as promised . . .

so my parents are planning to come visit me in june; since this is the case, and since i would like more people to come visit me, i am going to post a couple of blogs on traveling to greece and things that you should know and be aware of. i'll try to cover things like, what airports to travel through, things to do based on different trip durations, things to do based on different interests, when to come, a few cultural tid-bits that i have noticed, expenses, and i will try to answer any questions that i get on the comment screens. it'll be like my own little guidebook.

so we'll start from the beginning, flying. first we'll begin with buying tickets and what they should cost.

-tickets are pretty easy, basically you will most likely get a ticket that has two stops, one in the states and one in europe. now as far as cost is concerned, depending on where you are flying from, how inconvenienced you care to be, and when you want to travel, prices can differ by literally hundreds of dollars.

good price: 800-900, if you find prices in this range quit your job sell your house, rob a bank, whatever you need to do, come and visit.

bad price: anything over 1300, i am really not worth this much money; buy yourself something pretty.

-ok next, where to fly to, from, and through.
>best airports
cleveland- small, easy, and on time
columbus- amazingly nice and comfortable
vegas- big but easy
washington d.c. (kinda dingy and dirty, but organized)
munich- small, beautiful, and german efficiency
athens- easy, clean, and good location
thessaloniki- tiny and easy

>worst airports
jfk- disorganized, epically huge, and consistently late (unfortunately a major hub of east coast delta
rome- italian, ummm . . . yeah (sorry if you are offended, there are just a lot of problems; however, it has been redesigned since i went through so it could be a bit better)
frankfurt- hopefully sarah won't hurt me but it is old, dirty, dark and too small for the volume of flights

every other airport i have been to lies somewhere in-between. and this list does not mean that everything will be perfect at the good airports and that everything will go poorly at the bad airport, these are just my observations.

now for the airlines
>best airlines
delta- delta is not actually that great but it is one of the main airlines that flies to athens or thessaloniki.
british airways- nice airline good food (they do charge for multiple bags and they are sticklers about one carry on)
aegean- great all around airline

>worst airlines
olimpic- epically bad (under new management, could be better in a couple of years)
alitalia- again epically bad. they will loose your baggage.

again, these observations really mean nothing you can have good experiences on bad airline and a bad experience on a good airline.

there is the start, you can now shop for tickets with ease and peace of mind. haha that is if you trust my judgment. maybe we'll do important places to visit in greece next. don't feel like you have to wait though, come and see me, i'll give you the personal tour.

peace love and happiness