Islands

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Why car rental in Mallorca changes the whole trip The queue at the Rentalcars desk in Palma airport snaked back almost to the baggage carousel. It was mid-July, roughly half past noon, and the couple in front of me had their confirmation email open on a phone with a cracked screen and a booking made the night before. They waited 47 minutes. I waited eleven, because I had booked three weeks earlier with a reserved slot, walked past the main hall to the quieter off-airport shuttle pick-up, and had a white Seat Ibiza in my hands before their queue even moved. I’m not telling you this to brag — I’m telling you because that 36-minute difference is the whole story of car rental in Mallorca. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Why car rental in Sicily is the best decision you’ll make on this trip The woman at the Catania airport counter smiled and said she was doing us a favour. A full tank of fuel, pre-purchased, at a fixed rate — no need to worry about finding a station before returning the car. My partner looked at me. We’d read the warnings. We smiled back and said no thank you. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Why car rental in Tenerife changes your whole trip The guy at the Tenerife South desk gave me the full upsell — extra cover, pre-purchased fuel, a sat-nav I didn’t need. I smiled, said no to most of it, and walked out to a compact Seat Ibiza I’d booked online three weeks earlier for just under twenty-five euros a day. Twenty minutes later I was on the motorway heading north, watching the landscape shift from pale resort concrete to dark volcanic rock to pine forest, and thinking that everyone who stays inside a sun-lounger radius of their hotel is making a serious mistake. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Cheapest Greek Islands to Visit — and the Ones to Skip If Budget Matters I almost didn’t go. I had priced out a week on Santorini, watched the number climb past €150 a night for a mediocre room without a caldera view, and was quietly closing the tab when a friend sent me a screenshot of a Naxos guesthouse: €45 a night, sea-facing terrace, a fifteen-minute walk from the best beach on the island. I booked it that evening. That trip cost me less than two nights would have on Santorini, and I spent seven days on an island most people fly over on their way somewhere more famous. The food was better, the beaches were emptier, and I never once felt like I was paying a premium to look at a volcano. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Crete, Without Trying to See All of It We flew into Heraklion with a two-week plan and a list long enough for a month: Knossos, every beach on the map, both ends of the island, the Samaria Gorge. By day three we were exhausted from driving and had photographed three lagoons we barely remembered. A taverna owner in a mountain village set us straight over a plate of lamb: “Crete is not a city you walk in a weekend. Pick a side. Come back for the other.” ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Hvar, Without the Rookie Mistakes We almost booked Hvar for the second week of August, because that’s when the flights to Split were cheap. A friend who summers in Dalmatia talked us out of it in one line: “You’ll be sharing every cove with three boats and paying double to do it.” So we moved the trip to mid-September instead, and the island we got — warm sea, half-empty harbour, lavender still scenting the back lanes — was the one the postcards promise and high summer quietly hides. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Koh Samui, Without the Wet-Season Surprise We almost booked Koh Samui for the last week of October, purely because the flights were cheap. A friend who’d spent a rainy season there talked us out of it in one sentence: “That’s exactly when Samui gets dumped on — you’d be watching the storm from the balcony, not the beach.” Here’s the thing most people miss: Samui sits on Thailand’s Gulf coast, so it doesn’t follow the same calendar as Phuket and the Andaman islands. When the west coast is drying out, Samui’s heaviest rain is just arriving. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Mykonos, Without Overpaying for the Postcard The first time we did Mykonos, we landed in the second week of August, dropped our bags, and walked straight into a wall of heat, crowds and a wind that nearly took my hat to Turkey. By lunchtime we’d paid more for two plates by the harbour than our whole dinner cost the night we came back in late May. That second trip — quieter lanes, swimmable sea, half the prices — is the one this Mykonos travel guide is really built around. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Nusa Penida, Without the Day-Trip Regret We booked Nusa Penida as a single day trip from Bali, because the photos looked like a quick tick-off between hotel and pool. By the time our fast boat docked, three other boats had already emptied, and the line at the Kelingking Beach viewpoint snaked back along the cliff in the heat. We saw the T-rex-shaped headland over a hundred shoulders, and then it was straight back to the harbour to make the return crossing. The island deserved better. The next time, we stayed two nights, watched the sunrise hit Diamond Beach with maybe six other people around, and finally understood what the fuss was about. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Phuket Without the Rookie Mistakes We booked our first Phuket trip for late September, because the flights were almost embarrassingly cheap. The taxi driver from the airport laughed when we said we wanted to snorkel Phi Phi the next day: “Sea is big this week. Maybe Tuesday.” He was right — the west-coast beaches had red flags out, the speedboats were bouncing, and we spent two days in Old Town cafés waiting for the swell to drop. We still had a great trip. But we learned the one thing this Phuket travel guide is really about. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Rhodes, Beyond the Cruise-Ship Day Trip The first time we came to Rhodes we nearly made the classic mistake: book mid-July, base ourselves in a packed resort, and “do” the Old Town in the two hours before a beach afternoon. A friend who’d summered here for years talked us out of it. “Come in September,” she said, “stay where you can actually walk into the medieval town at night, and save Lindos for the morning before the buses arrive.” She was right on every count. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Santorini, Without the Sunset Scrum We almost ruined Santorini by doing the obvious thing: queuing shoulder-to-shoulder in Oia at 7pm with two thousand other phones, all pointed at the same horizon. Then a guesthouse owner in Imerovigli told us to just turn around. The same sun, the same glowing caldera, dropped behind the cliffs from her terrace — and there were six of us, not six hundred. That one tip changed the whole trip. ...