Where to stay in Chios

Chios puts its attractions in four different directions with nothing connecting conveniently, so the base question here is really about how much of your week you want to spend driving. There are two answers that make sense and one that does not.

Chios Town, on the east coast, if you want a base with a town around it. It is where the ferries and the flights arrive, where the services are, and where you will find an evening. Everything else on the island is a drive from here, which is fine, because everything else is a drive from everywhere.

The mastic villages in the south, if they are why you came. Pyrgi with its black-and-white xysta plasterwork and Mesta with its closed pentagon of houses are the reason most people choose Chios over another north Aegean island. Basing in the south puts the half-day village loop on your doorstep instead of an hour away, and it is the right call if the mastic villages, rather than the town, are what you came for.

The one that does not work: assuming you can be near everything. You cannot. The villages are south, Nea Moni is inland, Anavatos is deeper in and the town is east. Pick the half of the island your trip is actually about and accept the drives to the other half.

Which means the car is the real booking decision. A rental is not optional here, and that is worth budgeting before the room. Which islands need a car is the general question, and renting a car in Greece covers the paperwork.

A note on Mesta, if the south is your half. It was built as a closed pentagon of houses whose outer walls formed the village’s defensive perimeter, with the alleys inside deliberately narrow, dim and confusing to slow anyone who breached them. Walk it now and you lose your bearings within a minute, which is exactly what it was for. That is remarkable to walk through and worth knowing about before you try to find an address in it after dark.

How long. Long enough for the villages, the monastery and Anavatos, which is more than a weekend. The island rewards the second and third day more than the first, because the first is spent understanding the distances.

We name no hotel on this page. Properties on an island this size change hands and close between seasons, and the site’s venue standard needs two independent platforms and a review floor this listing does not verify. What lasts is the choice between the town and the south. Our Chios guide has the practicalities, things to do covers the mastic, the mosaics and Anavatos, and the beaches explain why swimming is the thing you do between them.