>> “I often have bigger eyes than my stomach...”

You think? 😂🤣

I’ve seen some over ambitious itineraries, but nothing like this. Both Mount Olympus and Meteora on Day 3? Both Zakynthos and Corfu on Day 5? Only one full day on Crete? Northern Greece, the Ionians, Peloponnese, Crete, the Cyclades and Athens all in 16 days. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but one out of four of those destinations might be feasible.

Haha, see completely delusional I am, no clue what I am doing. I am going to re-work it all, there is just so much to see in Greece and so little time to make multiple trips there. Plus it is expensive and I am very frugal concerning treating myself to vacations. :( I am very open to cutting things, I am just too ignorant to know what to cut in place of something else. They all seem quite nice.

You can start by eliminating some impractical choices. I’m not sure what you expect to see on Mt Olympus, but climbing it will take two days. Zakynthos and Corfu are in the Ionian Sea, while Crete and the Cyclades Islands are in the Aegean Sea. There are no ferries between the Ionian and the Aegean, so you would have to take several expensive flights via Athens.

Crete would be a worthwhile destination if you spend a week there, while Santorini can be seen in 2 or 3 full days. You can’t take a day trip from Santorini to Naxos or Paros due to ferry timings, but it would be possible to take a day trip to Santorini from either Paros or Naxos with the excursion boats based there.

Athens with a day trip to Delphi would be possible. Meteora would require an overnight, possibly in combination with Delphi. There is much to see in the Peloponnese, and you will go through Corinth on the way to Nafplio, a good base for exploring the UNESCO rated ancient sites around that city.

These are just a few of my own thoughts which you can take or leave.

Thanks Heimdall, I really appreciate the insights here, I am definitely going to adapt per your suggestions.

I'm coming to AMerica for 2 weeks. Day 1; new York, day 2 , washington, day3 grand canyon (maybe stay over one day), Day 4 New Orleans (maybe should put this between DC & Grand Canyon?). I'm trying to be frugal, so hope I can do transportation cheaply.

OK, zz, let's start over and plan for 3 islands MAX plus 2 days in Athens. OK?

You seem to have 15 nights.

Take 7 nights for Athens-Delphi-Meteora
4 nights Santorini (this is more than just a single island)
4 nights Accrocorinth-Corinth- Mycenae- Napflio- Heraion of Perachora (this section you will want to do by car).


At the end of your trip you don't have to go back into the city of Athens, you can stay a night on the Sounion Peninsula (Temple of Poseidon) and go directly to the airport.

The more you move around, the more expensive, and then you miss great things nearby.




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To give you an idea of a realistic itinerary for your number of nights, this was our itinerary from May 2022:

Santorini - 3 nights
Naxos - 4 nights
Nafplio on the Peloponnese Peninsula - 5 nights
Athens - 4 nights

How did we get to each destination?
Flew into Santorini from Boston (via a layover in Zurich)
Blue Star ferry from Santorini to Naxos - 2 hour trip
Flew from Naxos to Athens airport where we picked up our rental car
Drove to Nafplio - about a 2 hour drive
Returned car to Athens Airport and took a taxi to our Athens hotel.

I STRONGLY recommend purchasing some guidebooks. I used Lonely Planet and Michelin Green Guide to plan our trip. Guidebooks are very helpful because they help you plan your trip in an organized way. The material in the books are organized by location, such as Athens, Peloponnese, central Greece, northern Greece, and then the islands. After I have done my research and developed an itinerary, I ask the people on this forum to critique my itinerary. I also use the travel forums and blogs, other internet information, for advice on restaurants, etc. The guidebooks are my primary source, and the other sources are secondary.

I don't mean to be rude, but your current itinerary makes me dizzy.

Thank you, I might just have to zip it up now, my planning skills are horrible for new places that I have never been to before! :( :)

Valid points, thanks shelemm! I need to tame down my expectations to see everything. I just am so frugal with travel I try to do everything at once in one trip due to costs and time required for multiple trips, I need to be more realistic. Thanks to you and others for helping me to be more realistic!

Not rude at all, I need to be grounded on these crazy expectations of mine. I will return when I have a good itinerary and then just post for a few tips, not a whole planning. Apologies for my sporadic questions and outlandish itineraries, haha, I am such a novice!

I have tentative planner here, but I'll revisit later this year and ask for opinions on the itinerary. Thanks for everybody's help and patience with me! :D

We don't want to see yet another "Planner outlline" based on NO knowledge we want to see a list of guidebooks you are consulting... you only know the names of places, as if they are abracadabra, then magically instantly accessible. This only works if you have a magic carpet.

I spent two nights and most of 3 whole days, on Crete, in October 2018. I would have been as happy if I had seen Olympia in Western Greece. Maybe some travelers feel like islands are more special than the mainland. This isn't necessarily the case. I Spent 3 nights in Nafplio on the cost in the Peloponnese, including a day trip to Epidavros and Mycenae. It is a good town, has museums, the archaeology museum has the Dendra Panoply, the Venetian fortress, and so on. I spend one night in Delphi. I see you are putting all your night in Athens at the end. That is smart. Maybe limit yourself to one island or skip islands. Santorini looked appealing but I skipped it. ^ nights is probably a good amount of time for Crete. You probably should skip Crete. I took overnight ferries to and from Crete.

I didn't rent a car. My whole trip only cost about $2,775 US dollars (plane tickets and everything). But I only ate restaurant food about twice, because I am weird about food and the vast majority of restaurant food is made with oils, salt, and/or sugar. But when I was a kid my parents took me on some road trips in the United States and I used to wrongly assume that in travel, all meals have to be eaten in restaurants.

It is polite manners to learn a few phrases in a country's language. I try teaching myself words and phrases before I take a trip. Maybe some opinions say this is unnecessary or excessive. I feel like it could be an embarrassment to civilization to just randomly start talking English to non-native speakers when you traveled and they stayed put.

okay, I'll cease my inquiries here

Thanks for the insights here michaelpianko, I will definitely factor this into my planning! and I agree wholeheartedly about the language, I will make it a priority to speak more Greek by the time I visit, I only find it polite to speak as much as possible of the language of the country one is visiting!

ZZ, frankly, if I were you I would spend more time learning the geography of Greece than learning the Greek language. You have already made a good start by including parts of the mainland and saving Athens for last. You seem to be aware of some of the most important historical sites on the mainland (eg Delphi and Meteora), but I wonder if you are confusing Mount Olympus with Ancient Olympia where the games took place.

As well as learning the geography of Greece, learn how you can get around between these locations. Are you willing to drive a rental car on the mainland? If not, the KTEL (regional bus companies) system is very good on the mainland and islands. You can fly from Athens to many islands with airports, but to go between islands you need ferries. When planning an island itinerary it’s not as simple as picking islands A and B and expecting to find a ferry that goes between them, you need to plan according to ferry routes.

Happy planning! The more you learn the easier it will be to devise a good itinerary. 🙂

For a very reasonable car rental agency with good reviews, check out Athens Car Rental (ACR).

thanks Heimdall, I beleive that I have some of the itinerary in a more logical place now, I am at the juncture of choosing one place for another right now as I consider travel times and even if travel is feasible/accomplishable between two locations. I'll try to avoid any additional plane trips to avoid the cost, unless I find that a flight is best for say Athens to Crete (if I choose to go to Crete on this first trip)

thanks for the tip MFNYC! I am sure that Enterprise does not function over there as easily as it does in the states haha!

thanks Larry for the pointers!

yes, lots of planning! transportation is the big hurdle and choosing what to see not and what to the next time I go which will probably be a decade. I actually make my own spanokopita. I eat lots of dolmas and baklava as well. :) I do know some very basic Greek phrases, enough to maybe get by, but I want to learn even more prior to visiting. great, do not plan to visit any religious sites, but if I was near there I would be respectful, and I am rarely loud. :D

ZZ, if you still plan to visit Meteora you will be visiting religious sites. In other areas you may want to visit a church or monastery as well, and if you make it to the island of Paros don’t miss going into the 4th century (yes, 4th century) Panagia Ekatontapiliani in Parikia, one of the oldest and most beautiful churches in Greece.

We went to Athens/ Chania Crete October 12-22 last year. The weather was perfect, though September might have been better if we had wanted to spend time at the Beach. We had a driver in Athens who was wonderful! He picked us up from the airport and took us to the Athens Intercontinental. Our hotel was a little outside the city center, so we did have to take a taxi to get to the city center. He also took us on a day trip to Corinth, and on another day we went to Cape Sunion/ Temple of Poseidon with a stop at Lake Vouliagmeni on the way. Both of these day trips from Athens were amazing. We stayed a two to three days in the heart of Chania, Crete. It was spectacular and we didn't need a car once there. Our local (Piraeus) travel agent made all our arrangements for our trip to Crete. It was so nice to not have to worry about how we were going to get from the airport to Chania. I highly recommend Travelspot/ Dimitrios.

ah thanks for that tip, I did not realize the religious aspect of some of these places, I will make an discernible effort to dress appropriately then! :D.

thanks for the tips here and destination notes as well, I am going to factor this into my planner!

I meant, 5 or 6 nights would be a good amount of time for Crete. Crete could almost feel like a separate country. You might want to see if the mainland has enough appealing ruins and museums to occupy you before resorting to islands. But if you go to Crete, the archaeology museum in Chania has an excellently displayed collection of ancient Roman and/or Greek coins, in a vertical acrylic display case that you can see them from both sides.

That means wearing long trousers, not shorts, when visiting a church or monastery.

ah thanks for clarification, yes Crete has such an allure to it, but it does seem to be it's own world and would require quite a bit of time to enjoy it fully.

maybe I'll just skip visiting those sites then, I am almost exclusively a shorts guy, ha!

I’m a shorts guy too when in Greece, but change into trousers in the evenings. If you are going in late September or October it will still be swimming weather, but sometimes gets chilly in the evenings. That’s also when the mosquitoes come out on many islands, and I prefer not to be bitten.

Just wondering if you may have meant an ancient Olympia on the Peloponneasean Peninsula, site of the ancient games, instead of Mount Olympus to the east near Thessaloniki?

Happy Trvlr, that’s what I asked in reply #56, but never got an answer.

Totally agree with you. We as a family try and avoid tourist spots, and try and always stay in little villages in self-catering (kids prefer it to going out to eat). Crete always holds a special place in our heart.

good to know! thanks1

I am so sorry that I skipped over that question! to answer, I was thinking about Mt Olympus / Meteora and then Olympia in the peninsula. I am now eliminating My Olympus / Meteora in favour of more Peloponnese time and possibly Crete or other islands.

thank you, I want to make room for Crete, I hope that I can!

ah yes I replied to Heimdall as well after overlooking that part of the thread. :/

I was going to do both, but now I am going to omit Meteora + Mt Olympus and I am not even sure if there is time for Olympia while in the Peloponnese given distances and transportation. :(

I am coming to grips with reality and whittling away my trip destinations. I just want to get the most out of it bc international travel is so demanding time-wise as well as fiscally.

Air travel has certainly shot up, agreed.
Some advice I gave someone a while ago who had everything planned to the minute on a spreadsheet was, "Where have you allocated yourself fun time?"
Point being, you don't need to plan everything, just general ideas are good.

Don't stress about not seeing everything at once.

Hi there,

I recommend Rick Steves for Athens!!! He has a good guidebook.

I am not a Greece expert but if you are on a budget I would spend less time in Santorini and more time in the other Cyclades island (Naxos, Paros, etc). It will be more affordable. Ferry times are not such that it is easy (in my opinion) to do meaningful daytrips.

I would save Athens to the end of the trip and spend some time there. We love it, and it's more affordable than the islands.

Hope you end up going - it's magical.

If you don't go to Meteora, does that mean you will miss Delphi?

thank you, I tend to over-plan everything, hopefully that will change though, I rarely relax, but this is vacation not work, so I need to find that balance. :s