Alternatives to Mykonos and Santorini: Greece Without the Crowds

Ditch the crowds and discover a more lowkey, authentic experience in Greece

Mykonos and Santorini are famous for good reason. Between them, they have some of Greece’s best hotels, most recognisable views and a huge share of the country’s luxury travel scene. They also get very busy, particularly in July and August, and increasingly they are not the only islands worth building a high-end Greek trip around.

You can find much of what makes Mykonos and Santorini so appealing elsewhere in Greece too: excellent boutique hotels, beautiful beaches, whitewashed villages, great restaurants and that unmistakable Cycladic setting.

Some islands are larger, with enough beaches, villages and restaurants to fill a full week. Others are much smaller and more intimate. If you like the idea of Mykonos or Santorini but want something less obvious, there are plenty of islands that deliver the same quality of trip in a very different way.

Naxos

Naxos is the largest island in the Cyclades and one of the easiest places to spend a full week without running out of things to do. Its beaches are a major draw, particularly Agios Prokopios and Plaka, where long stretches of golden sand make a better fit for dedicated beach days than Santorini.

The interior is just as important. Villages such as Halki and Apiranthos give you a completely different side of the island, with old stone houses, small tavernas and mountain roads running through the centre of Naxos. It also has a particularly good food culture, with excellent local cheese, potatoes and citrus products showing up across restaurant menus.

For travellers who like the idea of the Cyclades but want more space and a less frantic social scene than Mykonos, Naxos makes a lot of sense.

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Greek Island Hopping: Milos, Paros and Mykonos

Tailor-made Holiday

Milos, Paros, and Mykonos make for a brilliant Greek island trilogy. This route takes you from under-the-radar beaches to charming village life, finishing with Mykonos's signature glamour. Begin in Milos, the Cyclades' best-kept secret (though the word is getting out). With over 70 beaches—many only accessible by boat—this volcanic island delivers dramatic coastlines, lunar landscapes, and crystal-clear waters without the crowds you'll find elsewhere.

8 days tailor-made from £1,120 per person View trip

Milos

Milos’ landscape is more geological than postcard-perfect, shaped by volcanic activity into white cliffs, mineral-coloured rock, sea caves and coves that look completely different from the long sandy beaches of Naxos or the polished beach clubs of Mykonos.

Sarakiniko is the obvious example, with its almost lunar white rock, but the real appeal is how much of the island is best explored from the water. A boat day around Kleftiko takes you through arches, caves and swimming spots that are inaccessible by road, and the coastline keeps changing as you go.

Klima adds another dimension to the island, with its colourful syrmata, traditional fishermen’s boat houses built right on the water, while Pollonia offers a polished base with good restaurants and small hotels. That mix is what makes Milos work so well: the coastline feels wild and unusual, but the island still has enough comfort, character and quality hotels to make it a luxury trip.

Sifnos

Sifnos has built a reputation around food. The island is the birthplace of Nikolaos Tselementes, one of the most influential figures in modern Greek cooking, and that culinary tradition still matters here.

It also has some of the prettiest villages in the Cyclades. Apollonia has the liveliest evenings, Artemonas is all neoclassical houses and narrow lanes, while Kastro sits above the sea on the site of the island’s medieval capital. There is a long pottery tradition too, and workshops still operate around the island.

For beach time, Vathi and Platis Gialos give you broad, easy-going stretches of sand, while the hotel scene has become increasingly polished. Sifnos is a very good fit if you want boutique hotels, excellent food and Cycladic beauty, but would happily swap the Mykonos beach-club circuit for a more rustic taverna.

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Gay Greece: The LGBTQ+ Island Guide from Mykonos to Lesbos

Greece has been welcoming gay travellers longer than most destinations have had the vocabulary to describe it. Ancient Greece was among the first civilisations to normalize male same-sex relationships, and that cultural thread, however transformed by centuries of Orthodox Christianity and conservative politics, never fully disappeared. In February 2024, Greece became the first Orthodox-majority country to legalise same-sex marriage, granting full marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples.

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Tinos

Tinos stands out for its culture and architecture, but it is also a very easy island to settle into. Tinos Town gives you a compact base with restaurants, cafés, shops and the ferry port all close together, so you can have plenty going on around you without needing the scale or intensity of a major resort.

Beyond town, the island opens out into marble villages, ornate dovecotes, old churches and walking trails. Pyrgos is the standout, known for its long marble-carving tradition, while smaller settlements across the island give Tinos much of its character.

That combination is what makes it appealing. You can stay somewhere convenient and lively, then spend the day exploring villages, beaches and the interior before coming back into town for dinner. It also combines very easily with Mykonos, making the two islands a natural pairing rather than an either-or choice.

Folegandros

Folegandros is one of the smallest islands on this list, and that scale is a big part of the appeal. Chora sits around 200 metres above the sea and is built around a series of connected, car-free squares, so the centre feels unusually compact and easy to enjoy on foot. At its edge is the medieval Kastro, where houses form part of the old fortified settlement above the cliff.

Above Chora, a zigzag path climbs to the Church of Panagia, one of the island’s defining sights, with wide views back across the settlement and the Aegean. Further west, Ano Meria is more rural, with dry-stone walls, farmsteads and walking trails crossing the island.

The beaches are smaller and more tucked away than on Naxos or Milos. Katergo is one of the best known, while Agali is an easy base for swimming and boat access to other coves. Folegandros works best if you want a very intimate island, a beautiful town to come back to every evening, and enough walking, swimming and scenery to fill a few days.

Hydra

Hydra feels unusual the moment you arrive because there are no private cars or motorcycles on the island. You step off the ferry straight into a harbour where people move around on foot, goods are carried by donkeys and mules, and water taxis connect the beaches and smaller coastal spots. That changes the whole feel of the place. There is no traffic threading through town, and the absence of roads full of vehicles makes Hydra Town feel remarkably intact. Greece’s official tourism board explicitly notes that vehicles are prohibited on the island.

That would be interesting enough on its own, but Hydra is also one of the easiest islands to add to an Athens trip. High-speed ferries run from Piraeus year-round, with the fastest crossings taking a little over an hour. In summer there can be several departures a day, so you do not need to build a complicated island-hopping route around it.

Hydra Town is the centre of the experience, with stone mansions rising above the harbour, old lanes climbing behind them and restaurants set around the waterfront. Once you want to get beyond town, you either walk, take a water taxi or head out on one of the island’s hiking routes. That combination is what makes Hydra distinctive: it feels removed from the pace of the mainland, but it is one of the easiest Greek islands to reach.

Planning a trip to the Greek islands?

The right Greek island depends less on which one is “best” and more on what you actually want from the trip. You might spend a few nights in Mykonos before slowing things down in Tinos, combine Santorini with Folegandros, or skip the famous islands entirely and build the trip around Naxos, Milos or Sifnos.

We can put together the hotels, ferries, private transfers and route, with particular attention to properties we know are welcoming to LGBTQ+ travellers.