Walking & botany vacations in Greece

Karpathos’ charming villages are a highlight of a stay on the island. You won’t be the only visitors here, but the tourists certainly won’t outnumber the locals as they can on some popular Greek islands and you could easily walk for hours without encountering any other foreigners. You might meet craftspeople responsible for making leather goods, or the traditional instruments that you’ll often see at festivals and weddings (time your visit right and you might even be able to attend one yourself). And of course when you purchase handmade souvenirs, or eat at locally-owned restaurants, you are injecting money directly into the Karpathos island economy – tourism income is essential for many of these small towns and villages to survive, providing employment opportunities for people that may otherwise have had to move to larger towns and cities on other islands or the mainland for jobs.

You can hike and admire the flora throughout the mainland and the islands, but Karpathos must rank among the best places for walking and botany vacations in Greece. The north of the island, land and sea, forms a Regional Marine Park and Natura 2000 protected zone that is home to many endemic and endangered plant species as well as numerous species of bird, and a population of Mediterranean monk seals on the coast. Karpathos has some 18 separate habitats, from Turkish pine forests to flowering shrubberies on limestone cliffs, rivers, elevated plateaus, terraced hillsides and coastal marshy areas where plants thrive in the wind and salt spray. Many species are found nowhere else in the world, while others are limited to nearby Kasos or Crete. All of this is accessible through the island’s network of well-marked walking trails, manageable for anyone in reasonable fitness.