Greece · High end · Independent
Independent guides to the top end of Greece: hotels, villas, yacht charters, transfers and tables, assessed by the Greek Exclusive team.
Where to StaySantorini
Both villages sit on the same cliff and sell the same sunset. What separates them is noise, stairs, privacy and roughly 30 percent on the nightly rate. Here is how to choose without regretting it.
Where to StaySantorini
Santorini sells "private infinity pool" on hundreds of listings. Perhaps thirty of them mean a pool you can actually swim in, unobserved, facing the sunset. These are the ones worth the money.
ExperiencesHighest value
A week on the water between Mykonos and Santorini is the best money you can spend in Greece. It is also the easiest to spend badly. Here is how the market actually works.
DestinationsAthens
Twenty-five minutes from the Acropolis there is a coastline of private bays, Michelin kitchens and superyacht berths that most visitors fly straight over on their way to an island. That is the opportunity.
PropertyLead magnet
Every summer, people who came for two weeks start looking at listings on the flight home. This is what the next six months actually involve, written by someone who does it for a living.
Where to StayMykonos
Nobody tells first-timers that Mykonos has a windward side and a leeward side, and that in August the difference is the whole holiday. Here is how to pick your base.
Where to StayCrete
Most Crete mistakes are made before arrival, when someone books a hotel in the east and a flight into the west. Here is how to choose your third of the island.
ExperiencesMykonos
Nobody publishes the number, so everyone finds out at the end of lunch. Here is how Mykonos beach clubs actually work, and which are worth a day of your week.
Where to StayParos
The island people move to once they have done Mykonos twice. Naoussa does the evenings, the south coast does the swimming, and Antiparos does the disappearing.
Where to StayCorfu
The island that was never Ottoman, looks nothing like the Cyclades, and keeps its best stretch quietly to itself. A guide to the parts worth your money.
DestinationsHalkidiki
Three peninsulas on the mainland that most international visitors fly over. If you are travelling with children, this is probably the best week in the country.
Where to StayKefalonia
Mountains that reach 1,600 metres, a beach that stops traffic, and a harbour village that survived the quake when nothing else did.
Where to StayLefkada
Twenty minutes from an airport and connected to the mainland by a bridge. The beaches are the famous part; the islets offshore are the better one.
Where to StayZakynthos
The most photographed beach in Greece is here, and so is one of its most misjudged islands. Book the wrong village and you will not recognise the place from the pictures.
Where to StayNaxos
Naxos has the Portara, the longest beaches in the Cyclades and food that embarrasses its neighbours. What it does not have is a scene, which is the point.
DestinationsPorto Heli
No ferry, no island flight, no crowds. The Argolid coast is where Athenian shipping families have summered for generations, and it has quietly acquired the country's most expensive hotel.
Why trust us
Greek property specialist and founder of Greek Exclusive Properties. Two decades spent inside Greece's high-end real estate and hospitality market — the same network that sources villas for buyers now reports on where to stay, charter and dine.
Everyone writes about the caldera view. Almost nobody tells you which suites get the 7am cruise-ship noise.
