Revealed: Europe’s quietest islands for a true escape

As life gets ever busier, many of us are hunting for holidays where we can really get away from it all.

Research shows that searches for “quiet destinations” are up 1,268% year on year and the trend has even been given a name: “quietcation”.

Now, BookRetreats.com, a leading retreat booking site, has released its Unspoilt Index, which used insight from silence researcher, author and psychology professor Olga V. Lehmann as well as satellite and mapping data for 100 islands across the globe to find where is still quiet.

The index looked at the European Environment Agency’s benchmark for a quiet area, which is a pleasant soundscape, where unwanted sound is absent or at least not dominant.

Each island in the study was scored against six distinct criteria – from rich nature, few roads, low air traffic to uncrowded space, dark night skies and natural coastal spots.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, notoriously overtouristed islands scored poorly. In fact, Santorini, infamous for its huge crowds, placed 99th out of 100 on the list. In contrast, the Greek island of Anafi, just an hour from Santorini by ferry, was found to be the quietest in Europe and second most peaceful in the world.

Globally, it was New Zealand’s Stewart Island which topped the list. It’s perhaps most famous for its feathered resident, the Stewart Island brown kiwi, which outnumbers the island’s 500 human inhabitants by 40 to one.

The island has virtually no light pollution, and the world’s southernmost International Dark Sky Sanctuary, which makes it one of the few places in New Zealand to watch the aurora australis from a truly clear sky.

Despite New Zealand’s top position, Europe scored well in the top 25 quietest islands, taking ten of the spots.

The quietest islands in Europe

Despite its proximity to Santorini, Anafi is world’s apart.

Just 300 people live on the 40 sq km island, that’s nearly 30 times fewer per square kilometre than busy Santorini.

In Anafi, there’s no airport and no busy roads, and it scored 92 out of 100 for naturalness – among the highest in the index – for its lack of housing and near-empty beaches, including Roukounas, Klisidi and Katsouni, all known for their golden sand and turquoise water.

Elsewhere in Europe, St Martin’s, a diminutive island off the coast of Cornwall in England was in fifth place.

The island, the third-largest of the Isles of Scilly, has just 135 residents and its location means it’s warmed by the Gulf Stream and is one of the sunniest parts of the UK. St Martin’s boasts a vineyard, flower farm and the possibility to snorkel with seals off its shores.

Two more islands in the British isles make the global top 15.

The Isle of Skye comes in 11th place, and is the only island at the top of the ranking reachable by road.

Herm, in the Channel islands, is in 14th place and is notable for its lack of cars and the fact it’s home to just 60 people.

Elsewhere in Europe, Croatia has two entries in the top 20. Mljet, off Dubrovnik, is in 17th place, while Vis, close to buzzy Hvar, comes in 19th.

Greece appears again, with the Cycladic island of Milos taking 22nd position.

Rounding out the top 25 are Salina in Italy’s Aeolian Islands (23rd), Flores in the Portuguese Azores (24th), and La Gomera in the Canary Islands in 25th spot.

At the other end of the scale, and beating even Santorini for noisiness, is Malta in 100th place. It’s so busy, BookRetreats.com actually named it Europe’s most overcrowded island in 2025.

“Islands have always been where we go to escape, but very few are still as quiet as they once were,” Sean Kelly, co-founder of BookRetreats.com, said.

“Our Unspoilt Index maps where the last genuinely quiet ones are, and what’s clear from the data is that they’re peaceful because people chose to protect them, and still do.”