🇬🇷 Europe
The cradle of the West: the Acropolis of Athens, the white-and-blue islands of the Aegean (Santorini, Mykonos) and an unforgettable turquoise sea.
Greece is two trips in one. On one side, the cradle of the West: the Acropolis cut out against the Athens skyline, the oracle at Delphi, the theatres where Greek tragedy premiered, museums holding what half of Europe later copied. On the other, an archipelago of more than two hundred inhabited islands, with white houses and blue domes, clear turquoise water and villages where dinner still starts at eleven at night under a vine.
Geographically everything turns around Athens and its port, Piraeus, where the ferries leave for the Cyclades (Santorini, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Milos), the Dodecanese (Rhodes, Kos, Symi) and Crete. To the northwest lie the Ionian islands (Corfu, Zante, Kefalonia), green and closer to Italy. And the mainland has as much as the islands or more: Meteora with its monasteries on rock spires, the Peloponnese with Nafplio, Mycenae and Epidaurus, and the mountain Greece of the north, almost unknown to tourism.
What makes it different is the mix of ancient ruins with a culture of very long meals, simple and excellent food, and a sea that is still warm in September. For a Latin American traveller there are two advantages: it is one of the cheapest destinations in Western Europe outside the fashionable islands, and the Greek character — loud, warm, informal — is a lot like ours. The downside is the internal distances: moving between islands takes hours of ferry and has to be planned.
The local currency is the euro (EUR). Carry some cash, tell your bank before you travel and check the day's exchange rate.
Full converter for EUR →There are no direct flights from Latin America, so you reach Athens with at least one stop, usually in Madrid, Rome, Paris, Frankfurt or Istanbul. Eleftherios Venizelos airport is linked to the centre by metro line 3, about 40 minutes to Syntagma on a special 9-euro fare, and by the X95 express bus, slower and 5.50 euros (verified July 2026). For the islands, the big port is Piraeus, reached by metro from Athens; Rafina and Lavrio, smaller, serve some of the Cyclades and are closer to the airport. Book ferries ahead in high season and do not chain one to an international flight on the same day, because the meltemi wind cancels departures in summer. Domestic flights on Aegean, Olympic and Sky Express reach the larger islands and, bought early, cost much the same as a fast ferry. On the mainland, the Hellenic Train service links Athens with Kalambaka (Meteora) and Thessaloniki, and for everything else — Delphi, the Peloponnese, the villages — the KTEL coach system covers practically the whole country.
The two best windows are May and June, and September and early October: the sea is already (or still) warm, sun is close to guaranteed, prices are far more reasonable than in high summer and you can walk the archaeological sites without dying of heat. September is probably the best month of the year on the islands, because the water reaches its warmest and the August crowd has gone.
July and August are absolute high season: temperatures in Athens frequently above 38 degrees, accommodation prices that double or triple in Santorini and Mykonos, and full ferries you have to book weeks ahead. August is also the month when Greeks themselves take their holidays. In summer the meltemi blows, a northerly wind that cools things down but can cancel ferries in the Cyclades, so do not build tight connections with international flights. From November to March, on the other hand, much of the islands practically shuts: hotels and restaurants pull down the shutters and ferries drop to a couple a week. The mainland — Athens, Delphi, Meteora, the Peloponnese — runs all year and in winter is a pleasure, cool and empty.
Eating in Greece is simple, generous and cheap. Gyros or souvlaki in pita — pork or chicken, chips, tomato, onion and tzatziki, all wrapped up — is the national street food and costs between 3.50 and 4.50 euros away from tourist areas (about 4 to 5 dollars), though on the islands it can climb to 6 or 7 (verified July 2026). In a taverna, the classic move is to order several dishes to share: tzatziki, melitzanosalata, saganaki (fried cheese), dolmades, horiatiki (the real Greek salad, no lettuce and a block of feta on top), moussaka and grilled fish. Watch out with fresh fish: it is charged by the kilo and it is the most expensive thing on the menu, so ask the price first.
To drink, ouzo and tsipouro are the anise spirits served with ice and something to nibble; retsina is a resinated white wine that divides opinion, and the wines of Santorini (assyrtiko) are excellent. The country's everyday drink is iced coffee: freddo espresso and freddo cappuccino cost 3 to 4 euros and are drunk at any hour. For dessert, baklava and loukoumades (honey doughnuts). A full taverna meal with wine runs 15 to 25 euros per person (17 to 29 dollars). Tipping is not compulsory: you round up or leave 5 to 10 % if the service was good. And a custom that surprises people: in many places they bring you a small dessert or a shot of ouzo at the end, on the house.
Greece is a safe country for travellers and violent crime against tourists is very uncommon. The precautions are those of any European destination with heavy tourism: pickpockets on the Athens metro — especially line 3, which goes to the airport, and at Monastiraki station — and in busy areas such as Plaka. At night, the Omonia and Exarcheia areas of Athens call for more attention than the rest. On the islands the sense of safety is very high. If you rent a motorbike or a quad, keep in mind that tourist scooter accidents are the most common cause of serious trouble and that many travel insurance policies do not cover them without the right licence.
No vaccination is required to enter from Latin America. Tap water is drinkable in Athens and Thessaloniki, but on several islands — Santorini, Mykonos and others with no fresh water sources — it comes from desalination plants: it is safe, though it tastes brackish and most people prefer bottled water or a filter bottle. In summer extreme heat and wildfires are a real risk: the 112 system sends alerts by SMS to your phone and you should act on them. Emergency care in public hospitals is given to everyone, but Latin Americans do not have European coverage, so travel insurance with medical cover is essential (and for the Schengen entry process a minimum cover of 30,000 euros is generally required). Emergencies: 112 for everything, 166 for ambulances (EKAB), 100 police, 108 coastguard and 1571 the tourist police (verified July 2026).
Greece is one of the most affordable destinations in Western Europe, as long as you avoid Santorini and Mykonos in August. A backpacker manages on 45 to 60 euros a day (about 52 to 70 dollars at the July 2026 rate), sleeping in hostels, eating gyros and using public transport. A mid-range trip, with a simple hotel and one taverna meal a day, runs 90 to 130 euros (105 to 150 dollars). On the fashionable islands in peak season, a comfortable day starts at 200 euros and has no ceiling: a hotel with a caldera view in Santorini in August can cost more than a whole week in Naxos.
Concrete reference points (verified July 2026): a bed in a hostel dorm runs 20 to 35 euros depending on island and season; a gyros in pita 3.50 to 4.50; a freddo espresso 3 to 4; a full taverna meal 15 to 25 per person. In Athens, the 90-minute public transport ticket costs 1.20 euros and covers metro, bus, trolleybus and tram with transfers, the 24-hour pass is 4.10 and the metro to the airport has a separate 9-euro fare. General admission to the Acropolis is 30 euros as of April 2025 (it was 20 before) and is the most expensive in the country; other archaeological sites usually run 6 to 20. The expense to budget carefully is the ferries: Piraeus–Santorini starts at about 46.50 euros on a conventional ferry (6 to 9 hours) and goes up a good deal on the Seajets fast boats, which take around 5 hours. Booked early, a domestic flight Athens–Santorini or Athens–Crete sometimes costs much the same as a fast ferry and saves half a day.
The language is Greek, with its own alphabet, which is daunting at first; in practice road signs, stations and tourist sites are also written in the Latin alphabet. English is spoken very well across the whole tourist circuit, even in village tavernas, and Spanish barely at all, though Greeks tend to light up when they hear you come from Latin America. Learning four words (kalimera, efharistó, parakaló, yamas) opens doors. The clock runs late: lunch is between 2 and 4 pm, dinner between 9 and 11 pm, and in villages and on islands many shops close for the siesta, between 3 and 5.30 pm, and reopen afterwards. In churches and above all in the monasteries of Meteora, shoulders and knees must be covered: wraps are lent at the entrance.
Practical details: the plug is type C and F, the European two round pins, at 230V; if you are coming from the United Kingdom or the United States you will need an adapter, but the same one you use in Spain or Italy works here. Mobile coverage is good across the country (Cosmote, Vodafone, Nova) and the simplest option is an eSIM bought before you leave. Tipping is not compulsory, you round up or leave 5 to 10 %. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, but carry cash for small tavernas, island kiosks, village taxis and minor archaeological sites. And one tip that any first-time visitor appreciates: in much of Greece the pipes are narrow and toilet paper goes in the bin next to the toilet, not in the bowl. It is signposted in almost every bathroom.
The history of Greece is one of the longest and densest there is: more than five thousand unbroken years, from the little marble idols of the Cyclades and the labyrinthine palaces of Minoan Crete to the Athens of the euro and the European Union. That enormous arc holds almost everything the West learned to call its own: the first civilisation in Europe, the epic of Homer, the invention of the polis and of the word 'democracy', theatre, philosophy and history as a discipline, the resistance of a handful of free cities against the Persian empire, Alexander's universal dream, eleven hundred years of a Christian and Greek Byzantine Empire, and the rebirth of a modern nation that had to tear itself free from four centuries of Ottoman rule.
But Greece is not only the white marble of the textbooks. It is also a Mediterranean country battered without respite by the hard history of the 20th century: the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 and the uprooting of more than a million refugees, the Nazi-fascist occupation and the famine that killed hundreds of thousands in the winter of 1941, the almost total extermination of the thousand-year-old Sephardic Jewish community of Salonica, a ferocious civil war that was the first battlefield of the Cold War, seven years of military dictatorship and, in the 21st century, the most brutal debt crisis suffered by a European country in peacetime. Travelling Greece — the Acropolis and Delphi, the monasteries of Meteora, the white islands of the Cyclades, the Crete of Knossos, Venetian Corfu — means moving through all those overlapping layers: the ancient glory and the recent wound, the country that invented the word Europe and the one that, three millennia later, argued over whether it could still be part of it.
Read the full history of Greece →Pick a region and open each destination to see what to do, prices and how to get there.
These are the sources we cite most across this country's guides, with how many times each appears. Hard data —tickets, opening hours, requirements, transport— comes from the official source and carries the date we checked it. Restaurant and hotel picks come from guides and reviews, and we say so on each page.
