After Rhodes, Kos ranks second among the Dodecanese islands for both size and visitor numbers. Here too the harbour in Kos Town is guarded by an imposing castle of the Knights of St John, the streets are lined with Italian-built public buildings, and minarets and palm trees punctuate extensive Hellenistic and Roman remains. And while its hinterland mostly lacks the wild beauty of Rhodes’ interior, Kos is the most fertile island in the archipelago, blessed with rich soil and abundant ground water.

Mass tourism, however, has largely displaced the old agrarian way of life; all-inclusive complexes comprising tens of thousands of beds are a blight that contribute little to the local economy, and have forced many restaurants and more modest hotels out of business. Except in Kos Town and Mastihári, there are few independent travellers, and from mid-July to mid-September you’ll be lucky to find a room without reserving far in advance, while the tourist industry itself is juxtaposed rather bizarrely with cows munching amid baled hay near olive groves, and Greek Army tanks exercising in the volcanic badlands around the airport. Like Tílos further south, Kos never had to earn its living from the sea and consequently has little in the way of a maritime tradition or a contemporary fishing fleet. All these peculiarities acknowledged, Kos is still worth a few days’ time while island-hopping: its few mountain villages are appealing, the tourist infrastructure excellent and swimming opportunities limitless – about half the island’s perimeter is fringed by beaches of various sizes, colours and consistencies.

Hidden gems of Kos

A verdant hideaway for peacocks:
Kos is an island full of surprises. Planted by Italians in the 1940s, the woods at Plaka, near Antimacheia, have become a sanctuary for peacocks and other birds. Carry some seeds to offer and they’ll be eating out of your hand.

Thermal springs at the edge of the Aegean:
Alone of the Dodecanese islands, Kos has three different kinds of mineral water springs: hot, warm and cool. You’ll find them at Agios Fokas, Piso Thermes, Kokkinonero and Volkanous. The names themselves carry meaning: Rear Hots and Redwater are the middle two while the last needs no translation.

The Archaeological Museum of Kos:
You’ll find the museum in Eleftheria Square in town. A larger-than-life head of the goddess Hera greets you in the vestibule while impressive statues and mosaics await within.

Despite its size and beauty, the island of KALYMNOS has long been overshadowed by Kos. Kálymnos fought in the Trojan War as a vassal of its southern neighbour, and to this day its tourist industry remains largely dependent on the overspill – and the airport – of Kos.

In most respects, however, Kálymnos is very unlike Kos. It’s much more mountainous, consisting of three high limestone ridges that fan away from the continuous rugged cliffs of its west coast, to create two long sloping valleys that hold most of its settlements and agricultural land.

The island’s capital and largest town, the busy port of Póthia, faces Kos from the midpoint of its southern shoreline. Most visitors head instead for the west coast, where a handful of small resorts have struggled to survive the collapse of a short-lived experiment in mass tourism. The pick of the pack, Myrtiés, stands close to some attractive little beaches. This craggy shoreline has found deserved fame among climbers and hikers, who keep businesses ticking along in the cooler spring and autumn months.

For a beach holiday, you’d do better to head for the separate islet of Télendhos, (a spectacular sight at sunset), or further north up the coast to Emboriós.

The prosperity of Kálymnos traditionally rested on its sponge industry, but blights have now wiped out almost all of the eastern Mediterranean’s sponges. Only a few boats of the island’s thirty-strong fleet remain in use, and most of the sponges sold behind the harbour are imported from Asia and the Caribbean.

Hidden gems of Kalymnos

Telendos: once a peninsula, now an island:
A terrifying earthquake in 554 AD sliced off a piece of Kalymnos, which sunk into the water at Pothaia. Today the island of Telendos lies across from Kalymnos, with fragments and ruins from that era. During your holiday here, you can take the boat across, go for a swim, and walk along the island to see the lost ancient civilisation.

Holidays and Dorian gastronomy:
The cuisine of Kalymnos is based on the simplicity and austerity of the Dorians. Mououri is lamb stuffed with rice, mirmizeli is a bread rusk salad with oil, tomato and cheese, fylla are stuffed vine leaves. Delicious!

The Sanctuary of Dalios Apollo:
The sanctuary constituted the most important place of worship of the patron saint of the island, but it also functioned as a political and religious centre for ancient Kalymnos. There were places of worship here, such as temples to Apollo and Asklepios, as well as a theatre and a gymnasium. It can be found to the west of the hora, on the road that leads to Panormo. As you explore the area, you’ll find two large Christian churches from the 5th and 6th century.

For sheer breathtaking beauty, the Greek islands can offer nothing to beat arriving at SYMI. While the island as a whole is largely barren, its one significant population centre, Sými Town, is gorgeous, a magnificent steep-walled bay lined with Italian-era mansions.

With its shortage of fresh water and relative lack of sandy beaches, Sými has never developed a major tourist industry. Sými Town however holds a wide range of small hotels, as well as abundant delightful rental properties, while day-trippers from Rhodes – and yachties lured by the wonderful harbour – mean it can support some very good restaurants too. In the height – and searing heat – of summer it can get uncomfortably crowded, with a large influx of Italian visitors as well as mainland Greeks, but in spring and autumn it’s wonderful, and even in winter a substantial expat community keeps many businesses open.

Visitors who venture beyond the inhabited areas find an attractive island that has retained some forest of junipers, valonea oaks and even a few pines – ideal walking country in the cooler months. Dozens of tiny, privately owned monasteries dot the landscape; though generally locked except on their patron saint’s day, freshwater cisterns are usually accessible. Near the southern tip of the island, the much larger monastery of Panormítis is an important pilgrimage destination.

Little more than a century ago, Sými Town was home to more people than Rhodes Town, thanks to the wealth generated by its twin ancient skills of shipbuilding and sponge-diving. Many of the mansions built during that age of prosperity have long since tumbled into decay – a process hastened in September 1944, when an ammunition blast set off by the retreating Germans levelled hundreds of houses up in Horió. While restoration is gradually bringing them back to life, the scattered ruins lend the island an appealing sense of time-forgotten mystery.

Hidden gems of Symi

Symi shrimps:
This is the most famous and traditional dish in Symi. Small and flavourful, you’ll eat them fried in the tavernas of Gialo and Horio.

The Nautical Museum:
Sponge diving and other underwater stories await you at this museum which is housed in an impressive neoclassical building in Symi’s old shipyard. Put this on the top of things to do during your holiday on the island.

Set sail for the beaches of Symi:
Day cruises will take you to whatever beach you chose: Ai-Giorgi, Dysalona, Agia Marina, Nanou, Fokospilia. And, as Gialos recedes in the distance, you will once again admire its neoclassical splendour.

The volcanic island of Níssyros is unlike its neighbours in almost every respect. It’s much lusher and greener than dry Tílos and Hálki to the south, blessed with rich soil that nurtures a distinctive flora, and it supported a large agricultural population in ancient times. In contrast to long flat Kos to the north, Níssyros is round and tall, with the high walls of its central caldera rising abruptly from the shoreline around its entire perimeter. And Níssyros conceals a startling secret; behind those encircling hills, the interior of the island is hollow, centring on a huge crater floor that’s dotted with still-steaming vents and cones.

For most visitors, the volcano is Níssyros’ main attraction. It’s easy enough to see it on a day-trip from Kos, so few bother to spend the night. That’s a shame, because it’s a genuinely lovely island, very short on beaches but abounding in spectacular scenery. The port and sole large town, Mandhráki on the northwest coast, is an appealing tight-knit community with some fine ancient ruins, while two delightful villages, Emboriós and Nikiá, straddle the crater ridge.

These days, much of the island’s income is derived from the offshore islet of Yialí, a vast lump of pumice, all too clearly visible just north of Mandhráki, that’s slowly being quarried away. Substantial concession fees have given the islanders economic security.

Níssyros also offers good walking, on trails that lead through a countryside studded with oak and terebinth (pigs gorge themselves on the abundant acorns, and pork figures prominently on menus).

Hidden gems of Nisyros

The Volcanic Museum of Nisyros:
The Volcanic Museum has all you want to know about Greece’s volcanoes and their different rock formations. It’s housed in Nikeia’s old elementary school.

The hot springs:
There are spas with hot mineral springs all over the island. Just a kilometre from Mandraki you can see a vintage – early 20th-century – spa, where the water bubbled out at 55 degrees Celsius. 

The Palaiocastro:
This is the name of the island’s acropolis.  Its magnificent, massive walls, made of black volcanic rock, are really impressive.

Although KASTELLORIZO’s official name of Meyísti means “Biggest”, it’s actually among the very smallest Dodecanese islands; it’s just the biggest of a local archipelago of islets. It’s also extremely remote, located more than 100km east of Rhodes and barely more than a nautical mile off mainland Asia. At night its lights are outnumbered by those of the Turkish town of Kaş opposite, with which Kastellórizo has excellent relations.

The island’s population has dwindled from around ten thousand a century ago to perhaps three hundred now. Having been an Ottoman possession since 1552, it was occupied by the French from 1915 until 1921, and then by the Italians. When Italy capitulated to the Allies in 1943, 1500 Commonwealth commandos occupied Kastellórizo. Most departed that November, after the Germans captured the other Dodecanese, which left the island vulnerable to looters, both Greek and British. By the time a fuel fire in 1944 triggered the explosion of an adjacent arsenal, demolishing half the houses on Kastellórizo, most islanders had already left. Those who remain are supported by remittances from more than 30,000 emigrants, as well as subsidies from the Greek government to prevent the island reverting to Turkey.

Yet Kastellórizo has a future of sorts, thanks partly to repatriating “Kassies” returning each summer to renovate their crumbling ancestral houses as second homes. Visitors tend either to love Kastellórizo and stay a week, or crave escape after a day; detractors dismiss it as a human zoo maintained by the Greek government to placate nationalists, while devotees celebrate an atmospheric, little-commercialized outpost of Hellenism.

Hidden gems of Kastelorizo

Wuthering heights up at Ai Giorgi:
275, 276, 277… only a few more steps to go. You’re climbing the steep path from Horafia to the top of a high hill for a reason. Not only will you be rewarded with a spectacular panoramic view but you’ll also find yourself at the fortified monastery of Ai Giorgi tou Vounou (St George of the Mountain).

The Lady of Rho, a legend in our times:
The islet of Rho (also called Agios Georgios or Rhopi) lies to the southwest of Kastelorizo. For Greeks it has special, symbolic importance thanks to a remarkable woman, Despina Achladioti, who lived there completely alone for 40 years. What started as a patriotic act of resistance during the Nazi Occupation continued until her death. Every morning she raised the Greek flag on this remote outpost and took it down every evening as the sun set. Any would-be invader would have to contend with her first.

Ancient Museum of Kastelorizo:
You’ll find a remarkable collection of artefacts from ancient and Byzantine times here, as well as pieces of local craft that will initiate you into the traditions of the island.

Despite being the third-largest Dodecanese island, poised halfway between Rhodes and Crete, long, narrow KARPATHOS has always been a wild and underpopulated backwater. The island’s usually cloud-capped mountainous spine, which rises to over 1200m, divides it into two very distinct sections – the low-lying south, with its pretty bays and long beaches, and the exceptionally rugged north, where deeply traditional villages nest atop towering cliffs. If you prefer to stay in a sizeable town, then Pigádhia on the east coast, Kárpathos’s capital and largest port, is a good choice, with a wide range of hotels as well as a good beach, but several smaller resorts and isolated coves also hold lovely beachfront accommodation.

Touring Kárpathos’s magnificent, windswept coastline is consistently superb, with its verdant meadows, high peaks, isolated promontories and secluded beaches, lapped by crystalline waters. The interior, however, isn’t always as alluring: the central and northern forests have been scorched by repeated fires, while agriculture plays a minor role. The Karpathians are too well off to bother much with farming; emigration to North America and the resulting remittances have made this one of Greece’s wealthiest islands.

Although the Minoans and Mycenaeans established trading posts on what they called Krapathos, the island’s four Classical cities figure little in ancient history. Kárpathos was held by the Genoese and Venetians after the Byzantine collapse and so has no castle of the Knights of St John, nor any surviving medieval fortresses of note.

Hidden gems of Karpathos

Nature and history in the untrodden north:
The north, above Olymbos and all the way to Saria, is a favourite nesting place for birds, seals, frogs and salamanders as well as the home of large, tasty but elusive fish. There you’ll also find the palaces of Doric Nisyros, sacred ancient Vroukounda and exotic Tristomo.

The fertile plateau below Olymbos:
It looks like the centre of a vanishing world. In Karpathos, the plateau of Avlona invites you to travel in time through its meticulously squared fields, silos and scattered houses. You just pick the century.

Walk to your heart’s content:
If there is a hiker-paradise in the Aegean, it must be on Karpathos. Centuries-old cobblestone paths lead to forgotten ancient sites, roadless villages without electricity or other mod cons and breath-taking views. The hiking trails crisscross the island but are best in the north.

A rare ecosystem:
Karpathos, along with the islet of Saria, is one of the most important islands in Greece for the protection of rare species and ecosystems. Two sites are included in the Natura 2000 network for their bird and seal populations.

Geographically, historically and architecturally, Astypálea really belongs to the Cyclades – on a clear day you can see Anáfi or Amorgós far more easily than any of the other Dodecanese. Its inhabitants are descended from colonists brought from the Cyclades during the fifteenth century, after pirate raids had left the island depopulated, and supposedly Astypálea was only reassigned to the Ottomans after the Greek Revolution because the Great Powers had such a poor map at the 1830 and 1832 peace conferences.

Astypálea’s main visitor attractions include a beautiful old citadel – not just the castle itself, but also the whitewashed village of Hóra beneath it – as well as several good, easily accessible beaches. The island may not immediately strike you as especially beautiful: many beaches along its heavily indented coastline have reef underfoot and periodic seaweed, while the windswept heights are covered in thornbush or dwarf juniper. Hundreds of sheep and goats manage to survive, while citrus groves and vegetable patches in the valleys signal a relative abundance of water. Besides the excellent local cheese, Astypálea is renowned for its honey, fish and lobster.

There is no package tourism on Astypálea, and its remoteness discourages casual trade. During the short, intense midsummer season (mid-July to early Sept), however, visitors vastly outnumber the 1500 permanent inhabitants. The one real drawback is that transport connections are so poor.

Hidden gems of Astypalaia

Hellenistic bath houses:
In Maltezana (Ascension) you’ll find the famous Baths of Talara, with their trademark blue tiles and mosaics from the Hellenistic period. Experts have singled them out for their unique composition, which depicts the seasons and the symbols of the zodiac.

The stalactites at Negrou:
The Cave of Negrou at Vatses has impressive stalactite and stalagmite formations that are interwoven with myths about pirates and the treasures they buried there. From the beach you can hike (45 mins) to the cave, or you can also reach it by boat.

Rock climbing in Astypalaia:
Give yourself an adrenaline rush. There’s a climbing site at Ftera, just 20 minutes outside the island’s hora. The relief of the limestone rocks has created two climbing sites, offering some 20 routes of varying difficulty. Are you up for it?

Arguably the most beautiful, certainly the best known of the smaller Dodecanese, PATMOS has a distinctive, immediately palpable atmosphere. In a cave here, St John the Divine (known in Greek as O Theológos, “The Theologian”, and author of one of the four Gospels) set down the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament. The huge fortified monastery that honours him remains the island’s dominant feature; its monks owned all of Pátmos until the eighteenth century, and their influence remains strong.

For those visitors not motivated by religion, Pátmos’s greatest strength is its beaches. With so many attractive strands, you can usually escape the crowds even in high season, though you may need a vehicle to do so. Day-trippers exceed overnighters, thanks in part to the island’s lack of an airport, and Pátmos feels a different place once the last excursion boat has left after sunset. Among those staying, no single nationality predominates, lending Pátmos a cosmopolitan feel almost unique in the Dodecanese. The steady clientele can be very posh indeed, with assorted royal and ex-royal families among repeat visitors.

Hidden gems of Patmos

 ‘Kathismata’:
These small monastic units in caves were created by monks. Beside their hermitages, they also built small temples.

Ascend to Prophiti Elias:
Experience a the spectacle of the highest point of the island: large rocks scattered everywhere as if they were tossed from above, caves and – in the distance – the big blue Aegean Sea.

A historic pathway:
A walk on Aporthiano road is worth your while. This old trail unites Hora with the port, Skala.