After so many family walks and talks over dinner we’ve decided that the next great trip for our family will be a return to Greece, specifically Crete. We went to Greece in 2010 and loved every minute of of it. The weather, the people, the history, the art, and Dan’s favorite food of any trip yet. Now we want to go back with the kids and see if we can push our comfort level a bit and we think Crete might be just what we’re looking for.
Crete is the biggest Greek islands and offers natural beauty in mountains and beaches and history and culture from the ancient Minoans and Greek Mythology to the Byzantine, Arab, Venetian, Ottoman, and WWII occupations. Any place nicknamed “the island of heroes” deserves a long look for the adventurous traveling family, which we hope is us.
Challenges
From the USA Crete is at least a couple flights, and includes, for the first time, a rental car and car seats. The gorges and beaches and communities and historical sites are distributed all across this 160 mile long island so the flexibility of a rental car is worth the time and money. We have a couple home-base cities in mind (e.g., Chania) but at this point we’re just focusing on dates and duration (late June, 8-10 days).
One specific challenge is budget. Getting to Greece alone is pricey (i.e., Athens) but 4 additional tickets to get to Crete add up fast. Additionally, we have some trips to family friends this year plus some home improvement aspirations to consider when saving up for the trip. Therefore we’ve decided that 2020 is the target timeline. Forgoing a trip this year was difficult at first but when we put the numbers down in writing it really became a choice of doing Crete halfway this year, at relatively high cost, or doing Crete properly next year for almost the same cost. (No easy savings beyond fewer activities in fewer days; flights still pricey.)
We are excited to share this next leg of the journey as we plan for our big trip to Crete!
talk soon,
Dan & Betsy
Family Discussion Topic: Budget vs duration: Do family members prefer shorter-but-more frequent trips or longer but less frequent? How might this affect your travel planning and budgeting?