Alexander Chalkidis

Category: TRAVEL

  • Santorini Shakes, and the Greek Government Fumbles: How a Bad Response could tank the 2025 Tourist Season

    Santorini Shakes, and the Greek Government Fumbles: How a Bad Response could tank the 2025 Tourist Season

    This is a case for the business books. Probably the most famous island in Greece and possibly the world, Santorini, accounts for most of the incoming tourism. So how easily can you screw it up?

    If you’ve ever dreamed of sipping wine on a Santorini cliffside, watching the sun dip into the Aegean Sea, 2025 might not be your year. The island, one of Greece’s crown jewels, has been rattled by tremors since early February, and while the earth’s grumbling is nobody’s fault, the Greek government’s response? That’s a different story. What could’ve been a manageable situation has spiraled into a full-blown disaster for the island’s tourism industry—and it’s hard not to point fingers at the folks in charge.

    Let’s set the scene: Santorini, with its postcard-perfect whitewashed villages and volcanic charm, pulls in millions of visitors every year. In 2023 alone, it welcomed 3.4 million tourists, dwarfing its tiny permanent population of about 15,000. It’s a cash cow for Greece, especially during the summer peak. But when the ground started shaking in late January 2025, the government’s handling of the crisis turned a natural hiccup into a tourism nightmare for their No1 tourism attraction.

    First off, the response was a chaotic mess. When the tremors hit—hundreds of them, some topping magnitude 5—the government declared a state of emergency by early February. Fair enough, right? Safety first. Schools shut down, construction halted, and people were told to drain their pools to lighten the load on the shaky ground. (All this time later it is still unclear when and if they will be able to refill the pools.) But then came the mixed messages. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged everyone to “stay calm” while emergency crews flooded the island and thousands evacuated on ferries and planes. Over 11,000 people bailed in a matter of days, and the vibe went from “minor inconvenience” to “apocalypse now” faster than you can say “caldera.”

    Here’s where it gets worse: the optics. Santorini’s streets emptied out, shops shuttered, and social media lit up with images of a ghost town. The government didn’t just let people leave—they practically encouraged the exodus by arranging extra flights and ferries. Sure, some of that was necessary, but did they have to make it look like the island was about to sink into the sea? A little reassurance, a little finesse, could’ve kept the panic in check. Instead, they let the narrative spin out of control, and now “Santorini 2025” is synonymous with “earthquake evacuation” instead of “dream vacation.”

    And let’s talk about timing. This all kicked off in the off-season, which gave the government a golden window to get ahead of the problem before summer bookings ramped up. They could’ve rolled out a clear plan: monitor the tremors, reinforce shaky infrastructure, and—most importantly—communicate to the world that Santorini was still open for business. Instead, they dithered. Pointless panic meaningless actions. A state of emergency dragged on until March 3, and even as the seismic activity tapered off, the damage was done. Hoteliers are now sweating bullets, worried they won’t have enough staff to open for the season. Seasonal workers, spooked by the chaos or lured to steadier gigs elsewhere like Corfu, are bailing on Santorini.

    The tourism industry is screaming for help, and the government’s response has been lukewarm at best. Hotel owners begged for subsidies to keep their workers paid while construction was stalled—reasonable, given the circumstances—but it’s unclear if those measures will actually happen. Mitsotakis popped by the island in February, calling it “an iconic tourist destination” and promising to protect its reputation. Nice words, but where’s the action? Where’s the bold campaign to reassure travelers that Santorini’s cliffs aren’t crumbling into the sea? Instead, we’ve got a tourism minister at a Berlin expo last week saying, “Safety matters more than anything else,” which is true but doesn’t exactly scream “book your trip now!” And how is anything the Greek government promoting safety? After all if a big earthquake was to happen nobody can predict when it will strike. So should nobody ever return to Santorini?

    Look, earthquakes happen. Santorini’s been shaking for centuries—it’s part of its volcanic DNA. The last big one was in 1956, and it bounced back. This time, though, the government’s heavy-handed panic mode and lack of follow-through have kneecapped the island’s recovery. Experts say the tremors weren’t even volcanic, just tectonic grumbles, but you wouldn’t know that from the way officials acted like the island was one quake away from disappearing. Compare this to how other countries handle natural disruptions—think Japan’s calm efficiency with its constant quakes—and Greece looks like it’s stumbling through a crisis playbook it never bothered to write.

    The fallout? The 2025 tourist season is on life support. Bookings are reportedly down, though exact numbers are hard to pin down this early. Hoteliers are bracing for delays in opening—if they open at all. The ripple effect hits everyone: bartenders, ferry operators, souvenir vendors. Santorini’s economy thrives on those summer crowds, and without them, it’s going to hurt. Badly.

    Could it have been different? Absolutely. A smarter government would’ve leaned on science—experts said the risk of a major quake was low—and projected confidence instead of chaos. They could’ve fast-tracked safety upgrades, launched a “Santorini Strong” campaign, and kept the world’s eyes on those stunning sunsets instead of evacuation headlines. Instead, they let fear win, and now the island’s paying the price. They didn’t think of how to handle the media after a while. Infantile mistake. How did they think it would go? When would it be OK to return to the island and how would they justify it? After all, we all know that Greek tourism is completely unsustainable in every respect. Santorini has neither the water, electricity or waste management infrastructure to support the tourism. Even without a major earthquake those quaint little houses on Instagram are death traps in terms of safety. No two ways about it.

    So, if you’re eyeing a Greek getaway this year, you have to wait and see. The island’s still gorgeous, still standing, but the government’s fumble has left it reeling. Even if you would like to take advantage of potentially less crazy crowds or better prices, it is unclear how and when you could book it. Will the pool have water? Cruises have diverted, tourist operators have made alternative plans and it’s too late for this season to recover. Here’s hoping they figure it out before 2026, because without Santorini Greece will miss out on a whole lot of foreign tourism at a time the economy needs them more than ever.

    (All photos from the last time I was at Santorini a couple of years ago. I wrote then how terrible I found the entire handling of over tourism – link is here.)

  • Dirty secrets of the Mediterranean diet

    Dirty secrets of the Mediterranean diet

    Last summer it seemed as if half of America came to Greece.  To be more precise to Athens, Mykonos and Santorini.  To me that seems rather counter productive as Greece has numerous better, cheaper, more original locations to visit.  But that is nothing compared to the irrational things I see and hear concerning Greek food.  Now don’t get me wrong, we have all read about the benefits of a Mediterranean diet.  And it is mostly delicious.

    But is it nutritious?

    Greek salad is a great example. We had no tomatoes until well into the 1900s!  Much later than the rest of Europe they were introduced to Greece and even then they weren’t in wide circulation.  So how on earth is a salad based on tomatoes “traditional”?  In fact it was invented in the 1960s by the restaurants around Plaka, just under the Acropolis, clearly a practical solution for a quick, cheap and high margin food for tourists.  And then look at the contents, feta is extremely high in fat and most people use half a loaf of bread to dunk in the (supposedly nutritious) olive oil.

    But how would a real scientist measure the true nutritional content of a Greek salad?  Even the most seemingly simple item in it is in fact extremely complicated.  Olives are ultra processed food.  They aren’t just plucked off a tree and put in your salad.  They are washed, marinated, rinsed many times, marinated again, left in salt water, rinsed…you get the picture.  When scientists say that olives are good for us are they referring to the fresh ones off the tree or some version of these post-processed ones like the ones we actually eat?

    It seems we have a most serious problem in defining foods and nutritional content.

    The most extreme example in Greece is “horta”.  It literally means “grass” and refers to a variety of vegetation usually plucked from the side of the road like dandelion.   Again, this is a fairly well studied plant in its wild, natural state.  But because it is extremely bitter, during the second world war famine, Greeks were forced to eat it for lack of anything else being available.  In order to make it palatable they rinsed, boiled, rerinsed, marinated and doused in oil and lemon.  It really isn’t edible anyhow else but from a nutritional point of view I would guess there is less than 10% chance it contains anything at all other than fiber.  Which is to say it is like eating cardboard.

    Since many reputable sources insist on promoting the Mediterranean diet it seems that such research is extremely important.  I don’t see American tourists eating much of the legumes mentioned in the literature.  Nor the fish since the Mediterranean is critically overfished so even if you do ask for fish you are likely to get frozen or imported ones.  At best cultivated fish from Greece maybe, 2-3 species mainly with all the health problems of that category.    If anything when tourists rave about “Greek food” they are referring mainly to the starters, a mixture of Eastern hits, heavy in fats, saturated fats and ridiculous amounts of calories.

    It is not enough to vaguely refer to diets of a region.  Nor to specific foods.  We need updated, extremely specific measurements of nutritional content as soon as possible for a whole lot of food generally considered “healthy” by millions of people that have absolutely no way of measuring it.


    (Feel free to object to anything here but please include references to actual scientific studies if you do. And even then, scientific studies on the actual end result, ie food we eat, not potential benefits from likely ingredients in vitro and in ridiculously high concentrations or forms we will never get on our tables.)

  • The best time of year to visit Greece without ruining the planet

    The best time of year to visit Greece without ruining the planet

    If you have booked a holiday in Greece for June, July or August you have made a big mistake. Unless you are heading for the mountains in the North you are in for multiple unpleasant surprises.

    In this post I described the horrors of visiting Santorini. And that was at the end of October! Many people recommend September as the ideal month in terms of weather. They lack an understanding of Greek tourism. It is mainly small business, family run or short termist approaches. By September they are exhausted, they are sick and tired of tourists. Even the beaches, even if they are empty feel used and out of energy. Maybe you can’t see rubbish, but you can feel the presence of thousands that packed the sand before you.

    Severe heat presents a problem on multiple fronts. First of all you can’t really do anything. Running from shade to shade is no way to live unless it is a dystopian movie. When the heat is unbearable even in the evening you are reduced to sitting in the room with the AC on and jumping in the pool briefly with multiple lotions slathered on generously, hats, umbrellas and any other available technology against skin cancer.

    But it gets worse. Because those ACs are simply pumping out more heat and noise. We have just moved the problem beyond sight. And Greek islands have no sustainable energy sources. So if you drive around you will usually find a petrol burning electricity station producing inefficient quantities of power. Which is why even Santorini often is left without power.

    And without water. Greek islands barely had enough water for their few inhabitants a hundred years ago. Now they have to carry it over from the mainland and truck millions of bottles of it for you to drink. And forgoing all the problems of the energy demanded for that, they all also end up in landfills. Like the famously hideous one in Santorini. Every Greek island has one, some islands actually export their rubbish in trucks that get on the boat with you. It is a ludicrous reminder of just how unsustainable this is. Getting millions of people on a little rocky island.

    But wait, it gets worse. Because as is well documented, severe heat also increases the chances of forest fires.

    These past 3-4 years in Greece have been devastating. Personally I blame the current government which has dramatically changed the approach to fire fighting. They also do not enforce any measures to reduce fire hazards, always pretending to pass responsibility to citizens.

    And that is Greek tourism in a nutshell. An important sector of the economy which relies 100% on the ability of the State to provide infrastructure:

    1. Power Infrastructure. A joke. The government brags about wind energy which is produced by destroying Greek mountains. At the same time power cables are overland! They destroy your pictures as a tourist and they greatly increase the fire risk as most wild fires are started by faulty electric cabling. (And then everyone pretends it was arson.)
    2. Water infrastructure. Non existent. And given the fact that tourists stupidly keep going to the same few islands it is a hard one to solve. This isn’t just about the water you drink, it is even more so about toilet waste disposal. For too many years the easy solution was just a pipe going out to sea. This is still often the case.
    3. Waste infrastructure. Greece just keeps getting fined from the EU because we recycle less than everyone else. Landfills are disgraceful and largely unregulated anarchy.
    4. Communication infrastructure. The most expensive in Europe for most things (mobile and fixed line internet) and far behind in terms of available speeds. So much for being a digital nomad.
    5. Transport infrastructure. We Greeks don’t even think of getting on a boat with our cars to go to an island. Prices have rocketed as it is essentially monopolies of government cronies. There is no rail network and prices of motorway tolls are out of control. That is usually motorways built on government loans and european funds, somehow we end up paying them back in tolls for decades…
    6. Tourism infrastructure. Closed! This may sound crazy but most Greek antiquities are free to visit. Free to loot. Completely unprotected, often without even a fence to pretend we care. The Greek government seems to focus only on public relations campaigns like the one for the Elgin marbles, or on opening new museums which then get abandoned. Due to lack of staff they are often closed. Or open severely restricted hours. Or closed due to strikes. But the real problem is the lack of information. You drive along and see a fantastic ruin but there is no information anywhere about it.

    But please come to Greece. It is still one of the most beautiful countries I know. Just don’t “do” Mykonos, Santorini and a quick run up the Acropolis. Come in April or May if you like the sea to find fresh beaches and locals that are still happy and energized. Go to smaller islands or – better still- thousands of kilometers of great beaches that are off the mainland. Come any other period other than the summer months and enjoy antiquities, nature and (depending where you go) great people that generally speak English and are very hospitable.

    A friend once told me that “tourism destroys all it touches”. This is true of much of Greece, more now than ever before. So be careful where you touch.

    PS All the images on this post are from the Acropolis of ancient Siphai. One of thousands of important archaelogical sites left to crumble (literally) in Greece. So come quick and see them at least. Good luck learning more about them, here is the official Ministry of Culture page on this site:

  • The best holiday of my life isn’t available to 99% of you

    The best holiday of my life isn’t available to 99% of you

    Here is how it goes: wake up early, before the Greek summer heat.  Get out of bed, put on your boots and walk.  I usually leave breakfast until the first uphill is over or until the first spectacular view.  Everything tastes better when you are surrounded with beauty.

    My schedule for this morning is , well, to walk.  That simple.  Minimal as it gets, it is meditation at it’s purest.  One path, one direction, two legs.  I walk until it is too hot, by which time – if I got my planning right – I am in a quaint Greek mountain village taverna.  Wash, drink, eat, relax, maybe even take a siesta, play some card games to kill time until the afternoon when my son says the UV index is ok to walk some more.  You really get to know a place when you spend so many hours there midday. Then more path pleasures until the sweet dusk.

    This is the best holiday because it is the most efficient.  I am wasting no time looking for parking near the beach or waiting for a waiter to bring me a cocktail.  I don’t have to “get back” to the room to prepare for a night out.  I just stop walking, have a light dinner if I feel like it and climb in to bed for the best sleep of my life.  I walked 200 km in a week and yet every morning I woke feeling more relaxed and stronger than the day before.  A friend who walked with me last summer claims that even now – a year later – he feels energized by the memory alone.

    This is the world of long distance trail walking.  Unfortunately it is completely inaccessible to most people.

    Please don’t imagine I am some die hard mountaineer or wild man who only hikes.  I have enjoyed the best boutique hotels on the planet, traveled to more than 40 countries and tried every kind of holiday.  From cruises in the Caribbean to luxury yachts and from the top of Kilimanjaro to road trips in California.  From the joys of all inclusive resorts to historic tours of Syria (before the war destroyed everything I was fortunate enough to see.)   No, the reason you can’t enjoy long distance trail walking is because there is no infrastructure for normal people.

    Tourism is one of a few activities that require government regulation.  I am as liberal as they come, I don’t believe in big government.  But like my friend Charles from the sea turtle protection society said to me 40 years ago “tourism will destroy everything it touches if you let it.”  I am doing it my way and it is illegal, risky and takes years of practice.   It shouldn’t be this hard.   For starters I am sleeping outdoors wherever my day ends.  “There are wolves up there!” warned the locals.  I have no idea if they were exaggerating.  I slept fine.  Another night it was by a church, just in case it rained.  The next to an abandoned building site because we were too late leaving the village and that was the best we could find.  Most of the time it is in the middle of nowhere, forest, peak, whatever.  I can do that because I have spent most of my life exploring. Nobody else should have to gather 53 years of experience in order to get a good night’s sleep.

    So here is my plan:  convert the hundreds of abandoned churches that litter the Greek countryside into makeshift hospitality stations.  Don’t even open the can of worms that is allowing free camping (currently illegal in Greece), focus on making it easier for people with no wilderness knowledge to just walk. It is a bit like “bed and breakfasting” in England.  You just need to reach the next little church to find something to eat, something to drink and a place to rest.  Churches are already in a legal loophole.  It could easily be expanded to include basic accommodation, preferably non permanent structure, possibly even traditional ones, a kind of glamping.  (The “vlahoi” nomads even have their own reconstructed tents in a few places now and are quite trendy, think of it like a yurt with a twist.)    Theoretically you are not allowed to build anything in forest or mountainous areas in Greece.  In practice people freely bulldoze roads wherever they like, graze whatever animals they won’t anywhere and dump rubbish of every kind even at the most remote places.  Getting more tourists there would serve to protect the countryside.

    The closest real life example we have in Greece is mount Olympus where a network of mountain refuges serve to make it easier to scale the spectacular peaks of the Gods.  It is a monumental effort kept together by a shoe string and a lot of effort on the part of the heroes up there.  Thousands of visitors enjoy a beer and Greek salad in almost hotel level services at an altitude of more than 2000meters.  We know there is demand.  It is currently restricted by the draconian and highly hypocritical Greek laws about wildlife preservation which only seem to have two conditions:  either nothing is permitted or everything is.   Big mountain ranges need something better than that.  They need a management plan.  It’s not rocket science, it started with the big US national parks and all over the world we now know how to do it.  

    I can’t pretend to be able to solve this in a day.  But the plan to convert abandoned remote churches into accommodation centers for long distance paths can be implemented immediately and easily and will instantly help divert tourists from getting bored on beaches.  The modern tourist wants to actually do something, they want the feeling of achievement, something Instagramable.  You can walk to lose weight or to meditate.  You can walk just to say you walked X miles, you can walk for charity.  You can walk to reconnect with old friends and chat along the way or to meet new ones.  The fact is that millions of people around the world are on a treadmill right now paying more for their gym membership than the church would be charging them.

    Get off the treadmill.  Come to Greece and walk a long distance path with me.

  • The perfect day in Santorini (you don’t need a second one)

    The perfect day in Santorini (you don’t need a second one)

    It has featured in lists named like “Top 100 things to see in your lifetime” or equally click bait sounding titles from prestigious travel magazines.  Half a volcano submerged, leaving a magically enchanting scenery which is truly breathtaking. But spending more than a day or two on Santorini is simply stupid.  Here are the things worth doing, they all fit in a day:

    1. Of course the sunset at Oia overlooking the caldera is magical.  Unless there are too many people which is of course what happens at sunset.  In fact it happens all day long at popular Instagramable photo spots.  And try not to notice the rubbish which is everywhere even off season, you would think somebody would care but they don’t.  In fact there is a huge rubbish dump with the same view!
    2. The paths from Pyrgos to ancient Thira and Perissa, preferable with a sunrise included as they look East.  Everybody raves about the sunset, unfortunately the idiots that run archaelogy in Greece keep sites closed instead of making it a thing.  Signage is mediocre and the local buses a joke if you want to get back to where you started somehow.  But you will get to see Pyrgos and Emporeio which are pretty and slightly less destroyed by tourism.  (Which isn’t saying much.)
    No alt text provided for this image

    (Sure you can walk along ancient paths in Santorini. So do idiots that hunt little birds with no repercussions or control.)

    Here are the things NOT to bother with:

    1. The pathetic boat trips to the pretty miserable “volcanic” island.  A desert rocky walk with a few smelly gasses and an equally disappointing swim in cold water which is slightly warmer here and there.
    2. The famous Akrotiti buried ancient city.  An incredibly important site which would be interesting if they hadn’t completely ruined it with the new cover and structure.  I was lucky enough to walk in it with the older arrangement and it was infinitely more exciting.  Now you just look over it and we weren’t even allowed to go down to the old city level “due to lack of staff”.  If you do go, make sure to go to the equally disappointing museum of Prehistoric Santorini first so you at least get to see all “the good stuff” which they didn’t leave at Akrotiri.  Strange how Greeks keep going on about the Elgin marbles being in London as they do exactly the same thing to all their antiquities, sending the most important finds to Athens or other more central museums.
    3. Pretty much anything else anywhere on this horrible island.  Terrible roads run through a poster child of how tourism completely destroys an area.  Complete anarchy with rooms, villas or any other description of places to stay a night thrown anywhere they can, rubbish everywhere and a barren scenery with none of the magic of the Cyclades.
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    (Donkey dung, rubbish and one hell of a view: Santorini in a nutshell)

    I would not put Santorini in my Top10 best Greek islands to visit before you die.  Probably not even the top20.  It is an environmental disaster with no water or power supply of its own, no infrastructure for the huge amounts of rubbish or other waste. In fact power and water outages are common in the summer. A day excursion from a cruise ship is more than enough to see the caldera.  Move on after that to somewhere worth your money and time, somewhere without people that have such a short term approach to tourism.  In many ways Santorini is the perfect illustration of modern Greek tourism.  Everyone we spoke to, over worked, underpaid employees crammed into terrible housing and getting paid 600-700 euro a month, marvel how the tourists keep coming.  A small dose of tzatziki can set you back 9 euro or more and room prices are even more crazy. 

    The whole premise of visiting this island hangs on a shoe string thanks to it’s one saving natural grace, the only thing they can’t destroy.  So come see it before they find a way to ruin even that.  

  • No, I’m not burning alive: What you need to know about Greek wildfires

    No, I’m not burning alive: What you need to know about Greek wildfires

    1. We have a lot of forest. Since the second world war Greece’s forest coverage has increased. I remember the first time I went walking in England with an Ordnance Survey map how shocked I was that every single tree was on the map. This would be impossible in Greece, we have a lot of wild forests, vast forests even near big cities like Athens.
    2. People and property are (thankfully) rarely truly in danger. Sure, in Mati a few years ago, a unique combination of inept politicians and other issues caused a tragedy. But in general, even though fires go near houses, they rarely burn them. Partly because in Greece we build earthquake resistant houses with cement, not wooden toy houses like in America.
    3. Fires are started by either the power company (pylons in forested areas badly maintained causing sparks), people burning old fields or spare material and cigarettes which are often thrown out of cars awaiting the right heat and wind combination. There has been very limited and not really convincing evidence of foreign powers or other conspiracies.
    4. Greece has awesome firefighting capabilities. If you could see the recent fire that came within 500meters of my home you would be impressed. Watching the scene from above I almost pitied the fire, it was like a scene from a film with a constant stream of firefighting helicopters, airplanes and drones attacking it. Targeted shots right on whatever little flame dared appear. It never had a chance. Also importantly the coordination of these vehicles and land firefighters is much improved recently.
    5. The media always hypes things up. They will do anything for an impressive shot. Go to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere and title it “houses burning” or find an old car someone left in the forest to say that “property destroyed”. Anything you see on the news…cut it by half at least. Also combine it with increased risk aversion on the part of government officials, the “better safe than sorry” approach which I guess is justified. We get evacuation messages even if there is very very little danger.
    6. Yes, this is global warming. Of course it is. Erratic rains late in the summer ensure a lush undergrowth and then extreme heat turns it into tinder. Get to Greece on holiday as soon as possible, last chance to see before it gets turned into one big desert. Unless we all think of something clever (and DO something) we have maybe 10-20 years of it still being the paradise that it is.
    Me and the media. They are looking for a dramatic shot and I am looking for trouble trying to persuade them to be more accurate in their reports
  • The best thing on my holiday you can do at home

    The best thing on my holiday you can do at home

    Instagram dictates modern tourism, learn how to use it

    It was our last day in Reykjavik and we headed past the scenic old port.  To a simulator.  That’s right.  After two weeks in Iceland and a whole lot of very impressive experiences, we went to a helicopter fly-over machine.  We had been on glaciers, inside volcanos, seen more waterfalls than you can imagine exist but here we were strapping ourselves in to a typical such ride.  It moves, it sprinkles you, blows air on you and you get a completely unique new view on the sights you have already seen as well as many you will never be able to.  It also features good weather which helps explain why it took so long to film it.  At the end they offer the typical cheesy fake photos of you in front of the Northern Lights or other options for anyone with too much cash.

    If you only have fifteen minutes to experience Iceland I can think of no better way.  And you could have the same film anywhere in the world.  But the cheesy photos kill it.

    One of the reasons Iceland is so popular lately is because it is Instagramable.  You just point at any of their attractions, take a photo and can be sure of a stream of likes and comments.  That simple.  You will look good.  It is unusual.  You seem interesting and adventurous.  It stands out in their social media.  I first experienced this effect last year in Norway.

    It is much safer than it looks. To the left of my friend Shorty in this pic I took is a ledge from which you can climb onto the rock.

    This is just a rock. I can think of a thousand equally impressive views in Greece where we could add a rock like this for Instagram.  And even though thousands of people probably post the exact same photo, mine still got hundreds of likes and comments.  So why don’t we go about putting rocks for photos in more places?  Make it as safe as you want, just make sure it looks impressive.  And make it easy for the photographer to get to the right angle.  It is more important these days than the actual experience.  People don’t care how you got there, if you cheated or took a ride, nobody will check.  “Pics or it didn’t happen” only refers to the finish line, the final result.  No matter if you posed for ten minutes or waited two hours for the clouds to lift, the sun to be at the right place or whatever else you needed to do.

    I think someone has actually died falling off this rock, but it still rare considering how many thousands of people go there and pull silly stunts like me there

    In fact if I had one criticism of Iceland and the way they have set up their national parks it is that they don’t have enough photo opportunities.  Too many of those great waterfalls have fenced off the ideal semi-dangerous-looking spot or the ideal photo angle position.  Nobody has (yet) fallen off that rock in the picture.  This other one (with me jumping) I think one person did; too many think it is cool to dangle their feet off the ledge.  Why? Because someone posted it on Instagram! In a way it may actually be the Norwegian Tourist Board’s fault that person fell off.  If only they had set up the angle for photography better.  He wouldn’t have to go so close to the ledge for an impressive photo.

    Me in front of a waterfall. Not even a famous waterfall, no filters, just a good angle.

    The currency is “likes”.  No point complaining, that is how it goes.Work with it.  It is the most natural viral promotion there is.  People take the photo, others are envious and want to go get their own ultra likeable photo.  No need to chase so called “influencers”.  Instagrammable locations work like a pyramid, sucking in more and more people.  Even the ones that didn’t like or comment are opening a Google search about travelling to that destination in another tab.  Come on, admit it, you probably started back at half way through this article when you saw my picture of my friend on that rock…

    .

    (If anyone in tourism needs my help making their location more Instagrammable, feel free to contact me.)

  • Time travel now available in Greece

    Time travel now available in Greece

    Many of my friends think I hate Greece.  It is true I am very tough on its people, businesses and government.  I openly support the famous marbles from the Parthenon taken by Lord Elgin staying in the British Museum.  I fully justified austerity measures as well deserved.  I even downplayed the massive recent success of containing the pandemic by claiming it is mainly due to the fact that hundreds of thousands of lazy civil servants are happy to officially do nothing and get paid for it whilst others are simply protecting older people because they live off those pensions.  I am also a vocal critic of Greek tourism, always harping on about the lack of infrastructure, short term profit causing destruction and horrible rate of decay of anything Greek tourism touches in its unplanned and unregulated ways.

    But right now it is pure bliss.

    I just got back from a five day stint around Central Greece.  Kudos to my partner and all the kids that tag along, we just hop in a car and follow our hearts.  Feel like walking to a spectacular waterfall?  I was in Norway last summer but we can compete with the best of them.  Prefer an alpine valley, do you want to camp under the stars?  You got it!  Some of the least light polluted places in Europe are in the Greek mountains.  And of course if you want beaches, heck, we have all kinds of beaches.  Not just the ones you see on the posters.  Beaches with sand, beaches with pebbles, “I want a beach to find pretty stuff to make a necklace” said my daughter and hey presto, here you go darling, I just needed to drive around a couple more corners.

    The real treasure right now however is the freedom.  You get that beach to yourself.  You can walk all day and not meet a soul.  All the tourism infrastructure is there and working, just without all the tourists.  It is a unique opportunity.  A friend once explained to me that the Greeks that own most seaside resorts are actually descendants of the least able offspring of people that lived in mountain villages.  Back then, cultivatable land was the prize.  So the second son got the lots by the sea which were considered worthless.  I liked the theory, it justified all the damage I have seen done to these places over the years by short term thinkers out for a fast buck, the ones that like to take advantage of tourists.

    Well the good news is that they are not around now.  It is mainly the more modern, friendly, better grounded hospitality operators that decided to make a go of it right now.  The long term thinkers.  The ones you will like.  If there is one cafe open in the village, it is the nice one.  Add to that freshness the fact that nature is refreshed through quarantine keeping humans away for a couple of months and this is the most ….springy Greek spring ever.  

    So take it from someone that isn’t afraid to say it as it is even when it annoys all my Greek friends.  Right now is truly the best Greece anyone has seen in the past half-century.  If you visited a long time ago, you know what I am on about.  If you don’t just take my word for it and visit Greece as soon as possible.  This won’t last forever I’m afraid and I will have to go back to bitching about it again…

  • Lightly disguised insults

    At Miletus, the people aren’t stupid.  But they always seem to do the things that stupid people would do.

    (Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle quoting)

  • Losing track of our sites

    At a place called Elis, there was a building in the marketplace.  It looked like a temple, had no walls and its roof was supported by columns of oak.  I asked the local people about this and they all agree it is a memorial, but nobody remembers what it is commemorating!

    Guide to Greece – Pausanias