Greece
Tilos
Dwarf elephant bones in a clifftop cave, a wind turbine powering most of the island.
Dwarf elephant bones in a clifftop cave, a wind turbine turning above the ridge, and a few hundred people on an island drawing most of its power from sun and wind. Tilos runs the prehistoric and the pioneering side by side, inside a Natura 2000 refuge of more than 160 bird species.
The TILOS project paired wind, solar and battery storage, making the island a Mediterranean pioneer in running mainly on its own renewables. Charkadio Cave yielded the remains of extinct dwarf elephants, shown in the small palaeontology museum at Messaria. Marked paths join Megalo Chorio, the abandoned Mikro Chorio, hill chapels and beaches, and conservation keeps the visitor economy deliberately low-key.
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Solo
Marked island paths, fossil history and quiet villages with enough time to notice the landscape between them.
Couple
Small beaches, an evening among Mikro Chorio’s ruins and a gentle circuit shaped by nature and local innovation.
- The turbine on the ridge is the island's pride — a Mediterranean first in island-scale renewables.
- Dwarf elephants the size of ponies once lived here; their bones came out of Charkadio Cave.
- Mikro Chorio was abandoned mid-century, and its stone shells stand open to walkers.
- Birdlife is the quiet spectacle — over 160 species recorded across one small island.
Goat stew with wild capers foraged from the hillsides, cooked slowly by the island's small community.
Fresh fish from the day boat, grilled simply with olive oil and served under a mulberry tree.
Abaiang
Kiribati
At high tide the sea surrounds Tebunginako's church; the village choir times services around it.
Abbotsbury
England
A swannery where six hundred mute swans nest in reed beds behind the Chesil Bank.
Abel Tasman National Park
New Zealand
Golden bays between forested headlands, reached only on foot, by kayak or water taxi.
Aberdaron
Wales
A church on the sand where pilgrims ate their last meal before the island crossing.
Acheron River
Greece
Wade into the ice-cold River of the Dead — Greeks believed it flowed to Hades.
Agiofarango Gorge
Greece
Three hundred hermits once lived this gorge — a cave chapel and the Libyan Sea remain.
Alonissos
Greece
A vast marine park where monk seals still hold their coves — Greece's wild northern Sporades.
Amorgos
Greece
A whitewashed monastery clings to a 300-metre cliff face above crashing Aegean surf.