Homer

At Plakotos, on a hill above a bay in the north of the island, stand the remains of a Hellenistic tower. Islanders call it the Psaropyrgos, and for a very long time it has been known as the tomb of Homer.

The claim rests on the ancient writers rather than on the archaeology. Herodotus and Pausanias both record that Homer died on Ios, and the tradition that his mother came from the island is older still. What survives on the hill is a tower, and its identification as the tomb was made in the past and has stuck.

It is worth going for the position as much as the story. The hill looks north over the sea towards Naxos, and there is nothing else up there.

Skarkos

On a low hill in the middle of the western side of the island, near the harbour and the most fertile ground, is Skarkos — and it is the most important archaeological site in Ios by a distance.

It is an Early Cycladic settlement of the mid-third millennium BC, excavated systematically between 1984 and 1997. It covers about 1.1 hectares and probably held two or three hundred people, and it is the largest and best-preserved settlement of its culture anywhere.

That matters more than it sounds. Cycladic society was previously known almost entirely from cemeteries, and mostly looted ones. Skarkos is a place where people lived, with its buildings standing to a useful height, and it is the only organised archaeological site in the Cyclades that presents a settlement of this civilisation to the public.

Chora

Chora is a listed traditional settlement and one of the best-preserved examples of Cycladic architecture: whitewashed houses stacked up a hill, stepped lanes too narrow for vehicles, and the remains of the ancient city walls, since the classical town stood on the same hill.

A line of windmills runs along the ridge above it, and at the top stands the church of Panagia Gremiotissa, of 1797, with the whole Aegean below.

Elsewhere on the island

A Roman aqueduct survives at Agia Theodoti, the Byzantine Palaiokastro stands above Psathi on the eastern side, and there are ancient remains at Epano Kampos.

The Archaeological Museum in Chora holds the finds, including the material from Skarkos.

Ios has some of the best sandy beaches in the Cyclades, and they are large.

Mylopotas, below Chora, is the famous one — more than a kilometre of golden sand in a wide bay, fully organised, with watersports along its length and a bus every few minutes from the town. It is the centre of the island's summer.

Manganari, on the south coast, is a series of sheltered sandy coves with shallow water, calm and considerably quieter. It is reached by road or by boat.

Agia Theodoti, on the east coast, is wide, sandy and largely undeveloped, with the Roman aqueduct nearby.

Koumbara, near the port, is the sunset beach, and Psathi and Kalamos in the east are the ones that take some effort.

Nightlife

Ios has been a party island since the 1970s, and the bars are concentrated in the lanes of Chora, which means the whole of the nightlife is within a few minutes' walk. It runs from about midnight until dawn through July and August.

The island has been shifting upmarket in recent years, and there is now a good deal that is not about that at all — but in high summer, Chora at night is what Ios is known for.

Diving and the water

Two PADI dive centres operate on Mylopotas beach, one of them running since 2007 and the other since 2013. There is a shipwreck at about twelve metres offshore, shallow enough for newly certified divers, along with reef and cave sites reached by boat.

The same beach has windsurfing, waterskiing, kayaking and sailing.

Sailing

The harbour at Ormos is one of the most sheltered in the Aegean — so much so that it has been nicknamed Little Malta — and it is a standard stop on the Cycladic sailing routes.

Skotyri is the island's cheese: sharp, aged in skins, and unlike anything from the neighbouring islands. It is eaten on its own, with honey, or in pies.

Beyond it, Ios eats what a Cycladic island eats — goat and lamb from the hills, fish from the boats, wild greens and capers.

The island also has a restaurant that holds a Golden Cap in the 2026 national gastronomy awards, which for an island this size is unusual.