Why hire a car in Zante
Zante's fame rests on one image most visitors never actually stand on: Navagio, or Shipwreck Beach — the rusting wreck in its turquoise cove, reachable only by boat from Porto Vromi or Agios Nikolaos. What a car does get you to is the clifftop viewpoint above it, one of the most photographed views in Greece, plus the island's quieter corners: Keri at the south-western tip with its sea caves and lighthouse, the calmer beaches of the Vasilikos peninsula south-east of the airport, and Zakynthos Town itself, largely rebuilt in neoclassical style after the 1953 earthquake that levelled most of the old capital.
The island splits neatly in two for driving. To the west, around Keri, Volimes and the Navagio viewpoint, the roads are mountainous, narrow and winding, so allow more time than the map suggests. To the south and east — Laganas, Argassi, Vasilikos — driving is flat and easy, though Laganas sits right on the edge of the National Marine Park of Zakynthos, a protected nesting ground for loggerhead sea turtles, and access and parking near the nesting beaches are restricted in summer, so leave time to walk the last stretch. A hire car covers all of this in a way the local bus network, built mainly around Zakynthos Town and Laganas, simply doesn't.
