I love Greece. The warm Mediterranean air of a night time eating a freshly made pizza, or riding through the vast hills on a quadbike – it’s a proper summer vibe. And although Zante may primarily be well known for its clubbing scene and nightlife, that doesn’t mean the daytime activities of the popular Ionian island should be overlooked.

I first visited Zante back in 2018, and although that was more a typical lads holiday focussed around alcohol and ultimately loosing your wallet and phone, I enjoyed it enough to want to return for a more “adventurous” and less “hungover” trip.

A slightly more luxurious experience this time around, we stayed at the Lesante Blu resort near the small town of Tsilivi on the eastern side of the island. Pools, a beach, a selection of restaurants and a quadbike hire place right outside. Couldn’t complain. Some form of vehicle hire is really a must-have in this area since there isn’t much in easy walking distance. Taxis are certainly quick enough in Greece but hiring a quadbike or dune buggy is undeniably more fun.

Tsilivi is certainly an active little town come sunset and is perfect for anyone who just likes a drink in a bar and a few games of pool, but to find the more partying environments then you need to head further down into Zante town or Laganas. You’ll find no shortage of cocktail and shisha bars to keep you going until sunrise.
But like I said, partying wasn’t the main focus of the trip this time around, so instead we headed to the town of Keri near the Southern tip of the island to hire a small boat to take out to sea.

I’d done the same thing last time I was here, although unfortunately all of my GoPro videos had been stored on my phone when it was inconveniently stolen. So I felt very much compelled over the next 4 years to go back and re-film.

You can take these basic hire boats up to and around the southernmost tip of the island as well as to Marathonisi island where you may be lucky enough to spot some turtles. We first went to the Keri caves area on the southern coast where you’ll find numerous sea caves and a couple of beaches.

I don’t know why I find caves to enticing. I’m sure a dark cavern behind a fissure in the rockface that’s nearly filled to the brim with seawater would deter most people by its very nature. But to me it’s just an open invitation. You really can get the sensation of being in a magical environment when the sunlight hits the right spot and illuminates the crystal blue water around you inside these hidden-from-sight chasms.

Of course you also get the spots where the sunlight doesn’t reach you and you can barely see a damn thing – such as a jellyfish. Fortunately the ones such as the pest I swam in to are non-deadly and just leave you with a painful sting and some faint scars embedded into your skin from that point onwards. A quick journey back to the shore for some gel and we carried on as normal. I got my videos and pictures which you can see in the YouTube film at the bottom of the page. This was just a small number of the like that can be found around Zante and I’m sure I’ll return at some point for further exploration.

The Keri Caves area was also the focus for my 4 scuba diving trips. Shout out to the Zante Diving Center based at Laganas Beach for this great experience. There aren’t many things I’m willing to wake up early for but diving is one of them. And taking the quad through the Greek morning air and countryside was certainly refreshing.

I did 4 dives over 2 days, with the second day being by far the favourite. We dropped down close to the coast and swam through an underwater canyon into an open-top (as in you could surface into it) cavern, which to some small extent I will class as my first “cave-dive”. We turned around and went back through the canyon the other way where there was plenty of marine life and beautiful grass-coated walls to swim along. Even my new best-friend the jellyfish showed up once or twice!

On-land, we took the quad though the central mountains and around the coast to get to the Paralia Navagio viewpoint – a famous shipwreck which you’ll probably have seen on the screensaver of your Windows 10 laptop. The sea at this particular spot is an incredible colour, but you’ll need to take a several-hour boat excursion around the island to get to the beach. I did this last time round, and whilst the sea does look magnificent, it is a typical tourist honeypot and boats and people crowd the beach. So we took the alternate approach along the top of the cliff this time and got some great views and pics.

Going out “off the beaten track” is great for coming across little restaurants in really random locations, the type of which I really love. We came across such a a place on the way to the viewing point, and even simple things like toasties and chips just feel…extra nice? Maybe that’s just me. But either way it’s worth venturing off away from the busy areas.

If you want to stay up until the early morning hours drinking all sorts of unknown concoctions however, then the busy areas are probably where you’ll end up. The Laganas strip is quite possibly the first thing you’ll see from the plane as you come to land on the famous party island. Of a daytime you’ll find various tourist shops and congregations of young typical-English holidaymakers gathering at the island’s only McDonald’s, but come night time the area becomes an accurate copy of that scene from the first Inbetweeners Movie (you’ll know if you’ve seen it). It’s somewhat difficult as a 24 year-old to come to Zante and not pay a few visits to the strip but at least I didn’t lose my phone this time.

It’s a balancing act between having fun of a night time but not ending up so dead the next day that you write the whole day off. We nailed that “fairly” well this time round although the last day was a little rough.
But that’s the point, whatever your preferences for a holiday – this place has it. Greece has no shortage of islands and I’ll be sure to visit different ones in the future, but for now – Zante takes the top spot.