Where to work a season in Greece: islands and resorts compared

There is no best island, only trade-offs

Anyone who tells you one island is the best place to work a season is describing their own season. The same destination is perfect for someone with years of experience who wants intensity, and exhausting for someone arriving for the first time. Four things actually change from place to place.

• The kind of venues: large hotels with departments, or small family-run tavernas, bars and beach bars.
• The pace: how full a shift is, and how long the peak lasts.
• Housing: how hard it is to find somewhere to live if the business doesn't provide it.
• Length: whether the season tends to start earlier and run later, or is short and dense.

Below, destinations are grouped by type, not ranked. For when listings open in each, see the hiring calendar for a summer job in Greece.

Mykonos and Santorini: high intensity, hard housing

The two best-known names in the Cyclades have a lot of high-end venues: luxury hotels and villas, restaurants with demanding service, beach clubs and bars on Mykonos, view hotels and fine dining on Santorini. The season tends to start earlier and run later than on smaller islands, and at peak the pace is very intense, with few quiet moments in a shift.

Many venues there expect previous experience and strong English, because guests expect a lot. If you already have a season or two behind you and want to step up a level, this is the destination type that allows it. A first season here is possible, but know the pace you are walking into.

For a first look, see the job listings in Santorini and notice how many of them mention accommodation.

Paros, Naxos, Ios, Milos: the gentler Cyclades

On the other Cycladic islands, smaller businesses tend to dominate: family hotels and rooms to let, tavernas, cafés, beach bars. The team is small, you do more than one job, and you get to know the owner quickly. The season is often shorter and more concentrated around high summer.

• Paros: more cosmopolitan in recent years, with a pace approaching the big names. The Greek press names it beside Mykonos and Santorini for the staff housing problem, so a quieter island does not mean an easy room.
• Naxos: a large island with family tourism and a calmer rhythm; a good fit if you want work without nightlife all around you.
• Ios: known for its bars and young crowd. Plenty of people work their first season there, with night hours and a busy social life.
• Milos: smaller scale, couples and quiet tourism; fewer roles, but also less competition for them.

They suit you if you want to live the island, not only work on it. Ask about housing early, though: on a small island the number of available rooms is small by definition.

Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Corfu: the big-hotel islands

Many of the country's large hotel resorts are here, often all-inclusive. That means structured departments — front office, housekeeping, kitchen, restaurant service, bars, entertainment, maintenance — with a supervisor, a shift rota and a clear role. The season tends to run longer than on small islands, and Crete in particular is regarded as having one of the longest.

Because large resorts need a lot of staff and often sit far from town, staff accommodation is more common there. And because these islands have a permanent population and real towns, life outside work is easier: supermarkets, buses, a doctor. International teams are normal in the big resorts, which helps if your Greek is limited; see the guide to languages for seasonal work.

They suit a first season very well, because you learn inside a structure, and they suit anyone trying to save money: a steady rota, often housing and meals, fewer temptations than on a nightlife island. The trade-off is that a large resort feels more like a regular job than like a summer on an island.

The Ionian and the mainland: Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Chalkidiki, Parga, Pilio

The Ionian is a mix: mid-sized hotels, many rooms to let, tavernas and watersports. Zakynthos also has areas with heavy nightlife, such as Laganas; Kefalonia and Lefkada are calmer on the whole. The pace is lively at peak but usually more humane than on the big Cycladic names.

Chalkidiki, Parga and Pilio are the mainland destinations: large resorts and family hotels in Chalkidiki, smaller businesses in Parga and Pilio. Their big advantage is practical. You arrive by road, you can keep a car, and if housing next to the venue is hard, there is the next village or a nearby town. The same holds for Lefkada, which is joined to the mainland by road.

They suit you if depending on a ferry for everything makes you uneasy. Coming from abroad, note that mainland resorts are usually reached through Thessaloniki or another regional airport and then by bus or car.

Athens and Thessaloniki: work all year

In Athens and Thessaloniki, plenty of hotels, restaurants and cafés run all year, and their roles are usually labelled "full-time" or "part-time" rather than "seasonal". You are not out of work when winter comes, and a city gives a newcomer to Greece everything in one place: public services, transport, language schools, a community from your own country.

The trade-off: housing is almost never included, and the city's cost of living is yours to carry. It is a good choice if you want stability, or if you want to build experience over winter and go for a better role on an island the following summer.

How to decide: housing first, then role, then place

Most people pick an island first and then look at what exists there. Try it the other way round.

1. Housing. On a busy island, the cost of living eats your wages when accommodation is not included. A role with lower pay and a room can leave you with more at the end. On the job listings filter for "With accommodation only", and if you need a place of your own see Find your Home and the guide to housing for the season.
2. Role. A good position in the role you want to grow in is worth more than a famous island in a role that doesn't suit you. Undecided? See the roles in a season.
3. Place. Only now choose a destination, among the ones that pass the first two filters. On the listings you can filter by area, so you only see the places you care about.

On pay, don't rely on rumours like "they pay well there". The seasonal pay page shows what open listings state right now, by role and by area, with the number of listings beside every figure. Always compare pay together with whether housing and meals are included.

Getting there, and how easily you can leave

Access feels like a detail until you need to get home for something urgent. The larger islands — Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Corfu, Zakynthos, Kefalonia, and also Mykonos and Santorini — have an airport with many international flights in summer, so you can often fly in directly. Smaller islands depend mainly on the ferry, usually through Athens and its ports; Ios, for example, is reached only by sea.

At the start and end of the season, flights and sailings are thinner than in August, and in strong wind ferries may not sail. Ask the business whether it covers your travel in and out, and look at the timetables before you agree a start date. If you are not an EU/EEA citizen, the permit steps that apply to you depend on your nationality; the guide to the papers you need to be hired is the place to start.