels sit right above the sand, so unlike Paleokastritsa there's no ambiguity about where you're being dropped.
Where to catch it: Half an hour over the ridge to the west coast, the last stretch descending in tight bends to the beach.
Best for small groups in a hurryBus / shuttle
Cheap in July and August and close to non-existent in April or October. Check the current KTEL timetable rather than assuming, because this is one of the routes that shuts down out of season.
Where to catch it: Blue bus into town, then a green coach west to Glyfada — a service that largely exists for the summer beach traffic.
Best for solo & budget travellersPrivate transfer
Modest premium over the rank for a route where the last kilometre is the awkward part. Fixed price regardless of arrival time.
Where to catch it: The descent to the beach is steep and narrow; a driver who knows it takes you to the hotel door rather than the car park at the top.
Best for families, groups & late arrivalsCar rental
Useful for reaching the neighbouring west-coast beaches — Pelekas, Myrtiotissa, Agios Gordios — which are strung along a coast with no linking bus service worth the name.
Where to catch it: Half an hour; the beach car park is small and full by eleven in summer.
Best for travellers who want to exploreGlyfada & Corfu in photos
Buying tickets in Corfu
Corfu runs two bus networks and only one serves the airport. The blue urban buses cover Corfu Town, and line 15 connects the terminal to the centre for about €1.70 — cash to the driver, exact change appreciated, every 30–60 minutes, and no luggage compartment since it is an ordinary city bus. The green KTEL coaches are the intercity network reaching Sidari, Kavos (route B1, around €5.30), Paleokastritsa, Kassiopi and the rest — and they leave from their own terminal in Corfu Town, not from the airport. So any resort journey means a blue bus in, a walk between terminals, a second ticket and a green coach out. Green services thin out sharply outside July and August, so check the current timetable if you are travelling in the shoulder months.
Taxi scams & safety in Corfu
Corfu's airport taxis use fixed rates for common destinations rather than a meter — roughly €15 into town by day and €20 after dark — so there is little scope for dispute; agree the figure at the rank before loading. The queue rather than the price is the pressure point, since several charters often land together on summer Saturdays. Be aware that Corfu Town's old quarter is largely pedestrian, so a drop-off will be at the nearest vehicle access rather than your door; that is a planning matter, not a driver trying to cut the trip short. For car hire, inspect and photograph before you leave and confirm the excess in writing — and note that the mountain roads to the north coast are winding rather than difficult, but they take longer than the distances suggest.
Getting from CFU to Glyfada
Glyfada is sixteen kilometres from the airport as the crow flies and thirty minutes by road, because the road has to climb over the ridge that runs down Corfu's middle and then descend to the west coast in a series of tight bends. It is one of the shorter resort transfers on the island and one of the prettier ones, ending at a wide golden beach below wooded cliffs.
The last kilometre is the awkward part
The descent to Glyfada drops steeply through pine and olive to sea level, and the hotels sit right above the sand at the bottom. A taxi at €35 to €48 takes you all the way down. The seasonal green coach, when it is running, terminates in the same area, so this is one Corfu resort where the bus does not leave you at the top of a hill. What can leave you at the top is a hire car in August, when the small beach car park fills by eleven in the morning and the overflow is back up the slope.
A summer-only bus, genuinely
The green KTEL service to Glyfada exists largely to move beach traffic in July and August. Outside those months it thins to almost nothing or disappears, which is a sharper seasonal drop than the resort routes on the north coast. Anyone visiting in spring or autumn should check the current timetable before counting on it — and note that even in season this is a two-stage journey, blue line 15 into Corfu Town first, then the green coach west, around six euros and an hour and a half total.
The west coast is the good coast
Corfu's east side faces Albania across a channel and has the ports, the traffic and the calmer water. The west faces open sea, and that is where the sand is: Glyfada, Pelekas, Myrtiotissa and Agios Gordios are strung along a coastline of cliffs and coves with proper waves on a windy day and sunsets straight off the beach. Glyfada is the most developed of them — a handful of hotels, a few tavernas, sunbeds — but it is still a beach in a landscape rather than a resort with a beach attached.
Myrtiotissa is twenty minutes and a scramble away
Worth knowing about. Just north of Glyfada, reached by a rough track and then a steep path, Myrtiotissa is a small beach under cliffs that Lawrence Durrell called the loveliest in the world and which has been unofficially clothing-optional for decades. There is no bus, the track is not suitable for a hire car in places, and the walk down is fifteen minutes with a return climb that people underestimate. Take water.
Pelekas and the Kaiser's throne
The village above Glyfada has a viewpoint the Kaiser used to visit for the sunset, and it remains the best one on this coast — a rocky outcrop with the whole west side of the island laid out below. It is a short drive or a long walk uphill from the beach. As with everything on this coast, having a car turns these from expeditions into evenings out.
What thirty minutes from the airport is worth
Glyfada's real advantage over the famous northern resorts is proximity. Sidari and Kavos are an hour or more from the terminal; this is half an hour, which makes both arrival and departure days considerably less fraught. Combined with a genuinely good beach and a position that puts Corfu Town twenty-five minutes away, it suits people who want the west coast without committing to the far corners of the island.
Booking ahead for the descent
At €40 to €55 a pre-booked car costs a little more than the rank and takes you down the hairpins to the hotel door rather than the car park. On a route where the last kilometre drops a hundred and fifty metres, that is the part worth paying for — and the price holds whatever time the flight lands, which matters because the seasonal coach has finished by early evening.
Simply: €35–48 in a taxi for a thirty-minute run, or six euros and ninety minutes by bus in high summer only. Hire a car if the neighbouring beaches are on your list, because nothing else reaches them.
