Santorini, Greece

Three thousand six hundred years ago, one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history carved Santorini into a crescent and left behind the caldera — a flooded crater ringed by three-hundred-metre cliffs. Today those cliffs hold some of the most cinematic villages on earth: Oia, Imerovigli, Firostefani, stacked in white and butter-yellow tiers above the Aegean.

Beyond the postcard views, the island rewards slow travel. Indigenous Assyrtiko vines curl in ground-level baskets against the wind, producing one of Greece's finest whites. Red and black sand beaches line the south coast, and the inland villages of Pyrgos and Megalochori keep a rhythm that has barely changed in a century.

We route our travelers around the crowds — sunrise at the caldera before the cruise ships dock, sunset from a private sailing in the bay below Oia, dinners at family tavernas where the menu depends on the morning's catch.