Guides
Destination comparisons, researched and sourced. The comparative detail that booking platforms bury, with the workings shown.
Comparisons
Destination comparisons
Side-by-side on the things that actually differ: geography, season, and what each place is good at.
Ibiza or Mallorca: which Balearic island suits your week
Two islands, two hours from London, and the choice is about geography rather than glamour. What each one is actually good at.
Verbier, Courchevel or Chamonix: three very different Alpine weeks
Three famous names, three completely different propositions. One is a linked mega-domain, one is a stack of villages, and one is a town that happens to have skiing.
St Barts or Turks and Caicos: two very different Caribbean weeks
One is a French island with a short runway and a food culture. The other is one extraordinary beach. Knowing which you want settles it in a sentence.
Where is the Peloponnese, and what is in each part of it
It is the southern half of mainland Greece, technically an island since 1893, and it divides into parts that have almost nothing in common.
Flights to the Peloponnese: Kalamata or Athens
Kalamata is an hour from the Mani coast and seasonal. Athens is year-round and costs you most of a day at each end. Which one is right depends entirely on where in the peninsula you are going.
The Peloponnese for couples: where to go, and where not to
Four honest options, and the one thing that decides between them: whether you want somewhere to be, or somewhere to look at.
Eastern or southern Peloponnese: which half to choose
The east is Nafplio, Mycenae and Monemvasia, two hours from Athens. The south is the Mani, an hour from Kalamata. They are different holidays and combining them costs you a day.
Mani, Greece: a complete guide to the strangest peninsula in the country
Tower houses that were not built against the Turks, limestone that will not hold water, and 206 places to eat with 17 websites between them.
Outer, Inner and Deep Mani: what the divisions actually mean
Three names for parts of one peninsula, used inconsistently by almost everyone. Here is what they refer to and which one you want.
Cape Tainaron: the southernmost point of mainland Greece
A lighthouse at the end of a bare limestone peninsula, an entrance to the underworld in antiquity, and the best hour in the Mani if you time it right.
Areopoli and the Deep Mani villages
Areopoli is where the south runs from, and it is where you do the practical jobs. South of it, the villages get sparser and stranger.
Stoupa, Greece: what it is actually like
The best sand in Outer Mani, a package-holiday town that has stayed small, and 10 minutes from a working fishing harbour.
Stoupa beaches, and the ones worth driving to
Two sandy bays in the village, a working harbour 10 minutes south, and the best swim on the peninsula 90 minutes down the coast.
Kardamyli: a guide to the best base on the Mani coast
A working village with a harbour, an old fortified quarter above it, a gorge behind it, and the writer's house at the next bay along.
Kardamyli or Stoupa: which to stay in
Fifteen minutes apart on the same coast, and a genuinely different week depending which you pick.
Walking the Mani: the old paths between the villages
The peninsula had no proper roads until the 1970s, which means every village here is joined to its neighbours by a path that was the only way to get there within living memory.
Agios Nikolaos, Peloponnese: the working harbour below Stoupa
Ten minutes from Stoupa's sand and a different proposition entirely: fishing boats, tavernas on the quay, and no attempt to be anything else.
Seasonal
Seasonal guides
Time-sensitive booking intelligence. What is available, what is selling out, and when to act.
When to go to the Mediterranean, month by month
September water is warmer than June water almost everywhere, and it is the single most useful thing nobody tells you.
Peloponnese holidays: an honest guide for 2027
Two bases, seven nights, and a car. What the peninsula is actually like, what it is not, and the three mistakes that cost people most of a week.
Peloponnese weather month by month, and what it means for a trip
The sea lags the air by about two months, which is why September beats June for swimming and why April is the wrong month for a beach holiday and the right one for everything else.
Stoupa holidays: what to expect, honestly
A small beach village on the Mani coast that has been receiving British visitors for decades without ever getting big. What that means in practice.
Stoupa weather month by month, and when the village is actually open
The weather question and the open question are different, and in Stoupa the second one matters more. Here is the shape of the year.
Industry
Industry insights
Market intelligence and agent analysis for the luxury rental sector.
How to tell whether a holiday listing still exists
We opened and read 1,621 venue websites across six destinations. Here is what we found, what it means for anyone booking anything, and the five checks that catch most of it.
How we source these guides, and why it changes what we will tell you
Every venue we name has been checked against its own website with the date recorded. Here is the method, what it costs us, and the things it stops us saying.
Why the Mani is covered in tower houses, and why they are younger than you think
Not castles, not Ottoman defences, and mostly not medieval. What the published archaeology actually says, and how to read one when you are standing in front of it.
Visiting the Patrick Leigh Fermor house: the one rule that decides whether you get in
Tickets are sold online only and the booking window opens at the start of the previous month. Turning up has never worked, and almost nothing written about the house leads with that.
What to read before you go to the Mani
One famous book, some published archaeology that corrects it, and a warning about the numbers that circulate online.
Villas in the Peloponnese: what to actually look for
Nine questions worth asking before you book anything on this peninsula, and why we are not going to tell you what a week costs.
Hotels in the Peloponnese: what we can honestly tell you
We checked what these places publish about themselves, with dates. Here is what they say, and here is what we refuse to say about them.
Driving in the Peloponnese: what the map does not tell you
Distances take about twice as long as they read, the villages were laid out for mules, and fuel south of Areopoli is not something to assume.
Peloponnese food, and how to find dinner when nothing publishes
Olive oil is the crop, not a condiment. And with 17 websites between 206 eating places, the telephone is the system rather than the fallback.