CreteThe boat out to Balos and Gramvousafrom $47
AthensOne pass, the Acropolis and five more sitesfrom $49
SantoriniA catamaran along the caldera wallfrom $117 Every Greek island sells the same four days out. They are not priced the same.
A hull, a ruin, a table, a road: that is the whole menu, repeated from Corfu to Rhodes. What moves is the price and the water it happens on. Reviews of every tour Greece sells, with what each costs, how long it runs and who it suits.
A morning on the Acropolis, a day on the water, an evening in Psyri, a long drive to Meteora.
Greece resells these four shapes on every island in the country. One of each below, with the price and the hours.
01The rockAcropolis, Parthenon & Acropolis Museum Guided TourMarble, a guide who can read the frieze, and the museum where the rest of it is kept. Take the first slot; by eleven the top is a queue with a view.
02The waterHalf-Day Exclusive Catamaran Cruise in Santorini with Meal and Open BarHalf a day under the caldera wall with a swim stop and lunch cooked on the back of the boat. Nea Kameni is close enough to smell.
03The tableStreet Food Tasting TourSouvlaki, koulouri, bougatsa, and a walk through the Varvakios meat halls. Three hours, and you will be cancelling dinner.
04The roadFull-Day Bus Trip to MeteoraFour hours north to monasteries stacked on sandstone pillars. Nobody comes back saying the drive was too long.
The Greek boat day costs whatever the island decides to charge for it.
The same shape everywhere: a hull, a swim stop, food at some point in the afternoon. What changes is the water it happens on and what it starts at.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · From the Port of Kos: Full Day Boat Cruise to 3 Islands
Off CorfuPaxos, Antipaxos and the caves cut into the west cliffs.
Off CreteBalos lagoon and Gramvousa, sailing out of Kissamos.
Off RhodesA speedboat over to Symi, then the bays down the east coast.
Off SantoriniThe caldera wall, the hot springs and the crossing to Thirassia.
All 194 boat trips in Greece →
The Greek days out that fill up before the flights do.
All Greek tours →More travellers take these than take anything else in the country. Price and hours on each.
1
Acropolis & up to 5 Archaeological Sites Combo Pass
See the Acropolis and five major Athens sites with timed entry, audio tours, flexible access, and useful planning tips.
From · $49
Read our review →
2
Acropolis Ticket with Optional Audio or Live Guide
3
Acropolis, Parthenon & Acropolis Museum Guided Tour
from $40
4
Cape Sounion & Poseidon Temple Sunset Half-Day Trip
from $23
5
From Kissamos Port: Boat Cruise to Balos Lagoon & Gramvousa
from $47
6
Acropolis and Parthenon Guided Walking Tour
from $38
7
From the Port of Kos: Full Day Boat Cruise to 3 Islands
from $35
8
All Day Cruise -3 Islands to Agistri,Moni, Aegina with lunch and drinks included
from $180
Six Greek bases, and the day out each one is genuinely good at.
Athens for the marble and the meat halls. Crete for the drive. Santorini for the water under the cliff. Rhodes for the medieval streets and the run to Symi. Mykonos for Delos. Corfu for the Ionian coves.
A ticket, an app, or a person: three ways into a Greek ruin.
Same stones, three prices. What the difference actually buys you.
The plain ticket
Entry and nothing else. Greek sites run on capped time slots, so even the cheap option has to be booked in advance, and the early slots are the ones that go first.
Ticket plus audio guide
A commentary you start and stop yourself. Best on a site you want to walk round twice, and the only version that lets you sit in the shade for ten minutes without holding up a group.
A guide, in person
Worth the money where the stones need a translator. Most of what you see at Knossos is an early-1900s reconstruction, and only a guide will tell you which parts.
Athens is a two-hour ruin inside a very awake city.
Two hours of it are ancient. The rest is loud, cheap and eats late, and most people give it one night then spend the ferry over wishing they had given it three.
A Cretan olive mill costs less than a Santorini sunset, and both are worth the morning.
Everything in Greece sorted by what it costs. The gap between the bands is mostly boat, lunch, and how many of you are in the van.
Entry tickets, audio guides, a walk round an old town, an olive mill with the spoons out.
A full day with a hull under it, or a coach to Delphi and back before dark.
A driver for the day, a boat you do not share, and the small-group runs that cap the van.
The Greek food tour is the one that ends with you cancelling dinner.
Market halls in Athens, Cretan mills where the tasting is spoons of raw green oil, and vines on Santorini trained into baskets on the ground because the wind would otherwise strip them.
- 1Greek Food Walking Tour in Athensfrom $87
- 2Street Food Tasting Tourfrom $67
- 3Small Group Greek Traditional Food Tour in Athens 20+ Tastingsfrom $85
A gorge, a cave lake and an empty island: three days Greece cannot be copied on.
One is sixteen kilometres long and downhill the whole way. One is a lake in the dark with a hole in the roof. One is an entire island nobody has been allowed to sleep on for two thousand years.
The Samaria Gorge
The path drops off the Omalos plateau to the Libyan Sea through a cut in the White Mountains that narrows to a few metres at the Iron Gates. It opens around May and shuts the moment rain makes the riverbed dangerous. There is no halfway exit: the only way out at the bottom is the ferry from Agia Roumeli, and it does not wait.
- 1Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,191 reviews
- 2Samaria Gorge Full-Day Trek, Pickup & Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,610 reviews
- 3From Chania/Rethymno: Samariá Gorge Guided Hike with Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,010 reviews
Melissani
An earthquake dropped the cave roof in, which is why there is a hole above the water and why the light arrives in a single column around midday. A boatman rows you across in a few minutes. Turn up between eleven and one or the colour simply is not there.
- 1From Argostoli: Melissani Lake & Drogarati Caves Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 454 reviews
- 2The Caves ….Drogarati Cave and Melissani Lake★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 306 reviews
- 3Kefalonia Island Bus Tour- Wine Tasting, Melissani & Fiscardo★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 301 reviews
Delos
The whole island is the site: houses with their mosaics still in the floor, a row of weathered marble lions, a theatre, and a harbour that once ran the eastern Mediterranean. Staying the night is not permitted, so the boats from Mykonos keep a fixed timetable and the last one back is the last one.
- 1Mykonos Sail Cruise to Rhenia, Guided Tour of Delos, Lunch&Drinks★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 608 reviews
- 2Half-Day Delos Tour from Mykonos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 582 reviews
- 3The Authentic Rhenia-Delos Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 498 reviews
Greece invented the day where you get off at three different islands.
It runs out of Athens into the Saronic, out of Kos into the Dodecanese, out of Corfu into the Ionian. Sail, stop, swim, eat, sail. What separates them is lunch, the size of the boat and how long you actually get ashore.
- 01Hydra, Poros, and Aegina Day Cruise with LunchOut of Athens for the day: Hydra, which has no cars on it, then Poros and Aegina. Lunch comes with the boat and the swim stop is the whole point.
- 02From the Port of Kos: Full Day Boat Cruise to 3 IslandsThe Dodecanese version. Kalymnos, Pserimos and Plati, in water shallow enough to watch the anchor go down.
- 03From Corfu Island: Antipaxos & Paxos Blue Caves Boat CruiseThe Ionian version, out of Corfu. Paxos, Antipaxos and the blue caves in the west cliffs. The colour is real; the crossing is choppier than the photographs suggest.
- 04All Day Cruise -3 Islands to Agistri,Moni, Aegina with lunch and drinks includedThe cheapest way to stand on three islands in a day, and it leaves from the city you already flew into.
Greece without a hire car is mostly somebody else’s minibus.
Island roads are narrow, parking in Chania and Rhodes Town is a joke, and the ferry takes no interest in when your rental is due back. A lot of this country is easier booked as a seat: a driver for the day, a coach to Delphi, an audio guide and your own legs.
Santorini is a cliff with a road on top and all the good part underneath it.
The rim is the postcard; the water below it is the actual day out. The vines here are trained into baskets on the ground because the wind would strip them otherwise, and the flat south of the island is quieter and cheaper than anywhere on the caldera edge.
Every Santorini day →
By island and city
Crete is big enough that you can spend the whole trip on it.
Samaria Gorge
Olive mills
Knossos
MuseumsThe latest Greek days out to get a review.
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