How much spending money do you need for a week in Kardamena?

For a couple on seven nights, using prices reported through the 2025 and 2026 seasons, we get to about €278 for a careful week, about €601 for a comfortable one and about €1,359 for a week where nobody is counting. Those totals exclude flights and accommodation. Below is every line of arithmetic that builds them, so you can take out what you would not do and put in what you would.

What things cost in Kardamena in 2026

These are the figures visitors reported through the 2025 and 2026 seasons. Treat them as a guide rather than a quote. Prices move between the harbour front and the back streets, and they move again between June and September.

Two of those lines carry most of the week. The beer line, because the gap between €1 and €4 repeats every evening. And the meal line, because the gap between a €3.50 wrapped gyros and a €9 plated one repeats every day. Some Kardamena beach bars give you the loungers free with a food or drink order, but not all of them do, so ask before you sit down.

What these budgets leave out

Say this part plainly. The three budgets below exclude flights and they exclude accommodation. They are spending money, nothing else. Add your own flights and your own room rate on top and you have the real number for your trip.

We have built them that way because those two costs vary more than everything else combined, and because it is the only way to compare one holiday style with another honestly. Every other line is included, including the tourist tax, which is genuinely part of what you hand over before you leave.

Three weekly budgets for a couple

Two adults, seven nights, high season. Every row shows the working so you can check it and change it. Where a price is quoted as a range in the table above, the careful week uses the bottom of the range and the week where nobody is counting uses the top.

The careful week

That is €277.80 ÷ 2 people ÷ 7 days, or about €19.84 each per day. No car, no excursion, three dinners out and the beach four days out of seven without paying for a bed.

The comfortable week

€601.00 ÷ 2 ÷ 7 is about €42.93 each per day. Five dinners out, the volcano, two days of a car and a lounger almost every morning. This is the week most of our guests actually have.

The week where nobody is counting

€1,359.00 ÷ 2 ÷ 7 is about €97.07 each per day. Nearly €500 of that is the car and its insurance, which is the single biggest optional line on the page.

The tourist tax line nobody budgets for

Greece charges a Climate Crisis Resilience Fee on every night of every stay. It is per unit per night, not per person, it runs at the high rate from 1 April to 31 October, and it is collected at check-out rather than by the booking site. Studios in our category sit in the furnished rooms band, which is €2.00 a night in high season, so seven nights is €2.00 × 7 = €14.00 for the whole studio.

The reason it belongs in a budget article is the spread. The same seven nights in a short-term rental apartment or a holiday home under 80 m² would be €8.00 × 7 = €56.00, and in a villa or a five-star hotel €15.00 × 7 = €105.00. That is a €91 difference on an identical week, decided entirely by which category the roof over your head is registered in. We go through every band and both seasons in our full explainer on the Greek tourist tax.

The hidden €15 on the Nisyros trip

The excursion boat leaves our harbour at about 09:30 and is back around 16:30, and it typically costs around €25 to €35 per adult depending on the operator and whether lunch is included. That is the price you see on the board. It is not the price of the day.

On Nisyros, the bus from Mandraki port up to the caldera is usually €10 return and is not included, and the crater entrance fee is €5 and is usually not included either. Budget €15 extra per person. For two people that turns an advertised €50 to €70 into €80 to €100 before anyone has bought a bottle of water at the top. It is worth every euro, we just would rather you knew before you were standing at the bus. The full picture, including what to wear inside the Stefanos crater, is in our guide to the Nisyros day trip. The harbour is 1.3 km from our door, which you can walk.

Why the €165 a day figure is too high here

Search for Kos costs and you will find a Budget Your Trip average of €165 per person per day all in, with €72 a day for budget travellers and €331 for luxury. Those numbers are not wrong, they are just answering a different question from the one you are asking.

Three reasons they overshoot a self-catering studio holiday in Kardamena. First, they are all-in figures, which means they include a bed. Ours deliberately do not. Second, they average the whole island, including four and five-star hotels in Kos Town, whose tourist tax alone runs at €10.00 to €15.00 a night against €2.00 in the studio band. Third, they assume you eat out three times a day, every day.

Put it in the same shape and the gap is obvious. €165 × 2 people × 7 days is €2,310 for the week. Our week where nobody is counting comes to €1,359.00, and that already includes a hire car for all seven days with zero excess cover. Even the €72 budget figure works out at €72 × 2 × 7 = €1,008, which is above our comfortable week of €601.00 before you have added a single night's accommodation.

The kitchenette is the biggest lever you have

Every studio here has a kitchenette with a fridge and coffee facilities, and it changes the arithmetic more than any other single decision you make. Not because we want you cooking on holiday. Because of two repeating lines.

The beer line first. Two each on seven evenings is 28 bottles. From the supermarket at about €1 that is €28. In a bar at €4 it is €112. The difference is €84, for the same beer, drunk on a balcony instead of a bar stool.

Then the meal line. Seven lunches for two as a plated gyros at €9 is €9 × 2 × 7 = €126. The same seven lunches as a wrapped gyros at €3.50 is €49. Difference €77. Put the two together and that is €161 across one week without eating or drinking anything less. Breakfast in the studio is the same lever again, and it is the one that also saves you the hour you would spend queueing for it.

Free private parking sits right in front of our building, so if you do hire a car for a couple of days it costs you nothing to keep overnight. Whether you need one at all is a longer argument, and we make it in our honest answer on hiring a car in Kos.

Cash, cards and always paying in euros

Card works in most places in the village. Two exceptions matter. The KTEL bus takes cash from the driver and card is not accepted on all routes, so keep coins for that. And smaller family businesses, ourselves included, often prefer cash for small amounts like the tourist tax.

There are ATMs in Kardamena centre. We are not going to quote you a withdrawal fee, because we have no figure we can stand behind and the charges depend on your own bank as much as on the machine. Check with your bank before you travel and take out one larger amount rather than four small ones.

One rule is worth more than all the rest. When a cash machine or a card terminal asks whether you want to be charged in euros or in your home currency, always choose euros. Choosing your home currency hands the exchange rate to the machine, and that rate is never the better one. It is the same button on every terminal in Greece, and pressing the right one costs you nothing.

What we would actually bring

For a couple on seven nights, budgeting around €600 in spending money gives you a week you do not have to think about: dinner out most nights, the volcano, sunbeds when you want them, a car for a couple of days and the tax settled at check-out. Around €280 gives you the same village at a slower pace, which is not a worse holiday.

Bring some of it as cash, keep the rest on a card, and remember that the two most expensive habits are both drinks. If you want to spend the money on something better, spend it on a day out. Our guide to the beaches near Kardamena has several that cost the price of the bus and nothing else.

And if you want to know what a specific week costs before you commit, message us. We will tell you the room rate, the tax total for your dates and what the transfer will run to, in one reply, with no rounding up.

Last updated: August 2026