Annie and I still can’t believe that our trip to Greece is over. Have you ever had that thing in your life that you’ve talked about forever, not sure it will really happen, and then it does? That was our trip to Greece. It was so much fun sharing snippets from our trip with you while we were there. I’ve had tons of messages asking for specifics about our itinerary and I will be sharing those over the next week or so. Today, I’m going to give you the high level overview of where we were, how we got there, and the places we stayed. In future posts, I’ll drill down a little deeper and tell you what we did and where we ate, as well as our impressions of the places we visited.
But first…just a little background on how this trip came to be.
When our children turn 16, we take them on a trip instead of having a party. I took my oldest daughter to New York and my husband took one son to San Diego and another to San Antonio–all places they had never been. When my oldest Grace was 16, Annie was 11 and she announced that when it was her turn, she wanted to go to Santorini. She had seen the movie Mama Mia one too many times not to truly believe that Greece was where she had to go. Not wanting to crush her dreams, of course I encouraged her–knowing at some point I’d have to refocus her to a stateside destination.
But as Annie’s “luck” would have it, she turned 16 during the pandemic and there was no traveling in 2021. And when we revisited the idea of booking her birthday trip in 2022, she was firm on her wishes to see Greece.
So that is what we did. I was able to work with some of my colleagues in the hospitality PR world to help direct us where to stay, and the rest is history. Oh…and I learned a ton from TikTok! If you haven’t looked on TikTok for details about where you’re traveling, you are missing out! I learned so much–from the foods to try to the scams to avoid. It was like having real-time travel spies scoping out the places we were about to visit. And I think this actually made me a little more cool in Annie’s eyes! Ha.
As always, feel free to message me with questions, but here is our trip to Greece in a nutshell.
Itinerary
Day 1: Fly directly from O’Hare to Athens
Day 2: Land in Athens, check in at the Brown Lighthouse Hotel, tour of Plaka and the Acropolis, apertivo at the Hotel Grande Bretagne
Days 3-4: Fly to Paros, check in at the Minois Hotel
Day 5: Ferry to Mykonos, check in at the Venicia Boutique Hotel
Days 6-7: Ferry to Santorini, check in at the Astra Suites
Day 8: Fly from Santorini to Athens and Athens back to Chicago O’Hare
I have so much to tell you! I’m writing my post about Athens next.
xo,
