Kos, Greece – 2026

We’ve just returned from a week on the Greek island of Kos. We stayed in a small hotel on the edge of Kos Town, about a twenty minute walk away from the harbour and Old Town area. Unusually, for us, we booked a breakfast only package deal and ate out most evenings. We were spoilt for choice with the ubiquitous Tavernas although most of them offered the same menu options. We found the prices really reasonable and a meal for two, with sparkling water, came in at about €30 – €40 for the two of us.

The area is pretty flat and there were really good cycle paths running for miles along the coast either side of town. Cycling in the area was really popular and the cycle paths were busy. There were plenty of cycle hire places and bikes worked out at a reasonable €5 a day. We walked the footpaths alongside the cycle routes as I like to stumble across things to photograph, but if you wanted to find a more remote beach or somewhere quieter a bicycle was perfect.

We spent our first two mornings and evenings exploring Kos Town. I thought the Old Town was a bit disappointing. There wasn’t much to it and the few old town streets we found were lined with tourist tat shops. The modern area of town is nice enough. We did visit the ‘Castle of the Knights’ on the edge of the harbour but most of that was roped off inside the compound.

That all sounds a bit negative but the harbour area is nice and was quite busy in the day with tourists. That added to the general buzz, although we were there at the end of the season with most places getting ready to close down for the winter. Locals working in the tourist industry work a seven day week from May until the end of October, then take the winter months off. All the local workers we spoke to were ‘de-mob’ happy and counting down the days to their well deserved rest.

One of the main tourist attractions in the harbour area were daytime excursions on boats, visiting small nearby Greek islands. We chose a trip out on the Kos Pearl. We were assigned a sunbed on the top deck of the boat and turned up a few days later for our excursion. In the main, we had a great day. We visited three islands with an hours stay on each. There wasn’t much to see but it was nice to wander around the small fishing harbours and pick up a coffee.

We did see dolphins after the second stop of the day. That was really cool. We had been told there was a good chance we might see them but I hadn’t given much thought to photographing them, other than having my Sony auto focus zoom with me. The trouble was, although they were around, you never quite knew where the dolphins would surface. I wasn’t able to get any close ups and instead concentrated on wider shots with my fingers crossed. It was also one of those photography moments where I did want to take pictures but, I also wanted to put the camera down and enjoy watching them. I compromised with a bit of both.

Other than our boat trip we spent our mornings walking out along the coast, following the cycle paths, and exploring the local roads and beaches. We spent most evenings walking in to town to find a Taverna, then stopping off in a cafe for a coffee before heading back to our hotel.

Our week long stay ended with a few thunder storms but the sun always reappeared between the showers. I’m not sure we’ll return to Kos. I’m glad I’ve been there but personally I preferred Rhodes and Crete which are both more suited to what we want from a holiday.

Photography Notes

I took my Sony A7 away with me but I also had my Fujifilm X-T5 and four Nikon vintage lenses. Prior to leaving I’d downloaded and subscribed to an App called ‘Fuji Recipes’ which gave me access to lots of Fuji Film Simulations. I picked off a few of these and decided I would use them for my daytime shots. I quickly identified a Classic Chrome simulation called Vintage Postcards, which I really liked, and used it nearly all week. Most of the shots in this post were taken using this recipe and assorted Nikon prime lenses. I’ll probably write a blog on the App now I’m back.

Overall I was really pleased with the results. Now that I’m not looking to sell any of my images as stock, I’m free to just enjoy doing something a bit different and not worry so much about everything being technically on point. The simulations put noise into the images and take the sharpness down which would have resulted in the images being rejected straight away by Alamy quality control. I could have saved original RAW images alongside the simulation jpeg’s but, a technical issue, (for that read – cock-up on my part), meant that didn’t happen. I’ve added the two recipe settings I used through the week at the bottom of the post. They’re my images on the recipe cards, taken using the simulation settings.

All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2026 – All rights reserved.