Greece is full of hotels. Its Mediterranean location is an ideal holiday spot, and it is still seeing tourism increase year after year, even though it has been steadily increasing by 10% a year for decades. The Olympics in 2004 only boosted its popularity further, as did the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest – there’s no sign of a decline any time soon.

As tourism is such an important industry in Greece, hotels are everywhere: they just can’t build them fast enough to meet all the demand. As a result, the quality of hotels in the country varies widely. Rather than being ranked with stars, hotels in Greece have been put into categories, with ‘category A’ being the best. However, as the category system is numerical, based on things like the sizes of rooms, it can often be deceptive – many category B or C hotels are actually better than some category A ones, or at least most people would consider them superior.

There are lots and lots of things you should look for when choosing a hotel. What are the facilities like? Is there any building work going on? Can you bring children? What kind of rooms are there? Is it close to what you’ve come to see? And so on. The best way to get all these questions answered is to use a site that reviews or compares hotels, so that you can see all the features of each hotel laid out in front of you.

One thing you do need to realise is that, as an English speaker, you may find you are only able to book at quite big hotels. Smaller hotels will often rely on agencies to act as a go-between and translate into Greek for them, which can push up the cost of staying there.

One last thing to note is that it is essential to book before you go to Greece rather than trying to find a hotel once you’re there. The exceptionally high demand means that in peak season all the decently-located hotels can easily end up full, leaving you to wander around aimlessly for hours trying to find something. It’s much easier to just book in somewhere before you ever get on the plane.