Greece Tours with Flights from €1,220

The mainland tour is the one first-timers tend to underrate, and they are wrong to. A 7-10 day classical itinerary opens with two nights in Athens for the Acropolis, the Acropolis Museum and an evening in the Plaka, then heads west into the Peloponnese for Corinth, Mycenae, Epidaurus and Nafplion. From there you climb north to Olympia, cross to Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassos, and finish at Meteora, where six working monasteries perch on top of sandstone pillars.

Destination Services Greece runs a solid 5-day Classical Tour (Nafplion, Olympia, Delphi, Meteora) from around €1,020 per person, and Fez Travel's 7-day Greece Classic Tour lands near €1,560. Click Tours' 8-day Highlights of Greece sits around €2,350 with smarter hotels and smaller groups. What you get on any of them: a licensed Greek guide at each archaeological site (the law requires it inside Meteora and most major ruins), coach transfers, breakfast daily, and 3-star or 4-star hotels.

What you do not get: lunches, dinners, and the €30-€50 in site entry fees on free days. Set aside €200-€300 for a week of meals on your own coin. And if you only get one shot at Greece, do mainland plus two islands in 10 days; the pure mainland loops are the richer trip, but they cost you the beach afternoons most travellers quietly want.

The default island combo is Santorini and Mykonos, usually three nights on each. Add Crete and you need a week. Add Naxos or Paros and you are into 10 days. Dot Travel's self-guided 7-day Athens, Mykonos and Santorini lands around €1,070, their 15-day Best of Greece with four islands sits near €1,940, and Travel Zone's 10-day semi-private Athens, Santorini and Mykonos with three guided tours comes in at €3,160.

Ferries or flights is the decision that shapes everything else. Blue Star and Hellenic Seaways run the slow open-deck ferries (5-8 hours, €40-€60), and Seajets run the high-speed catamarans (2-4 hours, €60-€100). Piraeus to Santorini direct is 5 hours on Seajets, 8 on the slow boat. Santorini to Mykonos is 2-3 hours high-speed. Flying Athens to Santorini (JTR) or Mykonos (JMK) on Aegean or Sky Express takes 45 minutes and runs €60-€120 if you book a few weeks out.

Rule of thumb: take a ferry at least once, because the Cyclades look like a different country from sea level, but fly the longest leg if the clock is against you. Crete connects to Santorini by catamaran in 2 hours, so a proper three-island loop is Athens, Santorini, Crete, then home from Heraklion (HER) on Ryanair or easyJet.

Coach tours are the cheapest way to see Greece in a straight line. Expat Explore runs 14-16 day Balkan Explorer routes that take in Greece for around €3,100, with 40-50 people on the bus, 3-star hotels and a packed schedule. Trafalgar and Insight Vacations work the polished end of the same format at €2,500-€4,000 for a 10-day Greece tour.

Small-group tours of 12-16 people are the sweet spot for most travellers. G Adventures runs a well-loved 8-day Sailing Greece trip through the Cyclades on a crewed yacht for roughly €1,200-€1,500 before flights, plus an 8-day Greece Island Hopper at around €1,300. Intrepid's Best of Greece and Real Greece runs cover both mainland and islands at €1,400-€2,100, and Exodus has a 9-day Classical Greece walking trip if you want some hiking through Delphi and the Peloponnese in the mix.

Food-focused trips are a small but reliable corner of the market. Intrepid's Real Food Adventure Greece (8 days, €1,800) builds every day around a cooking class, a market or a long lunch. Contiki and Topdeck handle the 18-35 sailing scene on flotilla-style trips through the Saronic Gulf and Ionian islands at €1,200-€1,700 for a week. Private and luxury sailing charters start at €4,000 per cabin per week and climb from there.

Greek peak is July and August, and it is genuinely overcooked: 35-40°C on the islands, cruise ships emptying thousands onto Santorini's caldera paths by 11am, and ferry prices up 30-40%. Give it a miss unless the calendar pins you to it.

May, June, September and early October are the sweet spot. Daytime highs of 24-28°C, a sea warm enough to swim in (22-24°C from mid-June, warmest in September), and ferry and hotel prices 20-30% below August. Late September might be the single best week of the year: quieter beaches, water still warm, and Delphi and Olympia at the perfect temperature for walking.

April and early May run cool, 16-22°C, and some beach clubs are not yet open, but it is the cheapest shoulder and the mainland is at its greenest. The olive groves are in bloom, spring wildflowers wash over the Peloponnese, and Greek Orthodox Easter (12 April 2026) is a genuine event worth planning a trip around.

November to March is off-season and mostly not worth it for the islands: ferry schedules thin to two or three sailings a week, half the Santorini and Mykonos hotels close, and the weather swings from 12°C and rain to the odd dusting of snow on the higher peaks. Athens and Meteora stay open year-round, though, and are a quiet pleasure in January if mainland culture is all you are after.

Athens (ATH) is the main gateway whatever your origin, with Thessaloniki (SKG) and the island airports useful for specific routes.

From the US, Athens has become a strong direct market in summer. The East Coast flies nonstop in the warm months: New York (JFK and EWR), Newark, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta all run seasonal direct service to Athens on Delta, United, American, Emirates and Aegean, in around 10-11 hours, with one-stop routings through a European hub the rest of the year. Reckon on US$700-$1,050 return in the May-June and September-October shoulder, US$1,100-$1,600 over the July-August peak. From the West Coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco) expect one stop, 15-17 hours all in, at US$850-$1,400. Book three to five months out, and longer for high summer.

From Australia it is a long-haul with no nonstop, so you connect once through a Gulf hub (Emirates or Qatar via Dubai or Doha) or an Asian one (Singapore Airlines, Cathay), for roughly 22-24 hours door to door from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Return fares run around A$1,800-$2,600 in the shoulder and A$2,600-$3,400 over the December-January and mid-year peaks. A Dubai, Doha or Singapore stopover breaks the journey nicely on the way through.

From Canada, Air Canada flies Toronto and Montreal direct to Athens in summer (about 9-10 hours), with one-stop routings off-season and from Vancouver; budget roughly C$950-$1,600 return depending on season.

From the UK and the rest of Europe, fares are cheap and direct. From Dublin, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam or Rome, reckon on €90-€180 return in shoulder season on Ryanair, Aegean, Wizz or easyJet, and €200-€350 in July and August. Aegean runs a dependable network across Europe with free checked bags on most fares, usually €30-€50 more than the budget lines for noticeably better service. Thessaloniki (SKG) is the smart play if your tour starts up north, whether that is a Meteora-first itinerary, a Halkidiki beach run or a Balkan combination; Ryanair and Wizz fly it from most Central European cities at €80-€140 return in shoulder season, sparing you the 4-hour coach transfer down from Athens. Flying straight to Santorini (JTR) or Mykonos (JMK) usually only pays off May to October on the European budget carriers' seasonal routes (€120-€220 return from London, Milan, Paris or Vienna), and Heraklion (HER) on Crete keeps Ryanair and easyJet year-round, often the single cheapest fare in the country.

The classic money-saver is the open-jaw: fly into Athens, ferry through the islands, and fly home from Santorini, Mykonos or Heraklion. Kiwi.com handles the multi-city routing on our bundles, and you see the full per-person trip price in your own currency before you commit to either the tour or the flight.