How to Get Around Rhodes by Bus (2026): Routes, Stops, Times & Fares
How to Get Around Rhodes by Bus (2026 Guide): Routes, Stops, Times & Fares
Rhodes is the largest island in the Dodecanese, and one of the few you can holiday on without a car. Buses run from the medieval Old Town at the northern tip down the east coast to the acropolis village of Lindos, and along the west coast to Diagoras airport. Greek Island Buses lists 13 routes and 15 stops here, split between two companies: KTEL Rhodes (ΚΤΕΛ Ρόδου Α.Ε.) for the east coast and the long intercity runs, and the municipal RODA Rhodes Urban (ΔΕΣ ΡΟΔΑ) for the city, the west coast and the airport. Knowing which you need is the most useful thing on this page.
The Rhodes bus network at a glance
Rhodes Town is the hub, and every route in this guide starts or ends there. The trap is that "the Rhodes Town bus station" is really two stations standing side by side at Mandraki, next to the New Market (Nea Agora). They are a minute apart, look much the same, and have separate timetables and ticket windows: which you need depends on your destination, not on whichever stand you reach first.
KTEL Rhodes — the east coast, Lindos and the south
KTEL Rhodes (ΚΤΕΛ Ρόδου Α.Ε.) runs the intercity network down the east coast: Faliraki, Afantou, Kolymbia, Tsambika, Archangelos, Lindos and Pefkos, plus the south-coast villages beyond. Heading to Lindos or past it? You want KTEL. Its own stops map calls the Mandraki terminal "1 Mandraki"; the address on its paperwork, a kilometre south on Megalou Konstantinou, is the office, not a bus stop. Enquiries: +30 22410 27706.
RODA Rhodes Urban — the city, the west coast and the airport
RODA Rhodes Urban (ΔΕΣ ΡΟΔΑ), the municipal operator, works from its own terminal alongside. It covers Rhodes Town's city lines and the west-coast strip — Ixia, Ialysos (Trianta), Kremasti, Paradisi — out to Diagoras airport. Going to the airport or anywhere on the west side? You want RODA. It has no working website of its own any more: the Municipality of Rhodes' transport page is where its current sheets live. Enquiries: +30 22413 61200.
Routes run out from Rhodes Town and back, with no coast-to-coast link: Faliraki to Ialysos, or Lindos to the airport, means returning to town and changing stations.
Main Rhodes bus routes
KTEL Rhodes prints a one-way price on its timetable sheets, and the fares below are its August 2026 figures. RODA publishes no prices at all — see Tickets and fares.
Rhodes Town ↔ Lindos: the journey most visitors come for and the busiest line on the KTEL sheet, €6.00 one way and about an hour and five minutes — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Pefkos: the resort just beyond Lindos, direct from town, €6.50 — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Kallithea ↔ Faliraki (line 40): the coast road to the Kallithea Springs and Faliraki, one of the busiest services here; KTEL prices Rhodes Town–Faliraki at €2.50 — route details.
Rhodes Airport ↔ Faliraki (line 25): KTEL's direct airport-to-resort link, skipping Rhodes Town entirely, €3.50 — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Afantou: for the village and its long east-coast beach, €2.50 — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Kolymbia Beach: an easy east-coast swimming stop, €4.00 — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Tsambika Beach: the famous sandy bay, €4.00, on the thinnest timetable here — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Archangelos: a working village rather than a resort, mid-way down the east coast, €3.30 — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Ixia ↔ Ialysos: the west-coast trunk and, by published departures, the busiest route on the island — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Kremasti: the next town west, with almost as many departures — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Paradisi: the west-coast village beside the airport — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Rhodes Airport (Diagoras): RODA's airport service, by far the busiest airport link here — route details.
Rhodes Town ↔ Valley of the Butterflies (Petaloudes): the seasonal run to the nature reserve inland, on a very short timetable — route details.
See the full Rhodes bus timetable for every route, stop and departure we hold. Both run more: KTEL also serves the south coast — Lardos €5.60, Kiotari and Gennadi €7.10, Prasonisi €10.50 — and the inland villages; RODA more city and west-side lines.
Getting in from the airport and the port
Diagoras airport (RHO) sits on the west coast, on the same corridor as Ixia, Ialysos and Kremasti. You have two options. For Rhodes Town, take the RODA Rhodes Town – Airport service: the municipality's current weekday sheet lists 45 departures from town between 05:15 and midnight and 39 back between 06:50 and 00:45, which is a bus every 15–30 minutes for most of the day, with wider gaps mid-afternoon. The stop is between the old and new terminals. Nobody official publishes a journey time or a fare for it; travel guides put the ride at around half an hour, longer in traffic.
For the resorts, KTEL's line 25 between the airport and Faliraki crosses the north of the island directly for €3.50, sixteen departures each way from 07:00. No direct airport-to-Lindos bus exists in the timetables we hold: ride in to Rhodes Town, walk across to the KTEL station and change. Ferries dock in Rhodes Town itself, within easy reach of both Mandraki stations.
Getting to Lindos by bus
Lindos is the most-asked-about journey on Rhodes. It is a KTEL Rhodes service from the KTEL terminal at Mandraki, with more departures than any other KTEL route we list, and on the operator's per-stop sheet of 7 August 2026 it costs €6.00 one way. Reckon on about an hour and five minutes — approximate, because the operator publishes departure times only, so the figure is worked out from its own departure lists along the corridor rather than read off a timetable; some runs take a quarter of an hour longer.
One warning on the price. KTEL raised fares in early August 2026 and reissued only its per-stop sheets, so its own network-wide timetable still prints €5.50 for Lindos — and €6.00 for Pefkos, where the newer sheet says €6.50. The per-stop sheets are the fresher source, but you may be charged either, so have coins ready.
The last bus back to Rhodes Town leaves Lindos at 21:45. That catches day-trippers out: southbound departures from Lindos, to Pefki, Kiotari and Gennadi, run until 23:30, so the late times on the board are not going your way. Northbound departures start at 06:45; in the other direction, the last Rhodes Town–Lindos bus is 22:15. KTEL puts QR codes at more than a hundred stops, Lindos included; scanning one opens a PDF of departures from that stop — do it when you arrive, not when you want to leave.
Tickets and fares
Fares on both are distance-based, paid at the station kiosk or to the driver. KTEL Rhodes prints its prices on the timetable sheets themselves, which is why the east and south can be quoted here at all. Watch which sheet you are reading: the company raised fares around 7 August 2026 and updated only its per-stop sheets, leaving its network-wide general timetable printing the older prices. Where the two disagree, the newer per-stop sheet wins. The Rhodes Town fares above come from that general sheet, so they too may be a step behind.
RODA fares we cannot give you at all, the airport included. Its old websites have gone — one domain now serves a casino affiliate, the other a webmail login — and the Municipality of Rhodes' page, the only place its timetables still appear, prints departure times and no prices. The official airport page names RODA and its stop but gives no fare either, and third-party sites contradict one another. So we quote none: pay on board. KTEL's separate line 25 from the airport to Faliraki is €3.50, and that one is published.
Online ticketing is where Rhodes lags. Neither operator sells through Greek Island Buses yet, so there is no QR code on your phone for these routes — where Greek operators do offer it, the price matches the counter with no booking fee. KTEL Rhodes runs its own site, ktelrodou.e-ticketing.gr, but coverage is partial: checked in August 2026, it sold only southbound legs and returned no results for Lindos.
Timetables and seasons
Rhodes timetables are short-lived, and the two operators do not share a calendar. As of this guide:
The KTEL Rhodes general network sheet covers 6 July – 10 September 2026.
The KTEL line 25 airport–Faliraki sheet runs to 30 September 2026.
Line 40 comes in half-month blocks. The current one covers 1–15 August 2026, and as of 8 August no successor had been published; the replacement usually appears on the day it takes effect.
The RODA west-coast sheets were printed 1–3 August 2026 and carry no end date.
Line 40 has one further quirk: it is jointly operated. On the current sheet the earlier departures are DES RODA's and the later ones KTEL Rhodes' — one line number, two companies, so give your destination rather than the number. RODA also publishes separate Monday–Friday, Saturday and Sunday/holiday sheets, so check weekend trips against the right one.
Plan your trip
Check current departures on the full Rhodes bus timetable, then plan around the two stations at Mandraki: east coast, Lindos and the south from KTEL Rhodes; city, west coast and airport from RODA Rhodes Urban.