Ios Island

Ios sits in the Cyclades roughly halfway between Naxos and Santorini, a hilly island about 18 kilometres long covering 109 square kilometres, with cliffs dropping steeply to the sea along much of its 86-kilometre coastline. The 2021 census recorded 2,299 residents, down from around 3,500 at the island's mid-20th-century peak, with roughly 1,754 living in the hilltop capital, Chora.

Excavations on Skarkos hill have uncovered one of the best-preserved early Cycladic settlements in the Aegean, evidence that Ios was inhabited well before it came under Minoan, then Mycenaean, and later Ionian influence; by 534 BCE the island was paying tribute to Athens. A more romantic, if unverified, tradition holds that the poet Homer died and was buried on Ios, and a tomb attributed to him still sits on the island's northern side.

Chora itself remains a quintessential Cycladic village of whitewashed houses and narrow lanes, though since the 1970s Ios has built its modern reputation on youth-oriented nightlife as much as its history. For gulet guests it endures as a classic stop on a Greece blue cruise itinerary, combining sandy anchorages like Mylopotas with an evening ashore in Chora's lively streets.