We spent the first week of our summer in Paros, Greece with our 9 and 13 year old, and it was exactly what we needed. No theme parks, no crowds, no schedule we had to stick to. Just a Greek island, a rental car, and five nights at a villa with a private pool we paid $0 for.

Last week of May turned out to be the perfect timing. Not too hot yet, and the summer crowds hadn’t set in. If you have any flexibility in your dates, keep that in mind.

If you’re planning a trip to Paros with kids and trying to figure out what to actually do, this is the itinerary we followed. I’m going to give you every detail — beaches, villages, restaurants, activities, and what I’d do differently. And if you want to know exactly how we covered flights and hotels with points, that’s all in my Greece trip points breakdown. How We Used Points to Cover Flights and Hotels to Greece

BEST OFFERS LINK: [Before you read another word, check out my best offers page. I update it every month with the highest current bonuses on the cards I actually use and recommend. If you’re going to apply for a card, that’s the place to start.]

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How We Stayed at Acron Villas for $0

Acron Villas is a Hyatt property in Naousa. The retail rate for our 5 nights was $4,969 and we paid $0 on World of Hyatt points.

I want to be honest about what we walked into: it looked exactly like the website. Which sounds like a low bar but it never is. The staff was genuinely helpful from the moment we arrived, the views from the pool and patio were unreal, and every villa has its own completely private pool. Not shared. Not semi-private. Ours. It felt incredibly bougie for a family that booked it on points.

If you want the full property review, I have it here. Acron Villas Paros: A Hyatt Property Review

The card that made this possible is the World of Hyatt card — current offer is on my best offers page. You can also transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt at 1:1, which is what we did. [BEST OFFERS LINK]

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What to Know Before You Go

Rent a car. I cannot stress this enough. The best beaches on Paros are car-only and most families who visit by bus or taxi never see them. We would have missed half this itinerary without one. We booked through the Chase travel portal and used our annual travel credit toward the cost.

Naousa is the right base. It’s the prettiest village on the island, central to everything, and puts you close to the best beaches on the north side. Acron Villas sits just outside Naousa and the location was perfect.

Stock the villa on day one. There’s an AB Vassilopoulos supermarket right in Naousa. We loaded up on yogurt, fruit, bread, cheese, and snacks our first morning and ate breakfast at the villa every single day. It saved a significant amount of money and honestly the breakfast setup on our patio with that view was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

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Day 1: Arrival

We flew into Paros from Athens on a short Sky Express flight and the arrival felt like the trip starting for real. We picked up our rental car, checked into Acron Villas, found the pool, and didn’t move for the rest of the day. No agenda. Just the villa, the water, and the kids in the pool.

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Day 2: Stock Up + Kolymbithres Beach

We started the morning at AB Vassilopoulos in Naousa to stock the villa. Then we drove to Kolymbithres Beach.

Kolymbithres is the most famous beach on Paros and it deserves the reputation. Giant sculpted granite boulders form natural coves and pools along the shoreline — the water between them is completely clear and shallow enough for kids to wade in. Don’t stop at the first bay when you arrive. Keep walking. Each cove is different and the further you go the quieter it gets.

There are kayaks and SUPs available to rent at the sailing center here if your kids want to do more than swim.

Tip we figured out ourselves: go back in the late afternoon. By 4 or 5pm the day visitors have cleared out and you’re sharing the beach with almost nobody. The water is still perfect, parking is easy, and it’s a completely different experience than the midday rush. We loved it so much we went back the next day just for the late afternoon window.

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Day 3: Lefkes Village + Marble Quarries + Kolymbithres Again

The morning belonged to Lefkes. Arrive before 10am if you can.

Lefkes is a whitewashed hilltop village in the middle of the island and it was the most beautiful place we saw on Paros. Park at the edge of the village and walk in. The main square has a bakery that does a local cheese and orange tart — get one. Walk up through the lanes to Agia Triada church at the top and look out across the hillside. Colorful painted doorways, cats sleeping in corners, and bougainvillea spilling over white walls. The kids could have wandered here for hours.

On the way back toward the coast, stop at the Marathi Marble Quarries. Free to visit, and genuinely one of the coolest stops on the island. You can walk into the open tunnels and touch the same marble ancient Greeks carved for the Venus de Milo. The chisel marks are still visible on the walls. My 13 year old thought this was the most interesting thing we did all week — and that’s saying something given everything else on this list.

Then we went back to Kolymbithres for the late afternoon. See above. Still perfect.

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Day 4: Golden Beach + Cooking Class

Golden Beach, also called Chrissi Akti, is on the southeast coast and worth the drive. We set up at a beach club, ordered food and drinks right on the sand, and spent the morning watching the windsurfing school. Beach lounges and food ran us about $85 for the family — reasonable for a full beach club day.

That evening we had a cooking class through Paros Cooking Class at a traditional farm in the Kormos area outside Parikia. I want to describe this properly because it was one of the best things we did on the entire trip.

The family that runs it is everything. Flora, the daughter-in-law, was our host — warm, funny, and genuinely wonderful with kids. The mother and father-in-law were in and out helping throughout the evening. It felt like being invited into someone’s home, not like a tourist activity.

Here’s what the three hours looked like: we toured the organic farm, harvested the vegetables we were about to cook, then made a full traditional Greek meal under a mulberry tree using what we’d just picked — village salad, tzatziki, briam, barbecue meats, stuffed grape leaves. As the sun went down everyone sat at long wooden tables in the family front yard and ate together with local wine, homemade lemonade, and Greek music. It ended with homemade ice cream and a family liqueur.

My 9 year old ate stuffed grape leaves. That is not something that happens in our regular life. She loved them. That alone tells you everything you need to know about how good this food was.

It cost $310 for our family of four. Worth every dollar.

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Day 5: E-Bike Tour + Santa Maria Beach

This is where we split up, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip.

My husband and 13 year old did the e-bike tour through Oiconomakis Cycles — the same family who runs the cooking class. The route is 20km starting in Kamares, with a stop at a Mycenaean Acropolis built around 1200 BC for panoramic views of Naoussa Bay, then down to Kolymbithres Beach for a swim before riding back. Electric bikes handle the hills so it’s accessible even without being an experienced cyclist.

My 9 year old wasn’t quite big enough for the bike tour yet, so she and I spent the morning in Naousa shopping — linen, ceramics, leather sandals, local honey. Honestly one of my favorite mornings of the trip. Naousa is beautiful to wander without an agenda.

After everyone regrouped we drove to Santa Maria Beach for the afternoon. Calm, shallow water, safe swimming for kids, beach club on site. Low-key and perfect after a busy morning.

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Day 6: Ferry to Athens

We packed up the night before and drove from Naousa to Parikia Port — about 15 minutes. The Blue Star Ferry to Piraeus is a large, comfortable ship with indoor seating, a cafe, outdoor deck space, and a restaurant on board. The 4.5-hour ride across the Aegean with the islands fading behind you is genuinely beautiful. Bring snacks, chargers, and something for the kids, but the outdoor deck time is half the fun.

Five nights was exactly right. We saw everything we wanted to see. If you want to know what we did in Athens after this, I have the full itinerary here. Athens with Kids: Our Complete 1-Day Family Itinerary

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What I’d Do Differently

I’d build in one completely unscheduled beach day with no plan at all. Paros is the kind of place where doing nothing at the right beach is its own activity — we were always glad we had something on the schedule but I could see how a free day would have been magic too.

I’d also add Antiparos as a day trip. Drive to Pounda Port, take the ferry over for about $2 per person, walk the Chora, find a beach, have lunch. We ran out of time but it was on the original list.

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Quick Reference

Beaches: Kolymbithres (go late afternoon), Golden Beach, Santa Maria Beach, Kalogeros clay beach

Villages: Lefkes (before 10am), Naousa harbor at sunset, Parikia old town

Activities: Paros Cooking Class, Oiconomakis Cycles e-bike tour, Marathi Marble Quarries (free)

Restaurants: Taverna Vigla (Naousa harbor), Margarita’s Restaurant (Ambelas)

Grocery: AB Vassilopoulos in Naousa — stock up on day one

Practical tips: Rent a car, arrive at Lefkes before 10am, return to Kolymbithres after 4pm, bring water and hats for any hiking, closed-toe shoes for the cooking class and bike tour, fill up on gas before evenings

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How to Book This Trip on Points

We covered both hotels on this trip with World of Hyatt points and the flights with a mix of Flying Blue miles, Southwest points, Capital One miles, and American Airlines miles. Total cash on flights for a family of four was $610 against a retail value of over $6,500.

The full booking breakdown is here: How We Used Points to Cover Flights and Hotels to Greece

The cards that made it possible are on my best offers page — I update it every month with the highest current bonuses. [BEST OFFERS LINK]

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