If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR212.39), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Chasing dragonflies by a trickling river amid clusters of plane trees; listening to the gentle ‘shush, shush’ of waves on a near-deserted crescent beach; drinking wine by the fire till late: these are just some of the tranquil trappings found at Onar Andros, whose lives-up-to-it name means ‘dream’ in Greek. Set on acres of protected wetlands and barely tamed wilderness, this family-friendly eco-retreat started as a private holiday spot for ship-broker owner Mateo, but was too lovely not to share – so now it has cottages scattered over the slopes, an organic farm and a gather-round restaurant in that reverie of a setting.
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £205.57 (€240), including tax at 13 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional government tax of €1.50 per room per night on check-out.
More details
Rates include a typically Grecian and largely home-grown buffet breakfast.
Also
From the road to Onar Andros, to the terrain onsite, there are uneven patches aplenty, so this isn’t best suited for guests with mobility issues.
Hotel closed
The hotel opens annually from mid May to mid October.
At the hotel
Farm, orchards, wetlands, beach, small library, charged WiFi (router on request). In rooms: kitchenette with fridge, kettle and Nespresso coffee machine; TV; air-conditioning; ceiling fan; beach towels; and Olive Era bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Onar Andros was originally intended to be a private campsite for owner Mateo Pantzopoulos and his friends and family, but it’s hard to keep places as precious as this a secret for long – so the handful of hideaways now numbers 14 – all in secluded spots. Each has a private terrace with a hammock and pinch-me view, and they’re dressed in all-natural materials (local stone, wood, river reeds). Couples should go for the Hillside Dream House, whose elevation gives it a wider scope over the surrounds, or the Sunrise Villa with its own pool; and for generational getaways, the Family Villa comfortably sleeps five.
Poolside
You’ll ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the views of Ahla Beach at the slope-set pool. There’s a casual bar beside it and a leafy buffer too.
Spa
There’s no spa, but the resident massage therapist plays a role in the hotel’s wellness-in-the-wild promise.
Packing tips
Bring the sort of clothes you could climb a tree in, swimming gear and yoga wear. And recalculate your expectations – this is more carefree, go-with-the-flow cosseting than polished luxury.
Also
The hotel is very much off the grid, but you can request a WiFi router from reception (around €25 to €30 a stay).
Children
Little ones will love Onar Andros, seeking out animals in the wetlands, splashing in the waves, boating and snorkelling. And every cottage here has a built-in sofa-bed (or can fit a crib or extra bed).
Best for
Toddlers to juniors will find the most fun here.
Recommended rooms
The Family Villa is suitably sizeable.
Activities
Hotel staff can organise treasure hunts for little ones or impromptu football games on the beach. Otherwise there’s plenty to distract them by land and sea: wildlife-spotting, boating, paddle-boarding, snorkelling, biking and more.
Swimming pool
Kids can swim in the pool, but they’ll need to be supervised.
Meals
There’s no dedicated kids’ menu, but the Greek dishes served here are simple and crowd-pleasing, and there are some simple pasta dishes, too.
Babysitting
Not available.
No need to pack
Bring any essentials and beloved toys.
Sustainability efforts
The hotel’s surroundings are protected, so they are duly looked after. All buildings were constructed using natural materials, an organic farm (which supplies the kitchen) has been cultivated at the centre and native plants flourish. There are solar panels, tanks for rainwater, timed boilers, and many efforts in recycling and eliminating plastic use.
Unless you’re using your kitchenette and dining on your terrace, sit on the tables set up under a plane tree, some of which are communal for good-old-fashioned story-swapping – owner Mateo might even join your yarn-spinning sessions.
Dress Code
You could even bimble about barefoot here, so there’s no real need to dress for dinner.
Hotel restaurant
Meals here are the Grecian kind of humble – using good, honest ingredients pulled straight from the earth, plucked from the tree or hauled in a net, in dishes that are simple (herb-sprinkled chips, flame-grilled lamb chops, stuffed peppers, couscous salad, ratatouille) yet so fresh and flavoursome, they’ll pop up in sense memories years down the line. Guests gather at one tree-shaded table for feasting, making it a convivial affair. The breakfast buffet is laid out here too. Each hideaway has a simple kitchenette, but you’ll need to pick up essentials before arrival. And, if you get peckish, you can just pick some berries off the trees.
Hotel bar
There are two bars. One is part of the restaurant and the other is set beside the pool high up on a hillside. Both serve Greek wines and beers, and classic cocktails (the mojitos with just-picked mint are especially good), or shots of tsipouro.
Last orders
Breakfast is from 8am to 10.30am, brunch till noon, lunch from 1pm to 4pm, and dinner from 8pm (sometimes 7.30pm in summer) to 11pm.
Room service
There’s no official room service (food doesn’t travel well in golf buggies) – but the kitchen can prepare you a takeaway box and you’re welcome to take drinks back to your terrace.
Onar Andros is set on the east coast of the island, deep into protected wetlands rich in animal and birdlife, on the slopes surrounding the lunar curve of Ahla Beach.
Planes
Fly into Athens, ride down to Rafina Port (about an hour by car), then hop on a ferry, which will take you to Andros via Tinos in around two hours. Or take the slightly more direct route, touching down in Mykonos and taking the ferry (a two-hour journey from the airport).
Automobiles
The journey to Andros isn’t easy, but just keep in mind the prize of gold-sand beach that awaits as you’re jostled along the bumpy dirt road leading to and through the wetlands. You don’t have to navigate them yourself – staff will pick you up in a four-wheel drive (the only vehicle sturdy enough to make the journey) from Gavrio Port (€70 one-way for up to four, payable directly to the driver); it’s advisable to book in advance. But, if you do decide to give it a go, there’s free parking onsite.
Other
From Rafina or Mykonos ports, Fast Ferries, Golden Star Ferries and Seajets all run services to the island via Tinos. To enhance that ‘riding into the wilderness’ feel, you could catch a helicopter to the retreat from Andros Port.
Worth getting out of bed for
Andros, the northernmost of the Cycladic isles, has managed to keep tourism at arm’s length for a long time, and now that it’s embracing it, it’s doing it on its own terms. Onar Andros is emblematic of a lower-impact, slower getaway that suits the island’s spectacular scenery and nearly non-existent infrastructure well. It’s set in a sprawl of protected wetlands on the north-east coast (part of the EU’s Natura 2000 network of safeguarded spaces), in a leafy cradle culminating in Ahla Beach – a wonderfully deserted sandy crescent, goal-posted by a chapel and lighthouse, set down a short rugged path from the main resort. The surroundings are rife with ferns and flowering shrubs, giant plane trees and Mediterranean plants; and you’ll spy pheasants, hares and frogs skittering about inland, and – if you’re lucky – turtles in the river or rare monk seals at sea. The point – with the retreat’s lack of phone signal and shaky, opt-in WiFi – is to switch off entirely and wallow in nature’s majesty, preferably in your terrace’s hammock. But, there are hiking routes; seasonal yoga and meditation sessions; snorkelling through sea caves (kit is provided); Coco-Mat bikes, boats and SUPs to hire; or treks up to the island’s highest village of Vourkoti (pausing to cool off in a crystal-clear lake along the way), should you feel roused. There’s a small farm you can walk to for tastings of fresh cheese, and to help pick vegetables and fruit. And on request, massages of all sorts (on your terrace or in your cottage) and horse-riding can be arranged.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this digital-detoxing eco-retreat in Andros’s protected wetlands and stayed away from screens for a while, a full account of their do-nothing, leave-nothing break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Onar Andros…
Stop the clocks, cut off the telephone, ignore the emails, go dark on Twitter – no, we don’t have Funeral Blues – rather, we’re telling the rest of the world to politely go away while we hide out at Grecian eco-retreat Onar Andros. Set in the northeast wetlands and plane-tree forest of this northerly Cycladic isle, it happily plays second fiddle to nature, with an organic garden at its centre (the most ruly part of the place), cottages built using all-natural materials camouflaged behind lush flowering gardens and in the flocked hillsides, dining terraces under spreading boughs and a gold-sand curve of beach so unpopulated you could feel castaway on it. There are gentle, Earth-kind activities, such as snorkelling in sea caves, yoga sessions, or cycling the hills on a wooden bike (and kids are catered to with treasure hunts and a playground), but really you’re here to check-in, check-out, and revel in that far-away-from-it-all feeling.
