A-Z Travel Guide to Kos
The 2022 edition of the A-Z Travel Guide to Kos is the 15th
edition of the best and most comprehensive guidebook to Kos in the Dodecanese
islands of Greece.
This 2022 travel guide to Kos runs to 186 pages, making it easily the biggest guide to this popular tourist destination, and also the most up-to-date. It may lack the colour photos in some of the other handful of Kos guides, but this helps keep the cover price down.
It also gives you access to the A-to-Z Travel Club on the publisher’s website, which has even more Kos information, links, current weather, flight information and other topics that can’t be kept current in a printed guide.
A-Z Travel Guide to
Kos Contents
As with the companion Santorini guide, this A-Z Travel Guide to Kos begins with an
overview of the island followed by a lengthy section on the history of Kos. I certainly didn’t know that it had been inhabited since at least 2900BC,
as confirmed by the prehistoric tombs and finds at the site of Asklupi (which
the author covers in the Places of Interest section).
Culture
After History, the author turns to the Culture of Kos,
describing the people, customs, cultural and religious events, local products
like honey, olives and wine, and the wildlife you’ll find on the island, from
bats and rats to dogs and cats.
Kos Town
Places of Interest
This section naturally begins with Kos Town, which covers a
generous 12 pages and is followed by an A-Z list of archaeological sites around
the island. This is followed by a page listing the museums, and then villages
and island attractions. Finally in this section there are several pages about
the neighbouring volcanic island of Nisyros, which is a popular day trip from
Kos.
One of the few things the book lacks is an index, so you can
look things up quickly, rather than have to turn to the right section and then
the right page. That’s a minor quibble, though.
Kos Beach
Kos Beaches and
Resorts
Kos is best known as an island with great beaches and
resorts, and these get their own section, though the rest of the A-Z Travel Guide to Kos makes it
clear that there’s much more to Kos than just beaches. The beaches and resorts
are covered in depth, in 16 pages, going clockwise round the island from the
beaches nearest Kos Town.
Other Sections of the Guide to Kos
There are many more sections to the guide, too many to list
them all, but they include the best ways of getting around the island, the best
things to eat, what to shop for, activities around the island, and bugs and
other pests. Be aware that while the author talks about hotels and tavernas,
there are no listings for where to stay or where to eat.
Kos
The Author of the A-Z
Travel Guide to Kos
This Kos guide is written by Tony Oswin, who has lived on
Thassos since 2006, and makes regular visits to other Greek islands to keep his
several guides up-to-date. His first guidebook was naturally to Thassos, which
he and his wife retired to, and he has also written and published guides to
Rhodes and Santorini.
Buying the A-Z Travel
Guide to Kos
If you’re going to Kos then this comprehensive guide is
highly recommended.
Other book pages
The very thorough A-Z Guide to Santorini by Tony Oswin is now in its 15th edition, a sure sign that the guidebook is both popular and kept up-to-date.
Heaven on Earth is a collection of 19 travel pieces about Greece by Mike Gerrard.
If planning a trip to Greece, what are the best books about Greece to read before you go, or to take with you, to give you a sense of place?
A Thing of Beauty by Peter Fiennes describes ‘Travels in Mythical and Modern Greece’ and places the Greek Gods in the context of modern-day Greece.
Greece Book Reviews on the Greece Travel Secrets website with reviews of the best guidebooks to Greece, the Greek Islands, Athens, Crete and elsewhere.
Taverna by the Sea is an account by Jennifer Barclay of her summer spent working in a taverna on Karpathos and a welcome new book of Greek travel writing.
Wild Abandon by Jennifer Barclay and published by Bradt Guides is A Journey to Deserted Places of the Dodecanese islands in Greece, including Rhodes and Kos.
The Summer of My Greek Taverna by Tom Stone is a memoir of his time on the Greek island of Patmos in the Dodecanese, running a restaurant.
The Bradt Guide to Northern Greece is a detailed guide to Thessaloniki, Halkidiki, Macedonia, Thrace, The Pelion, The Sporades and the rest of Northern Greece.
Greece Travel Secrets reviews the photography book Monemvasia with extracts from works by Yiannis Ritsos and Nikos Kazantzakis.
Mermaid Singing by Charmian Clift is a fine example of 1950s travel writing about the Greek island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese.
Margarita’s Olive Press is a modern gem of a book of Greek travel writing, in which the author falls in love with and renovates a property on Zakynthos.
The Lonely Planet guide to the Greek Islands is a thorough and helpful guide to all the Greek island groups, with Athens included.
The latest edition of the Lonely Planet travel guide to Greece is a comprehensive 750-page guidebook to the whole country.
Lonely Planet Crete is an excellent and thorough guide of almost 300 pages to the largest of the Greek islands.
Ikaria by Meni Valle, brings together the best and healthiest Greek recipes with an evocative travelogue about Ikaria, one of the world’s Blue Zone places.
Peel Me a Lotus by Charmian Clift is a Hydra travel writing classic, describing her family’s life on this tiny Greek island near Athens in the 1950s.
There are many great Greek poets, with two authors winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and names include Sappho, Cavafy, George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis.
Fire on the Island is a romantic thriller novel by Timothy Jay Smith set on a fictionalised version of the town of Molyvos on the island of Lesbos.
Eurydice Street, A Place in Athens by Sofka Zinovieff is an honest account of what it’s like to move to Athens and live as a foreigner, learning Greek customs.
Greece Travel Secrets reviews the book Culture Trails by Lonely Planet, which has a section on Artistic Athens and 51 other perfect weekends for culture lovers.
The Bradt Guide to the Peloponnese is the best book on the Greek region which includes attractions like Mycenae, Epidavros, Olympia, Monemvasia and Nafplion.
A Rope of Vines by Brenda Chamberlain is an evocative memoir of the author’s time living on the Greek island of Hydra in the early 1960s.
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