ATHENS - PAROS - ANTIPAROS - SANTORINI - RHODES
Ultimate Guides to the hidden gems of Greece and the insiders view to explore the tourist spots as well. ~ Follow along as I take you on my tour of Greece and island hop the motherland.
1999 - that was the last time I had visited Greece. My parents, my two siblings and I packed up and headed out for three weeks to stay at our family’s house on the island of Rhodes. I was about 6 years old so thankfully, I remembered quite a bit, and was super eager to get back out there as a young adult. In 2016 I had planned out a full Euro trip to Greece - with stops in Spain and Italy. That all sadly came to a halt when we landed a project of a life time at work. It was definitely bittersweet, but just starting in the industry and at my job I knew this was a project that would grow me professionally. Little did I know, this project would cause me to postpone my Greece trip a couple of years and when it was finally coming to a close, the global pandemic hit - shutting down everything and my dreams of getting back to Greece.
In 2021 (almost 22 years later) I said screw it. I planned out my trip and was FINALLY heading out to Greece! Things were slowly opening again throughout the world and I thought to myself "when would I be able to go to Greece again and enjoy some of the most touristy spots without all the tourists?!" I was dead set on going and began to tweak my trip once again as a solo mission. Thankfully, due to all those work trips over the years, I had enough miles to cover my whole round trip ticket to Athens from Florida. It was approximately two weeks out and I secured my ticket and began to finalize my itinerary for 12 days of island hoping. Athens, Paros, Santorini and back to Rhodes. I had some other islands I wanted to make stops in, but I began to slowly realize through lots and lots of research (which I would DEFINITELY recommend prior to deciding which islands to visit) there was too much to see and way too little time. So instead of feeling rushed, I decided on those four islands for this trip - plus this gave me an excuse to plan another trip back. To top it all off, at the last second my best friend, Danielle said screw it and took her PTO at work and booked a ticket to join me! Before we knew it the two weeks closed in fast and we were off to Greece…
Exploring the Islands
Click on each below to see how the trip that was 5 years in the making turned out!
1999 vs. 2021