Ionian Region presents Odyssey campaign while islands keep their names
“It neither changes nor replaces the names and distinct identities of the islands.”
Ionian Region, 27 August 2026; translated from Greek by Othisis
The Ionian Region says “The Odyssey Islands” will be a tourism and cultural campaign built on Homer’s poem, not a new name for the islands. In its statement of 27 August 2026 it says Corfu, Lefkada, Kefalonia, Ithaca, Zakynthos and the smaller islands keep their existing names and identities.
One campaign across named islands
The proposal uses Homer’s poem as the common subject. The Region wants to connect cultural heritage, tourism, landscapes and visitor experiences while retaining the identity of each island.
As background, the statement cites earlier discussions of an international route “in the footsteps of Odysseus” and a 2003 publication, Travelling between Myth and Reality, involving the Homeric scholar Fanis Kakridis.
Our view: a route should say whether a stop rests on the poem or on archaeology
A cultural route can follow a poem while leaving the location of Homeric Ithaca unresolved. Lefkada’s place in that debate has its own history. The first trenches on the ancient theatre at Koulmos were cut during Dörpfeld’s Homeric fieldwork, a recovery told in Lefkada’s Lost Theatre. A visitor programme should state clearly when a stop rests on literary association and when it rests on archaeological evidence.
The Region has not yet named the museums, sites, paths or institutions that would carry the campaign.
The plan is still to come
The 27 August statement says a complete plan will follow. It gives no budget, timetable or list of routes. Until those details appear, the firm commitment is narrower: the islands keep their names, and the Odyssey supplies the campaign’s shared theme.
The Gulf of Molos and the Bay of Vathy, Ithaca, from Kathara Monastery. Photograph by Flickr user auteur, 2007. CC BY-SA 2.0, resized. Wikimedia Commons.
Extended Read
The Odyssey and the Lefkada question.
