Voutoumi, on Antipaxos, is the beach people mean when they call the Ionian tropical. Fine sand, white stones, and water that stays turquoise far out.
The survey of 1885 describes it almost exactly as you find it: fine sand, very thick white rounded stones, and at the start rusty and white horizontal strata with a fig tree growing out of them. And then one line that most visitors never discover, because it is behind you rather than in front: behind the beach lies the small lagoon of the Limni.
That lagoon is the only standing fresh water on either island, and the natural history of the place records wild ducks there, very rarely. On an island with no rivers and no springs, a patch of standing water is a genuine rarity.
Voutoumi is the highest rated beach of either island, and the recognition is not only local. In 2024 it came fifth in the world and second in Europe in the World’s 50 Best Beaches, behind only Cala Mariolu in Sardinia; it was listed again in 2025; and for 2026 the European Best Destinations ranking placed it second in Europe. The beach has changed all the same. There is now a bar and restaurant above the beach, reached by steps, and sunbeds laid out below. The dry strip above the water is narrow, so if the loungers are taken you sit on the rocks. The sand is in the sea: clean white sand across the whole bay, and that is what gives the water its colour. Few beaches in Greece are as white, and the reason is the rock around it, pale limestone cliffs with cypresses standing on them right down to the shore.
There is no road. Everyone arrives by boat from Gaios, and the usual circuit takes in Vrika and Mesovrika on the same trip. The water deepens gradually, which makes it one of the easier swims on Antipaxos.
