Greece is one of the most popular destinations for international travelers, attracting millions of visitors every year. However, despite Greece’s similarities with other European countries, there are also some differences. Therefore, in this article, I’ll share 10 travel tips for Greece to help you have a more easygoing vacation.
The following Greece travel tips focus on how things work in this beautiful Mediterranean country. This article’s goal is to inform you about the things you need to know before visiting Greece. That said, that’s more of an introduction to the country and less of a travel guide. If you’re interested in reading about specific locations, you can browse my articles about Greece here.
So, let’s start now with the tips for traveling in Greece.
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10 travel tips for Greece
The travel tips listed below intend to give an overview of Greek life and also how to get ready for your vacation. Therefore, consider them while planning your vacation for a better and fuller experience.
Ferries vs. Catamarans: Sunny weather, rough sea
Greece enjoys a fantastic climate with tons of sunshine all year long. Winters tend to be short, and the summers can be extremely hot. However, the sea has its own rules. You can never know when the sea will be rough, and most islands are constantly affected by strong winds. Even during the summertime, when one might think the sea will be calm, the winds can be intense. The presence of the so-called Meltemi (a strong northern wind appearing between June and September) can affect your travel plans.
Greeks always measure the wind’s speed using the Beaufort wind force scale, which is the basis for every local weather forecast. This tool helps people know what to expect before traveling to the Greek islands. While sea travel is not easily interrupted (it only happens in rare cases of a severe gale), large waves can cause anxiety and seasickness to some travelers.
And here’s one of the best travel tips for Greece I can give you: choose the right option for your sea travels. If you are about to travel to the Greek islands, you’ll actually have three options depending on your destination: flying dolphins, catamarans, and ferries. So what’s the difference, and how can each transportation option affect your journey?
The differences
The flying dolphins -or hydrofoils- and the catamarans are the fastest options for visiting an island. They can travel really fast, but there are two cons. First, there’s no open deck, and you’ll have to stay in your seat for the most significant part of your journey. Second, if the sea is rough -like 6-7 Beauforts- they won’t probably travel. This can severely affect your travel plans. Last but not least, with anything more than 4 Beauforts, they tend to shake a lot; with 5 or 6, lots of people will get seasick, and they’ll start using paper bags…
On the other hand, ferries are significantly slower, and they might take double the time to reach the same island. However, the ferries are huge, have open decks, and can handle rough weather pretty well. They won’t travel unless the Greek state prohibits all kinds of sea travel for some hours due to severe gales.
That said, the safest option for traveling on the Greek islands is using the ferry. However, if you are on a tight schedule and don’t mind remaining seated for the whole journey, you can also consider the catamarans. Keep an eye on the weather and make sure you have enough time to catch your flight back home. See the sailing maps for the islands here and search for the weather at your destination.
Last but not least, check the prices and availability for the island you want to travel to before booking your hotel room. Although most bigger islands have daily connections with mainland Greece, the more isolated ones get only one or two ferries per week. Use the search engine below to see how you can reach your destination. For more information, read my Greek ferries guide for extra tips.
Bring cash with you
Cash is king in Greece. While you can pay with a credit card everywhere in Greece, the locals prefer to use cash. Especially for the older generation, cards seem to be a no-go. Greeks generally choose to pay cash, and after a long decade of a financial crisis, the locals seem even more skeptical about cards. While the Greek state encourages card payments to avoid tax evasion, the truth is the locals will always go for cash if they can choose.
Apart from the Greek state’s decisions, there are also practical reasons for this choice. For example, POS machines won’t easily connect to the Internet in remote places. I ran into this issue several times while traveling on small islands like Donoussa or Anafi. And in such places -that also exist in mainland Greece- there’s also one more reason to bring cash with you: the absence of banks.
While you’ll find an ATM on most islands, you can’t always be sure it has enough money for your needs. Especially in the summertime, when many people visit the most tourist places, an ATM running out of money won’t make the news. Nevertheless, it happens—and it happens often.
That said, it’s better to have enough cash with you and try to pay with a card whenever you want than bringing no money and depending on the Internet connection to use a POS or waiting for the ATM to tank up again.
It’s better to use a taxi app
If you are in a remote place (island or on the mainland), finding taxis won’t be an issue if there’s a local driving one. Especially in the smaller islands, you can ask your hotel for the taxi driver’s phone number, and you can call them anytime you want.
On the other hand, there’ll be a plethora of taxis in cities like Athens or Thessaloniki. Greek taxi drivers had a bad reputation for overcharging tourists in former times. While the situation improved during the last decade, such incidents still occur. Your best bet for getting fair prices and moving around with ease is downloading the Beat app on your smartphone.
Since Uber was banned in Greece a couple of years ago, a taxi app is your best option. It works pretty much like every other taxi app you have on your phone. All you have to do is turn on your GPS, let the app locate you, and add your destination. The app will calculate the estimated cost, and if it sounds good to you, you can order your taxi. After arriving at your destination, you can also rate your driver.
Last but not least, you can pay either by cash or card. You can choose it beforehand, and if you save the card in the app, you can hop on and off the taxis. Here’s the Beat app for iPhones, and here’s the Beat app for Android.
Book in advance: a must travel tip for Greece
As I wrote in the introduction of this post, Greece attracts millions of tourists every year. In 2019, a record year for the Greek tourist industry, 34 million people visited Greece. So, to get a better impression, that’s almost 3,5 times Greece’s population. Now, add that most people visit specific places around the country, and you can get a good idea of how packed it can be in particular locations like Santorini.
While the high season sells out quickly, shoulder months saw loads of bookings in recent years. Therefore, one of the best travel tips for Greece I can give you is to book everything in advance. When you have your exact dates, you should start planning and booking everything: flights, hotels, and ferries.
Apart from finding some bargains, you’ll also have the peace of mind for a relaxing vacation. Therefore, if you plan to visit Greece between April and October, it’s always better to book everything in advance.
The opening hours vary
Every country has its rules regarding opening times for shops, and Greece is no exception. However, the schedule is a bit irregular, and if you are visiting Greece and you see something you like/need, it’s better to buy it straight.
First of all, all shops remain closed on Sundays. While once in a while, there’ll be a Sunday with open stores, most of the time, that’s not the case. Second, smaller shops usually have different schedules than shopping centers or big chain stores like H&M. Specifically, most small stores shut down at 3 PM on Mondays and Wednesdays. On the other hand, the big chains remain open till 9 PM.
Is that all? Well, kind of. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, some shops remain shut in the afternoons. Imagine it like siesta time, therefore smaller stores tend to close between 14:30 and 17:30 (or something like that).
Therefore, if you want to buy something, make sure to check the opening times of the stores. The chances are that you can’t go shopping in local stores on Mondays and Wednesdays late in the afternoon. And definitely not on a Sunday.
Don’t flush toilet paper in Greece
That’s a practical travel tip and an elementary thing to know before visiting Greece. In every Greek house or hotel, the people will ask you not to flush toilet paper. Instead, they will kindly request you to use the bin.
No, Greece doesn’t have an ancient sewage system from the time of Pericles. It’s just that, for one reason or another, the sewage pipes in Greece are very narrow. If my memory serves me right, their diameter is just ~50 mm, making it impossible for toilet paper to pass through. This is something you should always keep in mind because toilet paper can clog the pipes, and this is damage you must avoid.
Greeks take good care of emptying the bins every day, so you won’t have cleanliness issues during your stay. Just keep in mind that whenever you visit a toilet (in a flat, a cafe, or a hotel), you shouldn’t flush toilet paper. There’ll also be a sticker in Greek and English informing you about it most of the time.
Don’t skip Athens (and why this is a travel tip for Greece)
Well, this is indeed a travel tip for Greece because most people tend to skip Athens altogether. While this is slowly changing, Athens is nowhere near becoming a city break destination. The majority of travelers usually spend a day in Athens: they head downtown, visit the Acropolis and Parthenon, and after a meal in a local taverna, they head over to the islands.
It’s true: the islands are probably what people daydream all year long. However, Athens is one of the most legendary cities of antiquity, and it also has a contemporary life that you shouldn’t ignore. Therefore, instead of being the place to sleep before flying back, you should try to spend some time in the Greek capital. There are plenty of antiquity spots other than the Acropolis, there are fine museums, and together with a mixture of underground and posh neighborhoods, Athens is a capital to discover.
Last but not least, apart from enjoying proximity to some beautiful beaches, Athens is less than 2 hours drive from fantastic places. I wrote extensively about the best day trips from Athens here.
So, the tip is: enjoy, take one of the numerous guided tours, and discover Athens.
Emergency numbers: useful tips for traveling in Greece
Of course, whenever you go on vacation abroad, you don’t want to think that something will go wrong. I truly believe that the most terrible things happen in our hometowns and not while traveling. However, since this is an article about the best travel tips for Greece, I know I can’t avoid this section.
We don’t usually use emergency numbers, but the one time we do, they can save our vacation. Since you are a foreigner traveling to Greece, writing down every emergency number you might need doesn’t make sense. Therefore, I prefer to add here the only number you (hopefully) won’t need to know while traveling to Greece.
Save it on your phone: 171. That’s actually the number of the local tourism police. This is a special police unit trained to deal exclusively with helping tourists facing issues in Greece. They can help you with every problem you might run into: from finding a doctor to solving disputes. And, of course, they can help you with everything regarding the local law. They are available 24/7, and while they mainly deal with Athens’ issues, you can call them from anywhere.
And the most important thing of all: they all speak English, but there’s also a good chance they speak other languages. So, save that number before visiting Greece: 171.
Find island-hopping alternatives
Island-hopping might sound exciting to some, but it can be stressful for others. Interconnected with the first travel tip, people who feel anxious before ferry traveling might not find the idea exciting at all. And yet, that’s human nature: even if you feel stressed, you want to do it. What’s the alternative?
While traveling by ferry will give great views of the open sea, you can also visit several Greek islands by plane. Sure, not all of them are accessible by plane, but you’ll be surprised by the number of airports outside mainland Greece. Yes, people know that you can visit Santorini or Mykonos by plane. But didn’t you know you can visit Astypalaia by plane, for example? If you’d like to find flights to the Greek islands, use Aegean Airline’s search engine straight after this travel tip and see all domestic flights.
By booking a plane ticket, you don’t have to depend on the weather anymore, and you can still enjoy some island life. Moreover, most islands are connected, so maybe you can take a short ferry ride (sixty to ninety minutes) to a nearby island. And, of course, you can always spend the entire time on the island if you prefer slow traveling (well, I do).
On the other hand, mainland Greece remains largely undiscovered by international travelers. The landscape is rough, and the feeling is way more original. There are places of interest, antiquity treasures, beautiful mountains, but also beautiful beaches. If this sounds tempting, I wrote the most comprehensive article you’ll find online on how to book Greek domestic flights. Check it out.
Sunscreen is your friend: essential Greece travel tips
Last but not least, the tenth travel tip for traveling in Greece is to have sunscreen with you. You can buy one from home or a local brand. The sun is intense during summertime, and to avoid getting sunburned, it’s recommended to have sunscreen with you.
Don’t underestimate the sun if you visit Greece during autumn. In most places -and definitely in the islands- the sun is still intense. I’m not an expert on sunscreen; therefore, I can’t advise you what’s the best one. However, I always use this one from La Roche.
10 travel tips for Greece: Conclusion
As a Greek, I often hear people ask me for useful tips for their journey. Apart from the country’s hidden gems and must-see locations, travelers often worry about practical information. By putting this guide together, I wanted to share the things you need to know for your Greek vacation. Greece is a millennia-old country and a destination that everyone wants to visit at least once in their life.
That said, consider the tips in this article as a side travel guide for your holiday. Keep the emergency number for a just-in-case moment, and plan your island-hopping or road trip to one of the most beautiful countries. Enjoy Greece!
More Greek Guides: Greek islands on a budget, Greek ferries guide, One-week itineraries for Greece
More articles about Greece: Aegean Airlines Business Class, Delphi travel guide
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Last Updated on April 17, 2024 by George Pavlopoulos