Ithaca (Vathy): The Complete Guide to Odysseus' Island in the Ionians

Par Gabriel Goldberg 21 July 2026 10 min read

Some islands you visit for the postcard. And some you visit because they carry, etched into their stones and their bays, the oldest homecoming story in Western literature. Ithaca — Ιθάκη — belongs to the second kind. Hard to arrive here without thinking of Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus and Homer . Hard to disembark without asking: is this really where the Odyssey found its final harbour? After three thousand years of debate, several historians and professional sailors — who have re-tested the harbours described by Homer one by one — answer yes: it really is today's Ithaca , this island of 96 km² and three thousand people, that was Odysseus' kingdom. Vathy harbour square at dusk on Ithaca: yachts lined up in the bay, children playing, terraces lit up. Ithaca is one of the smallest Ionian islands . East of Kefalonia , three nautical miles from Fiskardo, separated by a narrow blue channel. You get here by ferry — 30 minutes from Fiskardo or Sami — or by yacht, and nothing else: no airport, no tower hotel, no nightclub. I arrived today, notebook in one pocket and the Odyssey in the other. Odysseus, Homer and the question that crosses three thousand years The Odyssey is twelve thousand lines, twenty-four books, ten years of wandering after the fall of Troy. Odysseus is king of Ithákē . His wife Penelope waits for him, weaving each day a shroud she unpicks each night to keep the suitors at bay. Their son Telemachus , now a teenager, sets off to find him. In the end, Odysseus…