Greece
Alonissos
The Mediterranean's largest marine park — monk seals surface in coves only accessible by boat.
The monk seal surfaces in the cove — a dark shape rolling in green water, then gone. You are inside the largest marine protected area in Europe, and the seal you just saw is one of fewer than seven hundred left alive. Above the shoreline, the old hilltop village crumbles and blooms — half ruin, half artist colony, all stone and bougainvillea.
The National Marine Park of Alonissos, established in 1992, covers 2,220 square kilometres — the largest marine protected area in Europe. The park hosts the most important breeding colony of the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus), with fewer than 700 individuals remaining worldwide. The old hilltop Chora was abandoned after a 1965 earthquake and later resettled by artists, creating a village of restored stone houses, studios, and cat-lined lanes. Excursion boats run to the uninhabited island of Kyra Panagia, where a Byzantine monastery is the only inhabited structure.
Couple
Boat excursions into the marine park hoping for seal sightings, the artist-village Chora at sunset, and quiet beaches accessible only by boat.
Family
The marine park boat trips are educational and exciting for children, the Chora is walkable and safe, and the beaches are uncrowded.
- The National Marine Park of Alonissos, established in 1992, is the largest marine protected area in Europe at 2,220 square kilometres.
- The Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) has fewer than 700 individuals worldwide — Alonissos hosts the largest breeding colony in the Mediterranean.
- The old hilltop village of Chora was abandoned after a 1965 earthquake and later resettled by artists — it is now a mix of restored stone houses and studios.
- Excursion boats run to the uninhabited island of Kyra Panagia, where a Byzantine monastery is the only inhabited structure — the surrounding coastline is entirely wild.
Cheese pie baked in a wood oven by the old village bakery, golden and crumbling at the edges.
Tuna steak grilled on the dock at Patitiri harbour, served with wild capers from the hillside.
Boca Brava
Panama
A mangrove island in the Pacific where humpback whales breach within swimming distance of shore.
Delta do Parnaíba
Brazil
Scarlet ibis clouds erupting from mangroves in a river delta opening straight into the Atlantic.
San Juan Islands
United States
Orcas breaching in channels between forested islands where eagles nest above every cove.
Uvita & Marino Ballena
Costa Rica
A sandbar shaped like a whale's tail emerges at low tide while humpbacks breach offshore.
Chania Old Town
Greece
A Venetian harbour glowing at dusk where lighthouse and minaret share the skyline in tangerine light.
Corfu Old Town
Greece
Venetian alleyways hung with laundry open onto a cricket pitch — Greece's most Italian island.
Milia
Greece
An abandoned Cretan hamlet rebuilt from stone into an off-grid eco-settlement deep in chestnut forest.
Tzoumerka
Greece
Stone villages abandoned on a mountain ridge where the only sound is wind through empty doorways.