I’ve written out detailed itineraries and guides to each specific destination we visited on our trip: Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, and London – but now I’m going to explain to you the whole overview of our trip in one post with a little more details on planning, the itinerary, and transportation – especially understanding the Greek ferries. (I could barely find any information about them when I was planning our trip!) PLANNING When planning out this trip, we decided on Greece. I had always wanted to go, and while a trip to Italy was my mom’s dream retirement trip, I suggested Greece (my bucket list destination), and I told my mom that I could make sure we did it for somewhat cheap while getting to visit 4 different cities. So, I set off to discover how we could afford the best trip possible. I’ve explained this is other posts, but my travel style is to be okay with go go go while traveling. Since I work a full-time job, I only have so much vacation time, so I like to make the most of it by experiencing as many places as I can in these short amounts of paid time off I can get. Living in Nashville, international (and a lot of domestic flights, really) are not cheap. While I love BNA (#BNAcarpet), it is not as easy to take trips for cheap because it is not technically a major airport. To really get a decent price for international flights, I have found that driving to Chicago makes the most sense. While it is a 7 hour drive, you are still saving hundreds of dollars on flights which makes it totally worth it. So, looking at flights from Chicago, I find the cheapest way to get to Europe. Once I narrow down the options of the cheapest cities in Europe to fly to, I can then look at flights from those European cities to the actual destination where I want to go. This might not make much sense in writing, but it is important because flying within Europe is much cheaper than flying in the States, so if you can make it over to Europe, your options are greater. From Chicago, it was very cheap to fly to London. From London, I had to tinker with the airports and departure times, but it was cheapest to fly to Santorini first. I know a lot of people would rather just fly straight to their destination or pay more money to get there quickly, but if you want to travel and you don’t have a lot of money, this is your best bet. You have to be willing to make slight inconveniences so that you can truly get to see the world. From there, we would use private transport and ferries to travel within Greece, and then it was cheapest to fly back to London via Athens, so we crafted our itinerary so that we were able to even get a full day of traveling in London by making sure there was a long layover. Planning your stops is so important, because you can typically find ways to see more places if you are willing to work with the different types of transportation and flight schedules. During the planning process, we made sure to decide on which places in Greece we wanted to go, the amount of time we wanted to spend in each location (average ~2 days in each city in Greece) and which places we felt like we should splurge in. Once we settled on those aspects, we were able to plan out hotels, activities, excursions, sights, and transportation. ITINERARY Our itinerary was quite complex, but I’m just going to get straight to the point. Below is our itinerary for a one week vacation, including weekends of course: Drive from Nashville to Chicago, with one night in a hotel in Louisville to break up the trip. Fly from Chicago to London. Drive from one London airport to another. Fly from London to Santorini. Stay in Santorini for 3 nights (arrived super late first night, so really only 2 full days in Santorini). Ferry from Santorini to Mykonos. Stay in Mykonos for 2 nights. Ferry from Mykonos to Athens (Rafina port). Drive from Rafina port to Athens airport, drive from Athens airport to Athens city center. Stay in Athens for 2 nights. Fly from Athens to London. Spend one full day and one night in London. Fly from London to Chicago. Drive from Chicago to Nashville. As you can see, this isn’t just a simple fly to one destination and spend the week there – this is an itinerary that takes me to multiple destinations, take multiple forms of transportation, and experience multiple types of attractions and things to do. While this is probably the most touristy itinerary in Greece you can imagine, I subscribe to the belief about travel that no matter how many times you’ve seen someone else go there or don’t want to fall into being “that tourist,” you’re always going to wonder what it was actually like seeing it for yourself. Sure, you can go off the beaten path as much as you want, but it’s okay to include those “touristy” locations, because you won’t actually know what the place is like until you see it for yourself. Also, if you read my specific destination guides on these places, I made sure to discover both the typical and the off the beaten path sights and things to do. Truthfully, even though you think you’ve seen it all with a tourist destination, there will always be more that you can discover if you try hard enough. This way, you can see something you’ve always wanted to see but also make the trip your own. TRANSPORTATION The biggest mystery to me before going on this trip was the ferry system in Greece. Not that they were hard to book or plan, but I didn’t really understand what it would actually be like for the boarding process, the inside of the ship, or arriving in a new place. So, I wanted to give a good overview of our experience using the ferry system. There are multiple ferries that run between the islands. We ended up using two different companies for our trips from Santorini to Mykonos and then Mykonos to Athens, but I really don’t think it matters which one you use unless you are partial to a specific one. The easiest way to book a ferry and to see all of your options is to use the website, Ferry Hopper. This lets you easily type in the islands you want to visit – in Greece and other Mediterranean destinations – and it shows you the results for all of your options from there. It will give you the complete list of ferry companies and times of ferries running on the days you are searching. You can look up multiple options, and you can book with different companies depending on who has options that best suit your itinerary. Through this website you also choose to get the regular ticket or “business class” tickets. We didn’t know much about the difference, and we couldn’t find much information about it online. We decided it was worth it to pay a little more (seriously, the tickets were only about $5-$10 more for business class) and to find out the difference when we got there. We ended up booking the Golden Star Ferries, Superferry for our trip from Santorini to Mykonos – business class tickets. We then used Fast Ferries, Theologos P for our trip from Mykonos to Athens (Rafina Port) – business class tickets. For 3 tickets for 2 trips, the total cost was $110 per person. Both ferry rides were around 4-5 hours, so the price is actually decent based on what you’re getting, especially business class. If you’re on a budget, however, you can easily save a little bit of money by getting the regular tickets, and you will still have a good experience. For the first trip with Golden Star Ferries in Santorini, everyone gets into the line to go through a building that will take you to the place where your ticket gets checked. We had printed the tickets out at home before our trip just in case, but we were able to use our phones. Basically, if the ferry leaves later in the day, it is typically coming from another destination and will already have passengers on it. These ferries make multiple stops, so there will be a steady stream of people boarding and leaving the ferry at each one. Once you board, you can drop your stuff off in a luggage storage area at the bottom deck of the ship, or you can opt to keep your stuff which we did. While it was a little tricky to find our seats, there were people working on the ship who were there to direct you to the right area. For the regular tickets, there are seats in airline looking rows and seats where you can sit and relax. There are also common areas with tables and couches near the areas to buy food or you can go and sit outside and enjoy the breeze and the view. In business class, you still have access to all of those areas, but you just also have access to a much less crowded, more boujee-looking area, with couches, window views, its own food counter, and just generally more space and quiet. Also, don’t worry, there are plenty of bathrooms on board! And if you are prone to motion sickness, it wasn’t too bad of a ride because you are fairly high up, but take some Dramamine with you as a precaution if you are nervous! This was such an easy, relaxing, and fun experience that we already couldn’t wait for our next ferry experience. It was fun to have a cozy place to relax with good views while also having delicious Greek food readily available. It was nice to feel fancy for a while, and it was a good way to see the Mediterranean and some of the islands. Note: it’s also easy to know when it’s time for your stop. They will call out the stops a few minutes prior to docking so that any passengers who need to depart can be ready on the lower deck to get off – just make sure you’re listening. The second ferry from Mykonos to Athens (Rafina Port) was, again, business class on Fast Ferries, Theologos P. This one was a bit trickier for us because we left on the first ferry out that morning, and we arrived before the ticket counter had opened, so we weren’t too sure about where to go. A few minutes later, however, the counter opened and we kind of followed the lead from other passengers. There were much less people on this ferry, it being so early, but we boarded pretty early before our departure time after quickly getting our tickets confirmed from the ticket counter. This ferry was a little smaller, and the business class area was just a small room sectioned off from the other areas. We were able to spread out first thing in the morning, but as the ferry made more stops throughout the ride, more passengers joined, and we simply situated ourselves in a little nook near the window. The “business class” aspect of it was that it was just a little quieter than the rest of the ferry, and it also had a staff member who would come take our order if we wanted food or anything! Keep in mind, you could also just go out to the main area and order yourself or to go to the bathroom. Both ferries were great experiences. They allowed us to have a relaxing transportation experience between islands/cities, and it made it a new and exciting way to travel. I would definitely recommend using Ferry … Continue reading Planning a Trip | Itinerary for Greece & London | Greek Ferries