Friday, August 13, 2021

Trip #2 Post Number #1, Greece plans!

It's been a couple years since I posted.  Not much travel during the big Covid, but I did do a backcountry camping trip to Yellowstone in 2020 with some buddies that was great, and I didn't really have the internet availability to blog each night.  Each entry would have just been "Feet & legs hurt, didn't get eaten by bears and didn't fall in sulfur".  At some point I'll try and get the pics uploaded and link them from here.  

This trip out to Greece was originally going to be with my girlfriend Sarah and my parents, but the parents bailed based on uncertainty of travel or most likely because of being worried about their dog :)

Why Greece?

I've personally always wanted to go to Greece since I was a kid and loved Greek mythology and read the Odyssey and slogged through the Illiad.  Its always held interest to me from a historical standpoint.  I think its cool that it goes back thousands of years, and that there's still a lot of unknowns to uncover and speculate on.  Looking forward to seeing some of the Minoan ruins and the Heraklion museum in particular.  Sarah's looking forward to some food and sea views, and I'm definitely not opposed to those too :)

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At any rate Sarah and I decided to keep our plans and tried to book everything with full refundability should it be needed.  This is Sarah's first time out of the country other than Canada, and just my second so not like I'm some pro at it, and it should be lots of fun.

We have all flights, accommodation, ferries, tours, and car rentals booked, so most of the budget and itinerary I can lay out now.  We also got the physical Euros from the bank.  

Other random things we had to track/do/follow:

-Got TSA Global Entry & PreCheck

-International Driver's Permit

-Covid Vaccine certs

-Greek Embassy Passenger Locator Form (still have to fill this out)

------------------ITINERARY October 2 - October 15--------------------

Flight from MPLS -> Atlanta, GA -> Athens, Greece

Leave: Oct 2, 10:24am,  Arrive: Oct 3, 10:00am

Round trip flight was right around 1450 each (where you can pick your seats and refund if needed)

10/3:  Get to the hotel via train from the airport and then eat food, chill out, and sleep.

10/4:  Athens

10/5:  Day-tripping to Delphi possibly Thermopylae

10/6:  Athens

10/7-8: Ferry -> Santorini

10/9-13:  Ferry -> Crete

10/14:  Flight -> Athens

Flight from Athens, Greece -> Atlanta, GA -> MPLS

Leave: Oct 15, 12:35pm,  Arrive: Oct 15, 11:59pm

While we have things we're doing somewhat planned out, I'll leave the deets out so its more fun for people reading.  Crete is probably the least planned as it will mostly be a road trip and we'll be stopping wherever we feel like, but have some cool things planned there too.

A little disappointed we won't have time to see Meteora, Mycenae, and Delos, but maybe a trip in the future can cover those.


---------------BUDGET ---------------

Round Trip Flights:  $2,939.38

Hotels: $1,508.09
(12 nights, avg 125.6/night.  This would actually be a lot lower but we have a 2 night splurge at a fancy place, like half of this is 2 nights at one hotel)

Car Rental: $197.21
(4 days, avg  49.30/day)

Travel Insurance: - 
(covered by travel credit card)

Food/Fees/Gas/Souvenirs/Misc: $2359.59
(2000 euros, this is like $85/person/day for 12 days)

Total: $7,004.27
($3,502.14/person)


So that's pretty much it.  Next post will probably be our bags.  Excited that its close, thanks for checkin it out!