Kos International Airport to Kardamena
Barely 6 km from the runway — ten minutes by road. The KTEL bus is €2–5 but runs only every few hours; a metered taxi is €10–15.
A former fishing village on the south coast turned package resort, with a long sandy beach, a harbour sending boats to Nisyros volcano, and a strip that gets loud in high summer.
Every way to get there
Our verdict: for Kardamena, a private transfer is the easiest door-to-door option (from €20). Travelling light on a budget? The bus is cheapest (from €2) 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 | €2 | €20 | Bus |
| Couple · 2 travellers | €4 | €20 | Bus |
| Family of 4 · 4 travellers | €8 | €20 | Bus |
Which option should you choose?
| If your priority is… | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price | Bus | From €2, 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
Metered it's about €10–15, but some drivers quote a fixed €34–37 for the same six kilometres — a large gap for a short hop, so ask before the boot opens. The night surcharge applies after midnight.
Where to catch it: Ten minutes down the road; the shortest fare on the board if the driver runs the meter.
Best for small groups in a hurryBus / shuttle
Cheap, but four-hourly is the operative detail — for six kilometres, waiting three hours for a €3 bus makes little sense against a €12 metered taxi. Check the board and decide accordingly.
Where to catch it: Board at the KTEL stop outside the terminal; Kardamena is a short run south.
Best for solo & budget travellersPrivate transfer
Kardamena is where the fixed-versus-metered taxi confusion bites hardest, so a booked price removes the argument entirely. Otherwise the rank is genuinely fine in daylight.
Where to catch it: For ten minutes the value is certainty at 02:00, when the bus has finished and the rank has been cleared by two earlier flights.
Best for families, groups & late arrivalsCar rental
The resort is walkable end to end, so a car is for getting out — Kefalos, Zia and the Asklepion are each within twenty minutes and the bus network is too thin to reach them casually.
Where to catch it: Ten minutes; most Kardamena apartments have parking or street space outside August.
Best for travellers who want to exploreKardamena & Kos in photos
Buying tickets in Kos
Kos has no railway and the airport sits in the middle of the island at Antimachia, not beside the town. KTEL Kos runs the buses: about €4 into Kos Town (26 km away), roughly €2.50 to Mastichari for the Kalymnos ferry, and €2–5 to Kardamena. Pay the driver in cash. The critical detail is frequency — this is not a hub, departures are spread across the day and some routes run only every few hours, timed loosely against flights rather than to a clock. Check the board on your way out of arrivals before committing to a wait. Kos Town itself is flat and heavily cycled; bike hire is cheap and widely used instead of buses once you are based there.
Taxi scams & safety in Kos
The specific issue on Kos is that drivers are inconsistent about metered versus fixed fares, and the two can differ sharply on the same journey — Kardamena is roughly €10–15 on the meter but is sometimes quoted as a fixed €34–37, and Tigaki runs €30–40 metered against €42–47 quoted. Asking which basis applies before you set off is entirely normal and is the single most useful habit at this airport. Separately, a night surcharge between roughly midnight and 05:00 applies in full and can push a €38 daytime fare to €55–65; that is legitimate, not overcharging, but it is why so many arrivals here pre-book a fixed price. Use the official rank, and if you hire a car, check whether the agreement permits taking it on the Kalymnos ferry — most do not.
Getting from KGS to Kardamena
Six kilometres. Ten minutes by road. Kardamena is closer to the runway than almost any resort in this guide, and yet it produces one of the strangest pricing situations on the island: the same short hop is quoted anywhere between €10 and €37 depending on which driver you get and how they choose to charge.
Metered it is twelve euros, fixed it is thirty-five
That is not an exaggeration. Run on the meter, six kilometres comes to roughly €10 to €15. Quoted as a fixed price — which some drivers do for airport work regardless of distance — the same journey is commonly €34 to €37. For a ten-minute drive that gap is absurd, and the only defence is asking before you get in. Say it plainly: metered or fixed, and what will it come to? Kos drivers are used to the question and it is not considered rude. Ask it and this becomes the cheapest resort transfer on the island; skip it and it becomes one of the dearest per kilometre.
The bus is cheap and runs every four hours
KTEL serves Kardamena from the airport for something between €2 and €5, taking about fifteen minutes. Excellent, except that departures come round roughly every four hours. For six kilometres, waiting three hours to save ten euros is not a trade many people want after a flight. Check the board — if one is due shortly, take it and enjoy the saving. If it is not, the rank is thirty seconds away and the honest advice is to use it.
A fishing village that became a party strip, and both are still there
Kardamena divides more than most resorts. The old harbour end still works as a harbour, with caiques, fish tavernas and boats leaving for the volcano on Nisyros — a genuinely worthwhile day trip to a caldera you can walk into. Half a kilometre west, the strip is bars, clubs and a young British and Scandinavian crowd that keeps going until dawn in July and August. The two coexist a few minutes' walk apart. Booking without knowing which end you are on is how people end up disappointed in either direction.
Late arrivals and the surcharge window
Kos takes a lot of night landings, and between midnight and five the taxi surcharge applies. On a six-kilometre run the absolute damage is small — a €12 fare becomes perhaps €18 — but if you have been quoted the fixed €35 instead, the same surcharge makes it considerably worse. A pre-booked car at €20 to €32 removes the whole question: one price, agreed in advance, whatever time the plane gets in. For such a short journey that is the main reason anyone books.
Nisyros, and why the harbour matters
The volcano trip leaves from Kardamena harbour, usually early morning, and it is the thing most people remember from a week here — a boat across, a bus up to the caldera rim, and a walk down onto the crater floor where the ground steams and smells of sulphur. If that is on your list, staying at the harbour end saves an early-morning walk along the strip. It also means the fishing boats wake you rather than the bars, which most people consider a fair exchange.
Walkable resort, car for the island
Rates run €25 to €50 a day. Kardamena needs nothing — it is compact, flat and everything is along one front. But the island's good bits are elsewhere: Zia's mountain sunset, the Asklepion, the empty beaches out past Kefalos, and the north coast at Tigaki and Marmari. With the airport ten minutes away, collecting a car mid-stay is easy and cheaper than doing it for the full week.
One more thing about the harbour end: the Nisyros boats leave early, usually around nine, and tickets are bought at the quayside kiosks the day before rather than online. Ask at your hotel — most will sort it for you.
Practically: ask the metered-or-fixed question and this is a €12 ride. Take the bus if one happens to be due. Book ahead only for a small-hours landing, when a fixed €25 beats whatever the rank decides to charge.
