The Best Places in Greece

Pine forests still scent the air on Spetses, where cars are scarce and the Poseidonion has been holding court in French Riviera style since forever. This grand hotel splits between a restored Historic Wing and a newer contemporary one, with a spa, several restaurants, a private cinema, and an art gallery rounding things out. It's the kind of place that makes a ferry crossing feel like an arrival rather than a commute.

The blue-tiled pool sits at the center of everything, ringed by a plant-filled courtyard where guests drift between leisurely meals and leisurely nothing. This all-suite boutique hotel in Rethymno keeps its palette to whitewashed stone and white-on-white interiors, letting Aegean light do the decorating. Beyond the walls, the old town's medieval streets wind past a harbor full of sailboats and a stone lighthouse that looks painted there.

Whitewashed walls, earthy neutrals, and straw and wood details spread across a rocky stretch of northern Crete's coastline give this adults-only resort the feel of a small village rather than a hotel. Dining options include a Cretan taverna, a seafood spot with sea views, and private dinners in an olive grove. The spa runs to an indoor pool, sauna, ice fountain, shiatsu, and acupuncture, which covers most bases.

The lagoon pools are woven so thoroughly around this adults-only Crete resort that every room gets a blue water view, and the overwater bungalows have private decks with direct pool access. Six restaurants cover Greek taverna through Mexican fusion to steakhouse, there's one bar, and all-inclusive is an option. The Anassa spa runs Elemis treatments alongside sauna and Jacuzzi for the post-padel crowd who take recovery seriously.

Rooftop gardens sit above each suite at this boutique resort near Kissamos, helping regulate the temperature the old-fashioned way, without a thermostat in sight. The aesthetic is pared-back neutral tones and raw textures, but the real through-line is a commitment to local Cretan craft, from the handmade furniture to the botanical massage oils in the spa. The on-site restaurant leans seasonal and creative, and the team can point you toward nearby hiking trails when you run out of excuses to stay put.

Suites named after Ottoman and Venetian landmarks give you a sense of the layered history this five-star hotel is leaning into, planted on 1866 Square a short walk from the old Venetian port. Rooms run to marble, brass, and natural wood, with vintage regional photography on the walls. The rooftop restaurant looks out over the White Mountains, which is the kind of view that makes you order another carafe just to stay in the chair.

Cubist concrete and wood buildings step down a clifftop on Crete's northern coast, each room and villa fitted with a private pool and the kind of pale-stone minimalism that makes you feel vaguely enlightened. There's no private beach, no grand restaurant, just nine rooms and nine villas with open-plan kitchens and water views, plus an indoor spa pool lit like a fever dream. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Grecian pottery, trailing greenery, and earthy textures make the interiors feel halfway outside, which is apparently the point. This adults-only resort near Rethymno leans into a bohemian-minimalist look that sits somewhere between a design hotel and a festival campsite, in a good way. The beach is a short walk, the vibe is social rather than hushed, and the Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

The old dyeing pits in this industrial-chic boutique hotel are now an outdoor pool, which tells you everything about how the conversion went. Four connected 19th-century tanneries on Chania's rocky shoreline became a place where exposed stone walls, vaulted wood beams, and travertine bathrooms coexist without awkwardness. Every room faces the Aegean. The spa does too, and so does the terrace restaurant serving modern Cretan food. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Archanes is the kind of Cretan village where tourists are still the minority, and this boutique hotel, a short walk from the main square, leans into that. A traditional stone house with wooden beams, it's been fitted out with minimalist decor and bespoke lighting, so it reads more like a stylish private home than a hotel. The duplex suites have proper kitchens, cozy living rooms, and lofted sleeping areas reached by wooden stairs. A courtyard pool completes the picture.

The W brand's signature playfulness lands on a spectacular stretch of Ionian coastline in Messinia, dialed back just enough to let the landscape breathe. This is a full luxury beach resort, so the rooms trade fluorescent-pink modernism for something warmer and more organic, which the Peloponnese rewards. A dazzling infinity pool and a lavish spa sit between you and the sea, with a golf course a short drive away for those who apparently need more to do.

Twelve suites perched above the golden-sand bay of Pollonia, each with a sea-view terrace and most with a private plunge pool. This whitewashed boutique hotel reads as a Cycladic village scaled down to honeymoon proportions, with no shared restaurant, just al fresco poolside dining and room service keeping things deliberately quiet. The team keeps a list of local skippers, geologists, and walking guides for anyone who can drag themselves away from the water.

Stone houses scattered through a valley whose Greek name, Aspros Potamos, translates directly to "white river," which is also how the place got its name. These self-catering cottages in a remote eastern corner of Crete run from studios to four-bedroom layouts, each with a shaded terrace, a full kitchen, and a modern bathroom tucked behind traditionally built walls. The pool is large, the common areas are not, and dinner means a short walk to the village of Makrigialos.

Terracotta blocks clustered like a hillside village, connected by pools that catch the Aegean light, set the tone at this design-forward resort on Samos's eastern shore. Rooms come as swim-up suites, private-pool retreats, or rooftop escapes, all done in linen, rattan, and concrete. The Beach House handles food and cocktails by the firepit. Pythagoreio's harbor and tavernas are just beyond the gates, which is a useful corrective when the poolside spell gets too comfortable.

Grikos Bay sits right there through the window, a stretch of translucent blue framing bobbing sailboats and steep green islets, and the whole point of this small family-run boutique hotel built into the hill above it is that the view never really leaves you. Every room has a private balcony, breakfast goes on the breezy terrace, and the mosaic pool mirrors the same blue. Getting here takes some doing, which the guests who find it tend to consider a feature.

The rooftop cocktail bar perched above the Monastiraki flea market with the Acropolis filling the horizon is doing a lot of heavy lifting on its own, but the menu still tries to keep up. Drinks are organized around ideas, love and hope and realism, which is either pretentious or charming depending on how many you've had. The spirits range widely, with small Greek breweries and local wines keeping things grounded.

Tables spill out onto the pedestrian street of Athens' old textile quarter, and the double-height windowed walls keep things airy enough that you forget it's technically a bar. Senios runs from morning coffee through late-night cocktails without making a big deal of it, which is kind of the point: the team behind The Clumsies wanted to revive the idea of the neighborhood café-bar where nobody's in a rush to turn the table.

Low-rise honey-hued stone houses scattered across sand dunes and wild Antiparos scrubland, each with its own pool, terrace, and open-air shower. The Rooster is a boutique resort that leans hard into the landscape rather than fighting it, with driftwood four-posters and sandwashed plaster walls doing the decorating. Indoor-outdoor living isn't a marketing line here; the architecture makes staying inside feel faintly beside the point.