17 Things I Wish I Knew BEFORE Travelling To GREECE in 2025
This is our Greece travel guide 2025, sharing the 17 most important things to know before visiting Greece. From how much Greece really costs, to where to stay, what to eat, how to get around, and the best time to visit, this video covers everything we wish we knew before exploring 12 islands across the country.
📍 CHAPTERS:
00:00 – How Expensive Is Greece?
04:14 – When to Visit Greece (Crowds & Weather)
02:49 – Gyros, Kebab, Souvlaki
05:15 – Greek Phrases & Etiquette
07:20 – Ferry Tips & Island Hopping
09:25 – Getting Around: Cars, Scooters & ATVs
11:49 – Cash vs Card in Greece
12:29 – Choosing the Right Greek Island
14:44 – Greek Food You Have to Try
19:20 – Hidden “Anti” Islands to Visit
20:15 – Our Top 3 Favourite Greek Islands
23:17 – BONUS TIPS
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44 Comments
Loving your content guys! Stumbled across your channel by accident. I’m addicted – very excited to keep watching.
Lefkada is pretty well known. I don't know why you make it sound as if it is a surprise.
Go to Parga. It's a town but amazing
We went to Paxos and Antipaxos 🙂
It's about time the world leaders call him out exactly for what scum he is
Love the videos! Great info! I see you have drone footage. Did you get your permit from Alphatango? What was your experience with other people and authorities?
Your Greek is terrible
Great video!!!
I think most of the prices you mentioned at the start are on Mykonos and Santorini or in high season somewhere else. For instance in Naxos last year (may) I paid 4€ for a gyros, 3,5-4€ for a beer (0,5L), cocktails were from 8€ onwards. And mid-September I rented an ATV on Astypaleia for 25€/day, car on Kalymnos was 30€/day.
you can drink water throughout the island of samothraki
Very well done and a good representation of Greek islands in general. Of course the rest ofGreece is missing so the video title should be changed to "Travelling to Greek isalnds". Mainland Greece holds fabulous treasures both natural, cultural and historical, that make the islands just seem decorations. The mainland offers far fewer crowds, much cheaper accomodation and incredible variety. People don't see that Greece is not a country of islands, it is a country of mountains. Enjoy your further exploration of Greece without ferries. 👍👍
Hiring a boat without a license is extremely dangerous and banned!
Hey love your vid! Was it hard to rent and drive a boat? Do they update you on some of the local rules etc ?
I hope you actually had the opportunity to visit the legendary Ιορδανης μπουγάτσα ( a sweet pastry) while in Crete. Its a definite must do as far as Cretan delicacies are concerned ❤😊
What town would you stay in in Naxos to be able to have great views from your room, but walk from your room into a great town?
Not exactly accurate regarding soovlaki. Its get more complicated than that. Yes you can get a plain skewer of meat when you ask for a soovlaki but mainly in restaurants and tavernas. In a take away shop with tables though soovlaki is a generalisation that fits all. So soovlaki with gyro, soovlaki kalamaki, soovlaki kebab, or if you up north soovlaki on pan bread with chicken gyro or pork, beef or even lamb is available. You need to be specific about soovlaki. Soovlaki is the fast food in Greece that can gets customised according your likings and depending of soovlaki shop of your preference. In simple terms, people as a whole are complex, soovlaki helps to reduce the levels of complexity by projecting it's own complexity back to the people reducing the levels of variety for each and every one!
We pay the same prices unfortunately. Love from Rodos Island in Greece 🇬🇷 🎉A Greek 😊Eleni xoxo
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thank you! looking for tips to stay in Athens in March
This was a very helpful video with many tips you don't hear anywhere else. Thank you!!
Also you have to know that in Greece is no difference between prices for tourists and prices for locals like in any other country or continent. Everyone pays the same. Actually I am with my husband in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Africa right now for 2 weeks and we are experiencing a terrible situation with the locals who consider white people as Arabs with petrol fortune. The prices are insane at the same time that locals pay the 1/3 of them!!!!!!!
100 agree that Athens is underrated! I love the city. The tavernas, the nightlife, the streetfood, the ruins, the museums! And people are nicer compared to other popular European capital cities.
In Northern Greece, "souvlaki" refers to meat on a wooden skewer, sometimes served with a slice of bread, while "gyros" is the sandwich wrap. However, in Athens, Southern Greece, and the islands, "souvlaki" actually means the sandwich with gyros meat inside, and the skewered meat is called "kalamaki" (which literally means "straw" in English).
Gyros is essentially pork meat, or chicken if you request it, although some places might not have it. It's cooked on a large thick rotating spit until the meat is fully cooked.
Kebab is a different thing altogether and also has varying meanings, but it's basically pork or chicken as well. You may also find döner kebab in some places, which typically contains lamb meat.
When "bees" come to your food, they're not bees, they're wasps. Bees don't care about us and our food, they only care about the flowers. The only chance a bee will come to you is by chance. They never come to people all at once unless people threaten the hive. And in Greece we have a lot of wasps in the summer, especially if there is fresh water around. Wasps are a bit of a jerk and they keep attacking simply because they can 😛
Loved your video guys. Next time you should also visit Cyprus. Another Greek island but also a different country. Right under Turkey and above Egypt and Israel
Taxis have never been so expensive in Greece! Twenty minutes 100 euros! Recently they saw tourists and many scammers tried to make a mess of the situation! You should have been at the police station, holding his tickets and giving them to the police.
You really recommend learning how to say "Hello" in "Thank you" in your host's language? OMG
hey guys, you mentined the Ionian Islands and you left out the "queen of the ionian islands", Corfu and sone of her children like Paxos and Anti-Paxos!
The island of Crete! 😊
You showed my house at Milos! 😀 Glad you had a wonderful time! Hope you come again!
You can find potable water across Lesvos, non-potable in Chios, Thessaloniki. About cash: not a Greece-only problem. Just 6 min from the center of Vienna, fast-food noodle shops don't accept debit cards and Turkish kebap shops don't accept cards under 5 euros. Do Viennese pay taxes? They certainly do.
Except from big islands like crete or lesbos, You cant really drink the water from all the small islands of Greece. Now in mainland water is good wherever you go.
Those prices aren't bad if you're from the u.s.a little high because of the exchange rate but not bad
I was on the islands Sept/Oct & yes a couple of days on the ferries people were sick all over the place. I took Stemetil & I was fine (thank goodness) seas were so bad at one time they stopped all ferries & I got stuck on Naxos, but could be worse lol One island I fell in love with was Syros. And YES the bloody Gyros lol don’t know how many times I got the wrong thing 😂 OMG I thought I would want to get out of Athens quick, but I just loved Athens 💙
Thanks this was really useful
Where would you recommend for families? Looking for beautiful white sand beaches
In Greece you travel ONLY for holidays.Nothing else.
LOL, Greece is so cheap compared to the US!
You make the best most informative videos, I think it helps that I have found travellers who appreciate the things I look for in a holiday. Keep up the awesome information!
Hallo, besser hätte ich es nicht erzählen können, das einzige was ich dazu sagen möchte, dass ein Einheimischer niemals 100€ für eine 20 min. Fahrt bezahlt, ihr dürft darauf bestehen, dass er den Taximeter einschaltet, und tut so als ob ihr das zweite Mal da seid! Auch ein Trick. Und es ist richtig, dass das Land außer der Hauptsaison schöner und ruhiger ist, aber im Mai das Meer noch kalt ist zum baden, außer das macht euch nichts aus!❤😊
April and May are good for Creta and general for better prices.Invest more time inna single island to go slow pace.Then you will enjoy the place , people etc.Holidays shouldnbe slow pace to enjoy time,place and food.Gyros mousakas is not quality food is tourist junk.
Hello from Greece. I am here as I type this comment. Beautiful country BUT very expensive and dirty. Trash everywhere, graffiti everywhere. Very fast pace of life unless you visit some off the beaten path village with 9 residents. I really do not understand how people survive with basic goods so expensive. Very high energy prices, very high fuel prices. I was here 5 years ago and the difference is stunning. No reason for anyone to come & visit anytime soon.
And here I am a native Greek not able to afford even the ticket for the fare while tourists have the time of their lives
You foreigners, doing the very same mistake we (Greeks) do when we're visiting another country and we're not doing any research, any planning… and we're going like "sheeps" wherever the travel offices telling us!
In your countries, in your travel offices, you'll have JUST ABOUT TWO "posters" about summer in Greece: Santorini & Mykonos!!! That's why, during summer, we have about 200 planes (DAILY!) arriving in Santorini & Mykonos – you have NO IDEA about the rest AMAZING places you can visit in Greece, which is… GREAT for us (locals, Greeks), because you'll going mostly only to those two islands… and leaving the rest… for ourselves!!!
Mykonos & Santorini are the WORST islands you may want to visit!!!
Mykonos WAS great… 30-40 years ago, the tourists' numbers were reasonable, the prices were also reasonable, weren't (yet) the "ultimate place" for rich Arabs (and "armies" of expensive PROSTITUTES!), etc…!
On the other hand, Santorini NEVER WAS "a great place" – just a lovely island to spend JUST ABOUT TWO DAYS (no more) to go, to enjoy the "lovely sunset" (btw, the VERY SAME sunset exists in the most islands around Santorini!) and the lovely white houses on the edge of the cliffs… and… that's it! HORRIBLE UGLY beaches, super dark (black) and SUPER DEEP waters,… nothing close to the "cyan crystal blue" waters elsewhere in Greece!
(To me… if you want to go to the GREATEST island of Greece… this is… SYMI island, nearby RHODES island! A very tiny island, with "zero tourism" and the MOST amazing beaches/waters!)
So, do a DAMN RESEARCH first!!!
There are hundreds (maybe more!) Greek islands to choose, your option is not only… Santorini or Mykonos (local Greeks STOPPED going there for decades!!!)
And… who said to choose ONLY… "islands"??? Greece is SURROUNDED by sea, everywhere!!! You don't "need" to visit "an island", you can find SUPERB beaches/waters EVERYWHERE, in the main land (Greece), not "only" in Greek islands!!! Personally (as Greek), I've stopped going for summer vacations to Greek islands… since 20 years ago!!! I'm choosing LAND places (with beaches/waters), like PELOPONESSE – one of the GREATEST places to visit (and HUGE, you need a couple of… summers, to visit the… half of Peloponesse!)
About the prices…
Greece IS NOT a "cheep" country to LIVE (for us, the Greeks)! The prices are quite high… the lowest salary (of Greeks) is about 700 dollars (when a tiny small appartment's rent is… 500 dollars per month!)… so, basically, most of the Greeks STOPPED going for vacations (they don't have the money to go!), most Greeks are going back "to their villages", to familly members (spend some days there, without paying), visiting their own old parents, etc…
ABOUT YOU, now… the foreignres tourists!
ESPECIALLY for the Americans (and others) that you have about 50.000+ income per year… visiting Greece is "a Paradise choice", even for prices!!! The problem is… you're going "like sheeps" and you visiting TOURISTIC PLACES to buy stuff, to EAT, to rend a room… therefore, yes… you'll eat a "pita-gyro" with 4 euros or… 8 euros!!! IF YOU WOULD SEARCH MORE… and visiting ONLY LOCAL (Greek) places, where ONLY GREEKS are going… you'll paying MUCH LESS than you do!… My American-Greek cousin, she visit Greece twise (last year & year before)! I told her, I gave her many instructions WHERE EXACTLY to go, where to rent room, where to eat… and she didn't follow my instructions! For example, last year, she chose CRETE (one of the MOST expensive places to visit)… and she chose a "5-star" hotel (extremelly expensive), she was eating INSIDE the hotel (extremelly expensive prices!) and she didn't rent a car to drive to the (many) amazing small Cretan villages around her hotel!!!… So, she spend THREE TIMES the price I WOULD, if I chose to visit Crete!!!
In this video, I'm watching that you visit VERY "glamorous" places (even the "taverns" you visit, they LOOKS VERY expensive, not "LOCAL" regular/usual Greek taverns!)… so, that's why you spend SO MUCH money!!!
WHEN to visit Greece?… Obviously, if you choose AUGUST, you'll be with MILLION tourists around you!!!… The BEST season is JULY or (even better) SEPTEMBER!!! July is good, but the sea would (probably) a bit cold (yet). In September (since SEASONS have been changed, summer last till early of… October now!), the sea is great, the weather is still great… and the 90% of the tourists (Greeks included) ARE GONE – and the pricers ALSO are gettins super low during September!!!
…Wherever you choose to go for vacations… obviously is GOOD to learn first some phrases in the local language, it will help you.
No matter if modern Greeks (most of them) know to speak quite good English (NOTHING close, if you visit… Turkey, for example!), but… doesn't "hurt" to know some daily phrases in Greek!
It's VERY IMPORTANT (if you stay quite long) to rent a VECHICLE, driving around and DISCOVERING things!
If you can, choose A CAR, not a "small bike"!!!… You DON'T KNOW to drive "small bikes", in your countries you don't have "small bikes", you don't have the experience for those (VERY DANGEROUS) vechicles! So, give some more, rent a small car and you'll be fine.
Cash or card?… Both, I guess. But, even to very distant places, to a tiny small tavern, now they WILL support credit cards too. But, doesn't "hurt" to have some cash handy…
About food?… Jesus, TRY THE LOCAL FOOD, damn it!!!
You "can't" visit Greece and ordering… humburger or… pizza!!! Local Greek food IS AMAZING, you need to TRY them, to TASTE them – and then, choosing what you like more. As Greek myself, I'm not eating "EVERY Greek food", I don't like the 50% of the traditional Greek food… but I DO like the rest of the 50%!!! I'm not going (durin summer) to order… pizza or… humberger! TASTE FISH!!! The BEST fishes are the MEDDITERRANEAN ones!