Europe
Greece
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Our stories from Greece
Travel tips
- Go early season. We visited in March. Fewer tourists, genuine local interactions, and most things are open. Our waiter on Naxos gave us his friend's number for a rental car and hand-wrote a list of places to visit. That doesn't happen in July.
- Use Athens as your base. Fly in, do the big sights (Acropolis, the museum, the botanical gardens), then hop to an island and come back for departure. Two or three nights on each end works well.
- Take the ferry, not a flight. The seas are calm, the ride is relaxing, and it's far less stressful than flying with kids. Spring for business class on the large ferries. It's a small upgrade in cost and a big upgrade in comfort.
- Check island access before you book. Santorini was evacuated when we went (20,000+ earthquakes in February 2025). Many ferries don't run early season. Do your homework on which islands are reachable.
- Consider a private boat charter. It sounds bougie, and it is. But with a captain and a chef, the kids had the time of their lives. Calvin jumped in twice. Everyone else jumped in once. The water is freezing in March.
- Naxos is the food island. Everything is fresh: the fish, the salads, the meat. James had the best tzatziki of his life. The kids ate fries (with "grass" on top, per Millie). Locals take pride in what they grow and catch.
- Try the coffee. Greek coffee is incredible and underrated. Look for it shaken with ice and sugar. James left trying to order it in every city for months afterward.
- Get the kids into mythology beforehand. Our kids were deep into the Greeking Out podcast and Percy Jackson books before the trip. That turned the Acropolis Museum and Zeus' cave from "here's old stuff" into real stories they already knew.
- Rent a car on the island. On Naxos we drove the whole loop around the island. The countryside is stunning. The hike to Zeus' cave (Zas Cave) starts from a trailhead you'd otherwise never find.
- The water clarity is unreal. Even in March when it was too cold for Carol, the color was nothing we'd ever seen. Worth a return trip in summer just for that.
Photos