A long seafront promenade runs through the centre of Volos, lined with cafés and restaurants, some of them in neoclassical buildings. The Kordoni pier reaches about a kilometre into the gulf and is a popular walk at sunset. The centre is flat, so it is easy to walk or cycle. For swimming, Anavros is the city beach, a long sandy beach with shallow water, within walking distance of the centre.

In the evening, people go to Palia, the old district behind the commercial port. Its streets have bars, cafés and tsipouradika, some in restored tobacco warehouses, and they are busy with students from the university, visitors and local people of all ages.

Volos is also a base for trips outside the city. The villages of Pelion are on the slopes above the city. Ferries and fast boats leave the port all year for the Sporades islands.

The Athanasakeio Archaeological Museum was built in 1909 for the painted gravestones found at ancient Demetrias, on the south side of the bay. It holds finds from across Thessaly, from the Neolithic to the Roman period. In its Neolithic rooms, many objects sit on open shelves of wood, reed and stone, with nothing between them and the visitor.

Two Neolithic settlements can be visited just outside the city. At Sesklo, first settled in the seventh millennium BC and one of the oldest settlements found in Europe, visitors walk among the remains of small houses and narrow streets. At Dimini, six rings of stone walls surround the Neolithic village. A Mycenaean town was also found at the same site, and it is believed to be Iolkos, the home of Jason, who in the myth sailed with the Argonauts to find the Golden Fleece.

A tsipouradiko is a small tavern that serves tsipouro, a clear spirit made from what is left of the grapes after winemaking. You order only the drink, and the food comes with it. When you sit down, you are asked whether you want your tsipouro with aniseed or without. Each small bottle then arrives with a plate of meze chosen by the kitchen, and the plates change with each new bottle.

The food is mostly seafood. Pickles and salted fish usually come first, then fried and grilled fish such as sardines, and later octopus, mussels and less common dishes if the table keeps ordering. Tsipouradika began in the 1920s in the neighbourhoods where refugees from Asia Minor settled, and they served port workers and fishermen. Today families eat in them too. Most are in the centre and in the Nea Ionia district. Another local dish is spetsofai, a stew of country sausage and peppers.