If you are planning a Greek odyssey this year, you are not alone. With its pristine seas, family-friendly golden-sand beaches, world-class archaeological sites and myriad culinary delights, it is no surprise that the birthplace of democracy – and its more than 6,000 idyllic islands – ranks fifth amongst most popular holiday destinations for 2025 for British travellers according to a recent survey by ABTA, while WTM reported a 15 per cent increase in bookings for UK travellers for this year.

So what is it that makes Greece so enduringly popular? Whether it is sultry Santorini with its black-sand beaches and towering volcanic caldera; bohemian Hydra with its traffic-free cobbled streets and elegant stone mansions; or Crete, the country’s largest island, famed for its hospitality, each island has its own special charm.

But the mainland has plenty to offer, too: capital Athens, framed by its age-old Acropolis and criss-crossed by labyrinthine streets, is a magnet for culture seekers, while lively second city Thessaloniki, clustered around its old port and the crenellated turrets of its 15th-century White Tower, is a food lover’s paradise.

From hopping between islands on a local-run cruise to scaling Mount Olympus or diving to see shipwrecks, here is our pick of 30 great ways to experience Greece and the best holidays to book in 2025.

Best for culture seekers

1. Visit the Acropolis

Shining like a marble-clad beacon from the top of its dramatic limestone crag, Athens’s ancient citadel (Acropolis means “upper city”) with its iconic 5th century BC temple the Parthenon is a magnet for most visitors to Greece.

It’s well worth the hefty climb to see sights such as the temple dedicated to goddess of victory Athena Nike and the 5,000-seat theatre that Roman senator Herodes Atticus built in memory of his wife, Annia Regilla.

It also overlooks the port of Piraeus, and you can see the purple smudge of the Peloponnese peninsula beyond. Wily travellers who want to avoid the cruise crowds will arrive early and buy an Athens City Pass, which gives skip-the-line access.

Athens City Pass, including free hop-on hop-off bus pass, Turbo Pass, from €70 per day.

2. Tour the Sacred Site of Delos

Backed by Mount Kynthos, mythological birthplace of Greek god Apollo, Delos lies in isolated splendour just a 30-minute ferry ride from Mykonos’s bustling old town. Once deemed so sacred that nobody was allowed to die or give birth here, this uninhabited islet is now a strikingly well-conserved open-air museum.

Visitors come to stroll around the 7th-century BC Terrace of the Lions, with its lion head fountains and colonnaded porticoes, visit the stunning 7,000-seat marble-crafted amphitheatre, and marvel at pottery, figurines and sculptures in the artefact-packed museum, before climbing Mount Kynthos to enjoy a God’s-eye of Mykonos and its chaplet of surrounding islands.

Half-day guided tours of Delos, leaving from Mykonos with local company Delos Tours, from €24.

3. Hang out with the knights on Rhodes

Once the legendary site of the Colossus statue – one of the ancient world’s Seven Wonders – the dazzling Dodecanese island of Rhodes is home to the largest medieval town in Europe to have been continually inhabited for the past 2,000 years.

Entered via seven stone gates within walls that encircle the cobbled streets of the entire old town, Rhodes, while still home to some 6,000 residents, is a living museum where ancient mosques, Byzantine churches and ancient houses of the Knights Templar rub shoulders with souvenir souks, vine-shaded kafeneions and atmospheric boutique hotels.

Ottoman-era boutique hotel Marco Polo Mansion (marcopolomansion.gr) has doubles from €100, breakfast included. Plan the perfect holiday in Rhodes with our travel guide.

4. Explore the ancient theatre of Epidaurus

Once revered as a place where miracles were commonplace, Epidaurus – about 19 miles east of the Peloponnese seaside city of Nafplio – centres on the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the mythical god of medicine who is said to have brought Hippolytus and others back from the dead.

Perhaps the real miracle here is one of conservation: strolling around this beautifully preserved World Heritage site, with its temples and columns and sporting stadium clustered around a 14,000-seater amphitheatre built in the 4th century BC, is like stepping back in time. This is especially true during the world-renowned Epidavros Arts Festival, from May to October, when – just like Hippolytus – the ancient theatre returns to life once more.

Key Tours have guided day trips from Athens to Epidaurus and the neighbouring site of Mycenae from €56 per person.

5. Consult the Oracle at Delphi

Scattered like a giant jigsaw puzzle among citrus-scented pine forests and silver-leaved olive groves 100 miles north of Athens, the sacred site of Delphi revolves around the salmon-hued Doric pillars of its 8th-century BC Sanctuary of Apollo, which was once home to the celebrated Oracle.

According to legend, this sacred site beneath the peaks of Mount Parnassus was the omphalos, or centre of the world, and pilgrims once flocked here to consult priestess Pythia before taking important decisions.

A 14-room archaeological museum houses many of the important findings from this Pan-Hellenic sanctuary, including the famous bronze sculpture of the charioteer of Delphi.

Athens Delphi Tour runs guided Delphi tours from Athens from €70 per person.

6. Visit the birthplace of the Olympic Games

The modern Olympics might be based on the principles of excellence, respect and friendship, but the ancient games, dating back to around 3,000 years ago, were rather more cutthroat: the only rules were “no biting or gouging”.

The Unesco-listed archaeological site of Olympia – which gave the games their name when the event was launched there in 776 BC – lies on the western coast of the Peloponnese peninsula of southern Greece and is an easy day trip from Athens.

The light-filled museum, with its statue of Hermes of Praxiteles and the Nike of Paionios is well worth visiting; as is the marble-hewn temple of Zeus, which once held a 43ft-high gold statue of the deity, to whom the games were dedicated. But the biggest thrill is to jog out along the 650ft/200m-long race track, where most of those Olympic events took place in antiquity.

My Olympia Tour offers full-day tours from Athens from €80 per person.

7. Explore fascinating Syros

With its marble-paved streets, sumptuous culinary specialities, and an opera house (said to be modelled on Milan’s La Scala), Syros is one of the most fascinating Cyclades islands. Surprisingly, although it’s a favourite with Greeks this island, which is just a 30-minute ferry hop away from bling-loving sister Mykonos, is rarely on the radar of foreign tourists. Working to conserve the island’s cultural legacy not-for-profit association Hermoupolis Heritage organises a range of unique excursions, including countryside tours in a vintage Greek Mercedes and sailing trips in a traditional wooden trehantiri boat followed by lazy lunch in a traditional seafood taverna.

Boat trips in a traditional vessel with Hermoupolis Heritage from €30 per person, based on five people sharing a boat.

8. Discover the Blue City and the archaeological site of Philippi

Known as the Blue City because of its picturesque old town built on a rocky headland, which seems to float in the sparkling waters of the surrounding Aegean Sea, Kavala has been a haven for refugees for centuries. A melting pot of different cultures this fascinating Macedonian city with its imposing stone fortresses, sweet-scented tobacco factories and food specialities, ranging from wine-cooked cuttlefish to wild boar stew, also sits at the heart of a region which is littered with fascinating archaeological sites. These include the theatres and monumental temples of the Unesco World Heritage site of Philippi, which was founded in 356BC by the father of Alexander the Great.

Discover Greece has five-day itineraries to Kavala and neighbouring island Thassos, including suggestions on where to stay from €80 per person per night.

Best for couples

9. Experience the buzzing nightlife of Mykonos

You can expect to rub shoulders with the likes of Lady Gaga or Leonardo DiCaprio as you hop between the sleek sand beaches and hip mega-clubs that have earned magical Mykonos its nickname of “Greece’s Ibiza”.

The lanes of the island’s compact capital Hora are the island’s nightlife hub, where designer boutiques rub shoulders with glitzy champagne bars like Queen of Mykonos and Scarpa.

When the sun goes down over those celebrated windmills, the party crowd heads for the beach. Choose from Nammos in yacht-studded Psarou Bay, where the Amex Black card set come to sup on Mediterranean fusion food; the dusky sands of Paradise beach, littered with cool clubs helmed by world-class DJs; or Paraga beach, nestled between the two, where sophisticated Soho House-owned club Scorpios offers unique cocktails and starry clientele.

Click & Boat charters yachts for the day (and night) from €1000. Plan the perfect holiday in Mykonos with our travel guide.

10. Take a day trip to Hydra

Just an hour’s ferry ride from main port Piraeus, the Saronic island of Hydra has attracted a bohemian crowd for decades: Picasso and Chagall came here to paint, Maria Callas stayed in one of the magnificent stone mansions circling the harbour, and Leonard Cohen, who owned a house in Hydra’s maze of back streets, wrote Bird on the Wire here.

Apart from 300 churches and a handful of hip galleries, the real charm of Greece’s answer to Porto Fino is the lack of traffic: only donkeys can climb the steep streets that rise from the waterfront, so peace is guaranteed here.

Purchase tickets for the 85-minute ferry ride from Athens to Hydra at ferryhopper.com; from €38 one-way.

11. Hop on a Santorini sunset cruise

Seeing the sun set in a blaze of vanilla and raspberry over Santorini’s wax-white villages and celebrated volcanic caldera is a big tick on most traveller’s bucket list, but the best way to do it is to eschew the crowds at Oia’s celebrated castle sunset spot, and hop on a half-day catamaran cruise instead.

Leaving from Vlychada’s petite fishing port, roomy yachts whisk you out for a quick dip in the magma-heated hot springs near the barren blacked Kameni islands – formed after a series of volcanic eruptions – before gliding in a stately procession with other catamarans to Amoudi Bay, which provides a ringside seat for what is surely one of the world’s most spectacular sunsets.

Santorini Sailing has a sunset cruise from €45 per person, including drinks and snacks.

12. Visit the island of Mamma Mia!

Greeks in-the-know have flocked to the talc-soft beaches and pristine seas of Skopelos for decades, but this lush green island – dubbed “Mykonos of the Sporades” because of its chic beach bars and glass-clear seas – only really gained fame in the UK when Streep, Brosnan and co came here in 2007 to film Mamma Mia!.

Even if you’re not a fan of the movie, a Mamma Mia!-themed boat tour – whose highlights include a visit to pine-shaded Kastani beach, where many key scenes were filmed, and a trip to the picturesque rock-top chapel of Aghios Ioannis Kastri, where Donna and Sam finally married – is a great way to discover the island.

Skiathos Cruises has Mamma Mia!-themed tours from €45 per person.

Best for families

13. Dive into Greece’s ‘Parthenon of Shipwrecks’

Dubbed ‘The Parthenon of Shipwrecks’, the Mediterranean’s first underwater museum on the Sporades island of Alonissos is home to half a dozen ships that were wrecked off this notoriously dangerous coast, including a merchant vessel that sank with its cargo of wine amphorae some time in the 5th century. Non-divers will have just as much fun exploring capital Hora’s labyrinthine alleys or heading out in a boat to explore pristine waters of the National Marine Park of Alonissos where endangered Mediterranean monk seal come to breed.

Alonissos Sea Colours organises dives to see the Parthenon of Shipwrecks from €80, equipment included.

14. Discover the Durrells’ Corfu

The Ionian island where Prince Philip was born might be renowned for its Unesco-listed Old Town, medieval monasteries and Venetian fortresses, but lately Corfu has been most in the limelight thanks to UK TV series The Durrells, which was based on the real-life family’s experiences there from 1936 until the start of the Second World War.

The best way to discover the island through the eyes of its most eccentric family is to hop on a half-day Durrell tour, where highlights include exploring the alleys of Corfu’s Old Town in Gerry’s footsteps, and visiting the White House where Lawrence Durrell once lived with enigmatic wife, Nancy.

Blue Tours offers a private half-day Durrell island tour from €94 per person based on a group of six participants. Plan the perfect holiday in Corfu with our travel guide.

15. Seek out authentic Greece on an idyllic cruise

Operating sailing trips throughout Greece for more than 5o years, local-owned company Variety Cruises offer a wide range of expert-led adventures. Whether it’s themed cruises to sip and sample the wines of Greece followed by gourmet pairing dinners onboard, cultural voyages to discover archaeological highlights including Mycenae and Monemvasia, or sailing adventures taking in a plethora of lesser-known islands, this is the perfect way to soak up a big slice of authentic Greece.

Variety Cruises offers a seven-day Unexplored Greece cruise from €2,700 per person from Athens, including full-board.

16. Get off the beaten track in Kimolos

Within easy reach of Santorini and Mykonos – and only 50 minutes’ ferry hop from the white volcanic atoll of Milos – the Cyclades island of Kimolos is rarely on tourist radar. Named for the kimolia (chalk) that has been mined here since antiquity, the Cyclades’ smallest island has one small main town with a few shops and tavernas, along with a string of blissfully peaceful beaches, such as Prassa, with its pale silver sands and translucent turquoise seas, and Agioklima, where mineral-rich hot springs bubble up in the water. Many of the island’s traditional fishing huts, known as syrmata, have been repurposed as unique self catering accommodation, perfect for families who want to stay right on the beach.

Thalassa Beach House, a syrmata with self catering facilities close to the sea, can be rented from €156 per night.

17. Climb aboard the Kalavryta rail

A remarkable feat of engineering for its time, the small gauge railway, which runs from the pebble-lined bay of Diakopto in the northern Peloponnese to the resort of Kalavryta in the Helmos mountain, is one of only 50 cog railways in the world. Carved from the surrounding slopes by Italian labourers in the 1890s, the three-carriage electric-powered train travels along 75cm-wide tracks, crossing deep ravines and whistling through low tunnels until it reaches the village of Zachlorou where it climbs the last 20 kilometres using a rack-and-pinion system that allows it to tackle the steep gradient.

Tickets for Kalavryta’s Odontos rack railway are available from Hellenic Train, from €7.

18. Meet the Minoans at Knossos

Whether you’re for or against Sir Arthur Evans’s controversial reconstitution of the 1,300-room Palace of Knossos, it doesn’t alter the majesty of this 2000 BC Minoan site. Just a short drive from Cretan capital Heraklion, this is the site where Theseus killed the fearsome Minotaur – or so the legend goes.

Testament to the sophistication of this mysterious civilisation, which reached its peak some 4,000 years ago, there are shrines, storerooms and banquet halls and Europe’s oldest throne room.

To see the ornate frescoes – including the celebrated dolphin murals – which once adorned the walls of this ancient complex, you’ll have to head to Heraklion’s two-storey archaeological museum, which houses the world’s best collection of Minoan artefacts.

Knossos Palace Tickets offers combined tickets for Knossos Palace and Heraklion archaeological museum from €23 per person.

19. Go island hopping in the Cyclades

What could be more thrilling than skipping over dolphin-studded seas to a different island every few days? The once grungy port of Piraeus – now home to a string of hip art galleries and linked to the centre of Athens by metro – is a cosmopolitan hub for dozens of island ferries, which travel regularly between islands.

From sailing into the heart of Santorini’s volcanic caldera to arriving in Ios’s tiny beach-lined, café-dotted port, or chugging past the cypress-furred hillsides and sandy coves of Corfu, island hopping is surely the ultimate – and ultimately sustainable – Greek adventure.

Ferry Hopper sells tickets for multiple routes from €26 per person.

Best for adventure

20. Visit the monasteries of Meteora

Rising from the lush Thessaly plains near Kalambaka like giant dollops of Play-Doh, the Meteora – with its weird and wonderful sandstone pillars housing 24 Byzantine monasteries – is one of Greece’s most magical natural monuments.

Clinging to the highest pinnacle overlooking the storied Corinthian Gulf, the 14th-century Holy Monastery of the Metamorphosis, with its frescos representing the transfiguration and its artefact-packed museum, is the lynchpin of this holy complex, best explored via a network of hiking trails that have been used by the monks for centuries.

Visit Meteora has full-day trips from Athens by train from €80 per person.

21. Seek out Zakynthos’s shipwreck bay

It might be one of the world’s most Instagrammable shipwrecks, but that doesn’t detract from the sheer splendour of this site on Zakynthos’s wild west coast. Here, dramatically steep cliffs frame a sandy cove where the rusted hulk of MV Panagiotis was washed up in the 1980s.

Skinari, on the island’s northern tip, is the starting point for half-day boat excursions to Navagio – as the beach is known locally – and boats generally stop off at the Blue Caves, so-called because of the vivid turquoise hue of the surrounding seas. It is also possible to drive to the Navagio viewpoint near Volimes village, from which views of the shipwreck are spectacular.

The Potamitis Brothers offer half-day tours to Navagio from €25 per person. Plan the perfect holiday in Zakynthos with our travel guide.

22. Make a beeline for the Big Blue Island

Famed for the translucent turquoise waters that brought Luc Besson here to film his classic diving opus The Big Blue back in the 1980s, the Cyclades island of Amorgos has plenty to offer besides its dazzling beaches.

High above Aghia Anna beach (where many scenes were filmed), the 10th-century Panagia Hozoviotissa monastery, reached by 350 steep and slippery steps, juts from the rock face like a mediaeval fortress. In the foothills of Krikellos, the island’s highest mountain, the village of Lagada is famed throughout Greece for its traditional kafeneia cafés where you can join locals drinking honey-flavoured local alcohol psimeni raki and saucers of mezesnacks.

Aegialis Hotel & Spa has cosy rooms with panoramic views near Katapola beach, from €228 per night, including breakfast.

23. Climb Mount Olympus

Legend has it that no human could climb Mount Olympus, mythical home of the 12 Olympian gods – and it wasn’t until 1913 that a team of Swiss climbers finally managed to reach the 9,570 ft-high peak.

It’s still a challenging climb to reach Mytikas peak, but amateur hikers who’d like to experience a taste of adventure can drive to Prionia – the highest location that’s accessible by car – then make the strenuous hike to Skala, one of the lower peaks, to get a glimpse of the spectacular views that once upon a time only the Gods could enjoy.

Trail Path offers small group two-day hiking tours, leaving from Thessaloniki, from €180 per person.

24. Heal in hot springs

There are more than 700 natural hot springs in Greece, rich in minerals, including potassium and sodium, and many of them have been accredited with healing properties since ancient times. Overlooking the bay where Agamemnon’s fleet stopped on their way to fight the Trojan Wars, the seaside town of Edipsos on Evia island has several communal bathing areas, along with a dozen hotels that have their own hot spring pools. Closer to Athens in the seaside resort of Vouliagmeni, the spring-fed lake is said to heal everything from eczema to arthritis, while the thermal waterfalls of Pozar, which gush out of the mountainside at around 39C, are said to be a tonic for depression.

Thermae Sylla Spa & Wellness Hotel has rooms from €248, including breakfast.

25. Hike Crete’s Samaria Gorge

Stretching for 10 miles from high in the Lefka Ori (White Mountains) to the pebbles of AgHia Roumeli’s peaceful beach far below, Samaria Gorge, Europe’s longest canyon, is just a short drive from the harbour of Crete’s second town, Hania.

But be warned – you’ll need to be fairly fit to tackle the five-hour hike through this spectacular boulder-strewn ravine; an easier alternative is to take a boat from Hora Sfakion to Aghia Roumeli and hike through the bottom end of the gorge.

Entrance tickets to Samaria Gorge cost from €5.

Best for curious gourmands

26. Take a foodie tour of Greece’s second city

Often overlooked in favour of Athens, the port city of Thessaloniki – radiating out in an easy-to-navigate grid of streets from its historic centre and Ladadika district – has long been known as gourmet heaven by Greeks.

Since Greece is the home of the healthy Mediterranean diet, foodie indulgence is fairly guilt-free, which is just as well: from cinnamon and custard filo pastry bougatsa – best enjoyed at the century-old pastry shop Bantis – to the meat-skewer treat souvlaki and meze snacks served in a string of low-key family-owned taverna known as koutoukia, there is plenty to tempt those tastebuds.

Eat and Walk runs half-day food tours of Thessaloniki from €40 per person.

27. Taste meze in the Cretan capital

Whether it is vlita (steamed wild herbs served with a squeeze of lemon and lashings of olive oil) or crispy twice-baked dakos barley rusks smothered in tomato pulp and sprinkled with salty myzithra cheese, Cretan food specialties abound – but it can be tough to find them without help.

A three-hour gourmet walking tour with an experienced local guide through the busy backstreets of Crete’s capital city Heraklion is the perfect way to get to grips with the food: you can stop off to meet the man behind the city’s best tripe restaurant, sample the island’s succulent thyme honey, and eat plenty of meze snacks en route.

Tours By Locals runs full-day Cretan Diet Past and Present private food tours from €124 for a group of four. Plan the perfect holiday in Crete with our travel guide.

28. Explore the island where moussaka was invented

Found on every Greek taverna’s menu, iconic béchamel-sauce-topped moussaka actually hails from the Cyclades island of Sifnos, which is also famed for its golden sand beaches. Invented by local-born chef Nikólaos Tselementes, who wrote Greece’s first cookbook in 1910, there are plenty of tavernas serving the ubiquitous dish. Greeks, however, flock to Sifnos for chickpea stew revithada and other traditional one-pot dishes slow-cooked in ceramic casserole dishes known as skepastaria. Sample them yourself at family-run taverna Drakakis, before working off those calories along one of the island’s panoramic hiking trails.

Sigma Residences has rooms with spectacular sea views from €254, including breakfast.

29. Meet the women of Karpathos

Perched on the top of Profitis Ilias, one of the highest mountains on the Dodecanese island of Karpathos, the village of Olympos is inhabited by the members of a matriarchal society which is unique in Greece. In this remote village, which was cut off from the rest of the island until a road was built in the 1970s, women still wear the colourful traditional costumes – including the stivania kidskin boots that are made here – and they still speak an ancient Doric dialect.

Olympos Archipelagos Hotel has clean comfortable villa accommodation near the main square from €100 per night, including breakfast.

30. Learn to live the long life on Ikaria

Known as “the place where people forget to die”, Ikaria is one of only five Blue Zone regions in the world – places where people live longer than average – with one in three Ikarians living until well into their 90s.

Apart from its laidback way of life and a rough mountainous terrain that makes exercise inevitable, experts say the secret to the islanders’ longevity is their diet, which includes lavish use of vegetables, whole grains, olive oil and goats’ milk.

These ingredients come together in dishes such as soufiko (the local equivalent of ratatouille), and prasino kolaro me patates (wild greens with potatoes), accompanied by a few glasses of Ikaria’s robust red wine.