Postcard from Kéa Island

INSPIRATION | CABANA TRAVEL | WORLD OF CABANA

On the quietly compelling Cycladic island of Kéa, the nearest to Athens where ancient footpaths wind through oak forests and stone villages, a distinct kind of luxury has arrived. Cabana checks into a hotel that takes its cues from the island’s rugged landscape, with villas cascading towards a secluded bay, architecture rooted in local materials and a spa devoted to the ancient Greek art of balance.

BY CAMILLA FRANCES | CABANA TRAVEL | 28 SEPTEMBER 2026

Just a 90-minute ferry or 45-minute speedboat from Lavrio, Kéa island is the closest of the Cyclades to Athens and the one everybody forgot to turn into Mykonos or Santorini. Its rocky, undulating terrain makes development particularly hard, with the effect that some 2,300 people live here all-year-round, mostly unbothered by the dominant tourist season that consumes the rest of the archipelago. As such, the arrival in 2023 of a large luxury resort, One&Only Kéa Island, represented a seismic event for an island whose previous claim to international fame was largely a surplus of partridges and an excellent olive oil.

Kéa is distinct from the familiar vocabulary of the Cycladic islands, more rugged, no less charming, and with a significantly larger footprint than its more famous neighbours. Shaped rather differently from the spare, outward-facing islands further south, Kéa’s mountainous ridges break into small fertile valleys, terraces and oak woodland and ravines that lead towards an indented coastline of coves and beaches. The island also has one of the largest oak forests in the Cyclades, while its interior still carries the evidence of an agricultural former life: dry-stone walls and terraces, vineyards, olive groves, water courses and old paths.

Ruggedly charming: The island of Kéa, the closest Cycladic island to Athens. 

Its geology has made Kéa an island of industry as well as cultivation, with iron and lead beneath the ground and traces of former mining around Orkos. The principal town, Ioulida, is clustered inland, rather than beside the water, and climbs a hillside in a dense arrangement of stone terracotta-roofed houses, tangled narrow lanes and covered passages. Cars stop at the edges and pedestrians – One&Only guests can book archaeological and historic guided walking tours with excellent local guides, Keos Culture – will discover the village through undulating paths, changing levels, small squares and sudden views. 

The remains of a Venetian kastro occupy the upper part of the settlement, built over the ancient city of Ioulis, one of four independent city-states that once divided the island; Ioulida alone has been continuously inhabited from antiquity. One of the island’s most intriguing landmarks is the Lion of Kea, an enigmatic stone sculpture surrounded by secluded chapels and carved into the hillside around the sixth century BC, its expression between a smile and a snarl.

It is this accumulated sense of habitation that makes Kéa particularly interesting as the setting for a sprawling One&Only resort, which seems to borrow the island’s physical language. Designed by John Heah, the architecture uses hand-cut Kéan stone, Greek marble, timber, whitewashed surfaces and rounded openings. The villas, lobby, restaurant and (spectacular) spa are all distributed down the steep landscape in clusters, rather like a small settlement, in an arrangement that is as practical as it is picturesque. Each has its own vantage point (and infinity pool), while the main spaces occupy the higher ground and the beach lies tantalisingly below. Guests who enjoy a steep, bracing hike will enjoy walking to breakfast, or down to the beach, but most, especially in the Cycladic heat, will find themselves contacting their concierge by WhatsApp to request one of the many golf buggies that nip around the resort.

The John Heah-designed One&Only Kéa Island © Camilla Frances.

The 63 Cliff Villas are expansive at 75 square meters, with private infinity pools cut into the rocks and seamless indoor-outdoor living spaces that give you little reason to leave. Inside, the palette is deliberately pared back: local stone, marble, timber, creams and soft blues, with floor-to-ceiling glass and skylights bringing the landscape into the rooms. This style of hotel architecture is strongest when it allows the island to do the decorating, after all: a piece of rough stone wall, the slope of the land and the changing Aegean light provide enough ornamentation. From each villa, the land falls steeply towards Vroskopos Bay where the resort hides one of its most special assets: a tiny pebbled beach in a sheltered cove, reached by descending through the grounds on another exhilarating golf buggy ride.

None of this is accidental, but the resort's most interesting trick is how little of the investment shows up as noise: there is no thumping DJ booth competing with the view and the beach club still feels faintly rustic and unfinished, in the best way. Beyond visiting Greek musicians, orchestral cicadas are often the only accompaniment at meal times, so loud and cacophonous that they become a talking point among guests. Meanwhile, dining across the hotel’s three restaurants leans into the island's own agricultural pride — Atria, the flagship restaurant, builds its menu around produce sourced from Kéa's own farms and fishermen, served in an open-walled dining room designed to feel, loosely, like a village square after dark.

Our favorite spot, the beach is enclosed enough to feel totally private, and the water is notably clear with octopus and schools of brightly colored fish hiding close enough to the shore for delighted snorkelers to discover. The bay also features a laid-back beach club and a good boutique, which carries collaborations with Greek brands such as Ancient Greek Sandals and YSSO, and a large, airy restaurant beneath the trees, while a private jetty opens the possibility of going further afield — to other coves and beaches by boat, or into the waters around Kea, which are particularly rich in shipwrecks and marine life.

Overlooking the beach is, arguably, the resort’s greatest asset: a huge, knockout spa with a beautiful indoor-outdoor infinity pool. Developed with Subtle Energies, the thoughtfully designed space takes its guiding principle from sophrosyne, the ancient Greek idea of balance between mind and body — a concept that, just one treatment in, feels an accurate description of what a few days here actually does for you. Both the hotel and the island of Kéa ask very little of their visitors, beyond a willingness to wander. It's a place for long lunches, unplanned detours and that mark of true luxury: having nowhere in particular to be.