We first visited Ios as part of our gay sailing trip around the Greek Islands in 2019 and immediately fell in love with this beautiful island.
Ios is part of the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea and can be found between Naxos and Santorini. It is a relatively small island at only 18 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide.
The island is known for its lazy days, beautiful beaches and party fuelled nights.
As places like Santorini become increasingly popular with huge numbers of tourists, places like Ios give you the opportunity to explore an equally beautiful island without so many crowds, especially since it has no airport so you can only arrive by sea!
Like Santorini, Ios is covered with white washed, blue domed buildings which look stunning and are iconic of these islands.
When it comes to gay Ios, it does not have a well established gay scene like you would find in Mykonos (see our Gay Travel Guide to Mykonos). However like many places we visited around Greece, we felt welcome as a gay couple and did manage to find it’s one gay bar during our explorations!
Check out our Gay Greece Guide for a shortlist of our top gay destinations in Greece.
In our mini ‘Gay Ios Travel Guide’ we share the best things to do in Ios as well as where to stay, and some great recommendations for a sunset drink!