Greece
Hydra
No cars, no airport — just donkeys and the echo of footsteps on marble lanes.
No cars, no airport, no bicycles — just donkeys loaded with luggage climbing marble lanes, and the echo of footsteps on stone. The harbour mansions rose on 18th-century merchant-fleet wealth, and Leonard Cohen lived and wrote up one of these lanes.
Hydra’s protected settlement and sea captains’ houses reflect the wealth and politics of a major maritime island. Coastal paths link monasteries, coves and small settlements beyond the harbour, so the island works as a walking destination rather than a single waterfront. Leonard Cohen’s long connection is one strand in an artistic history that still draws writers and painters.
Couple
Harbour evenings, mansion-lined lanes and a coastal walk to a cove beyond the busiest streets.
Solo
An island paced on foot, with monasteries, maritime history and room to follow the coast without a timetable.
- Hydra’s protected settlement keeps ordinary motor traffic away, with limited service and emergency exceptions.
- Sea captains’ mansions above the harbour reflect the island’s maritime wealth and role in the Greek Revolution.
- Coastal paths link monasteries, coves and small settlements beyond Hydra Town.
- Leonard Cohen bought a house here in 1960, joining a long artistic history that still shapes the island.
Amygdalota — almond macaroons scented with blossom water — from Tsagaris, who have made them since 1930.
Grilled octopus at a waterfront table where the only passing vehicle is a donkey.
Sangkhlaburi
Thailand
Monks walk barefoot across a hand-built wooden bridge disappearing into thick morning fog.
Banjarmasin
Indonesia
Before dawn, the market is a flotilla: produce, breakfast and gossip traded gunwale to gunwale.
Asilah
Morocco
Fresh murals break across whitewashed lanes inside a fifteenth-century Atlantic wall.
Tulum
Mexico
Grey Maya stone holds a cliff edge above white sand and turquoise surf.
Pelion
Greece
The centaurs' mythic homeland — chestnut forests and stone villages sliding from peak to shore.
Ioannina
Greece
Ali Pasha's lake fortress — silversmith workshops and Ottoman mosques on an island reached by boat.
Prespa Lakes
Greece
Byzantine hermitages painted on cave walls above a lake shared by three countries.
Corfu Old Town
Greece
Venetian alleyways hung with laundry open onto a cricket pitch — Greece's most Italian island.