Greece, ferry by ferry.
Which Acropolis slot is still open in August. Whether Santorini is worth two nights or five. What a boat to Balos costs, and the wind that cancels it. Every tour in Greece, reviewed and ranked.
The Parthenon, the caldera, and the four next on the list.
Timed tickets on the rock, a catamaran across a drowned volcano, monasteries balanced on sandstone pillars, the Minoan palace, the oracle at Delphi and a lagoon reached only by boat. Fix these six, then plan around them.
Islands, mainland, or one island properly?
Every region, side by side →
Every Greek itinerary breaks on this one question. Ferries eat half-days at both ends, and two islands in five nights buys you harbours, not islands. Three honest shapes for a first trip, each with the bookings that carry it.
Athens, Santorini, one more Cyclade
The route most people mean by Greece. Two nights in Athens for the rock and the museum below it, then the Cyclades. It works — but in July the caldera sails and the Oia tables are spoken for weeks ahead.
Crete on its own
Crete runs 260 kilometres end to end and carries a gorge, a Minoan palace, two Venetian harbours and Balos. Fly in, drive, never pack again. The trade is that you will not see a whitewashed Cycladic village.
Delphi, Meteora, the Peloponnese
The Greece with no ferry timetable. The oracle at Delphi, monasteries on rock pillars at Meteora, Mycenae and Epidaurus further south. Cooler, cheaper, and close to empty when the islands are at their worst.
The bookings that fill first, Athens to Rhodes.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers actually went, and what they said when they got back. The one at the top has more reviews than some islands have tours.
1
Acropolis & up to 5 Archaeological Sites Combo Pass
Skip the worst Acropolis lines with a timed entry plus up to five classic Athens sites, using Smartvisit and audio guides for a flexible day.
From · $42
Read our review →
2
Acropolis Ticket with Optional Audio or Live Guide
from $42
3
Volcanic Islands Cruise with Hot Springs Visit
from $29
4
Acropolis, Parthenon & Acropolis Museum Guided Tour
from $40
5
The Acropolis, Parthenon & Acropolis Museum Guided Tour
from $40
6
Cape Sounion & Poseidon Temple Sunset Half-Day Trip
from $23
7
From Kissamos Port: Boat Cruise to Balos Lagoon & Gramvousa
from $47
8
Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Music
from $93
Two days in Athens, and the Acropolis is only the first morning.
Timed entry on the rock, the museum in the shade below it, the Plaka lanes at dusk, a rooftop looking at the floodlights, and Cape Sounion at the far end of the peninsula for sunset. The stopover that keeps growing.
Three days only Greece can sell you.
Ruins and beaches are the whole Mediterranean. Monks on rock pillars, a volcano you sail into, and a palace older than the Parthenon by a thousand years are Greek and nothing else.
The Meteora Monasteries
Six working monasteries sit on sandstone pillars above the Thessalian plain, reached by steps cut into the rock; until the 1920s everything went up in a net. Each one closes on its own fixed day of the week and no two share a day, which is why a guided run is the only reliable way to see more than one in a morning.
- 1Meteora Monasteries Day Trip with Caves and Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 4,670 reviews
- 2Full-Day Bus Trip to Meteora★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,471 reviews
- 3Athens to Meteora: Monasteries, Caves & Seaside Stopovers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,958 reviews
Sailing a Drowned Volcano
Santorini is the rim of a volcano that blew its middle out around 1600 BC, and the caldera you sail across is the hole it left. Boats moor at Nea Kameni for the climb up the black cone, then drop anchor over the hot springs, where the water runs rust-red and warm enough to stay in.
- 1Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Music★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 5,886 reviews
- 2Premium Small-Group Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Open Bar, Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,209 reviews
- 3Santorini Classic Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Drinks and Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,933 reviews
Knossos and the Minoans
Knossos was a working palace a full millennium before anyone laid a stone on the Acropolis, and the Minoans who ran it left frescoes of bull-leapers and a script still unread. Arthur Evans rebuilt parts of it in tinted concrete a century ago, which is why it photographs like nowhere else in Greece.
- 1Knossos Palace Entry Ticket with Optional Audio Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 3.9 · 2,251 reviews
- 2Palace of Knossos E-Ticket and Audio Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 · 1,540 reviews
- 3Knossos Palace Skip-the-Line Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,380 reviews
Santorini is sold out before you land.
Ninety reviewed tours on one small island, and the ones worth the trip — the sunset catamarans, the caldera-edge wineries, the Oia dinner tables — are gone weeks ahead in high season. Book Santorini first and let the rest of the itinerary settle around it.
What a day out in Greece actually costs.
Every reviewed tour on the site, sorted by what it charges. A gorge walk, a boat to an empty bay and a plate of grilled octopus all sit in the bottom band.
Acropolis and Knossos entry, old-town food walks, half-day boats and most museum tickets.
The standard Greek day: caldera sails with lunch, Meteora out of Athens, Balos by boat, winery flights.
Private drivers, chartered catamarans, and the long mainland days that cross half the country and come back.
Crete is not an island stop. It is the whole trip.
Two hundred and sixty kilometres of it. Balos and Elafonisi in the west, sixteen kilometres of Samaria gorge dropping to the Libyan Sea, Knossos and two Venetian harbours in the middle, Spinalonga out east. Hire a car and give it ten days.
- 1From Kissamos Port: Boat Cruise to Balos Lagoon & Gramvousafrom $47
- 2Day Trip to Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga Islandfrom $44
- 3Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & Guidefrom $41
The wind that cancels the boats, and what to do instead.
The meltemi is a dry north wind that settles over the Aegean in July and August, sometimes for three days at a stretch. Small boats stay tied up and the crossings get ugly. Nothing below cares what the sea is doing: a winery on the caldera rim, a kitchen in Chania, a palace, a museum.
Book these before you fly to Greece.
Most of Greece can wait until you are standing in it. These four cannot: they run on timed slots, on a season, on one sailing a night, or on a rota nobody publishes clearly.
- 01Acropolis & up to 5 Archaeological Sites Combo PassEntry runs in timed slots with a cap on how many stand on the rock at once. The early slots, before the heat and the cruise groups, go first.
- 02Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & GuideThe gorge opens for the season around May and shuts in October, and a bad forecast closes it at a few hours’ notice. There is no winter version of this walk.
- 03Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and MusicOne sunset a day, and each boat runs it once. Through July and August the caldera sails are full weeks ahead of the date.
- 04Meteora Monasteries Day Trip with Caves and LunchEvery monastery closes on its own fixed day and no two share the same one. A guided run is built around that rota; turning up alone is a gamble.
Greek evenings start late and finish at a taverna table.
All evening tours →Cape Sounion & Poseidon Temple Sunset Half-Day Trip
Read our review →
Delphi English Day Trip from Athens with Official Guide
Read our review →
Sunset Cruise with Greek BBQ and Unlimited Drinks
Read our review →By island and region
Athens754 tours
Crete557 tours
Santorini466 tours
Rhodes214 tours
Mykonos154 tours
Corfu123 tours
Zakynthos77 tours
Thessaloniki53 tours- All 20 regions →
Athens, the mainland, then two islands. In that order.
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