As a travel destination, Greece is not a hard sell. Greece had a permanent spot at the top of my bucket list. When we got around to making the trip happen, I wanted to ensure that it would be a good choice as a destination with kids… and it absolutely did not disappoint. I’m a firm believer in keeping the travel options pretty wide with kids, rather than limiting to a small number of “kid-friendly” destinations. However, there are, undoubtedly, pros and cons to traveling with kids in different destinations across the world. Here, I’ll give you my take on the pros and cons of traveling the Greek Isles with young kids. Before I dive in, a disclaimer is needed here. The Greek islands are extremely numerous and varied. I don’t have the experience or knowledge to review even a small portion of the islands. My review is based on our family’s weeks-long experience in Athens, Naxos, and Paros. Crete was also high on my list, but didn’t make the itinerary due to the longer travel distance to reach it. One of my kid-specific goals for this trip was to minimize travel time once we reached Greece (e.g., no additional flights or time in airports, ferry durations we considered reasonable).
Kid-friendly Greece (the good stuff):
- Greeks love children. While there are always exceptions, we found that people were exceptionally friendly with our kids, even offering small treats and consistently going out of their way to be kind. We were ushered to the front of the lines in the Athens airport on both the arriving and departing sides.
- Allergy considerations. While this isn’t a kid-specific issue, a kid with allergies is definitely a parent-specific issue. This is information I wanted but didn’t have before taking this trip. We had great luck on this topic in Greece, pretty much without exception. In the U.S. (our home base), packaged food is labeled well, and waiters and waitresses can typically answer questions about common allergens. With that said, we’ve run into many people who are either too annoyed to check, or don’t really know where to find the answer (I’m not speaking to what’s legal, just to what actually happens in the real world). I’ve especially had trouble at airports in the U.S, oddly enough… who wants to have an allergic reaction as they board an airplane?! Gah!!). In Greece, we found that people took allergies (even mild ones) very seriously. People were careful and thorough, but also didn’t err on the side of caution inaccurately as we’ve seen other places (we’ve sometimes run into nope, can’t have that because I don’t want to check the ingredient list so I’ll guess it’s a no-go). Aside from having to translate packaged foods that didn’t list English ingredients within grocery stores on occasion, navigating food allergies was more straightforward in Greece compared to the United States.
- Playgrounds. While in Greece, we stumbled upon two playgrounds without specifically seeking them out. Our kids LOVED them. For example, we found a playground near one of our favorite lunch spots (Piatsa Estiatorio). The playground was fenced in and had fairly basic play equipment and full sun, but a toddler everywhere loves a playground anywhere. They made friends and we made friends. It really is a beautiful way to meet people, and we got some additional good toddler-specific recommendations from a family we met at the park. In Athens, we visited the huge playground at the Athens National Garden (worth a trip with or without a stop at the playground). This playground was incredible. It had great shade, gated, tons of spread out play space, and play equipment for a wide range of ages). I also loved hearing 4+ languages spoken at the park. Such a neat place!
- Beaches. For toddlers who love the beach like mine do, there are plenty of beautiful, shallow water beaches. We spent a lot of time at the beaches, which varied from pebble to sand. Our kids loved them all!
Kid-specific considerations (the tough stuff):
- Not super stroller friendly. I’m in the minority here, but we’re not a huge stroller family at home, and I travel without one whenever I can, despite loving my travel stroller. My kids enjoy walking and exploring… and I want to promote that. Although it’s not always easy, doing this helps little kids practice regulating and learning how far they can and should roam from their caregivers. We loved baby carriers when our kids were smaller. Currently, my youngest is little enough to easily carry in-arms (age 3) and my older child walks distances pretty well (age 5). Our fail-safe is a piggy-back or even shoulder ride in a pinch. Aside from those preferences, strollers aren’t totally ideal in Greece. Like many historic areas in Europe, there are tonsss of cobblestone streets and stairs throughout much of the walking terrain (this same issue makes rolling luggage hard at times too). A stroller would have been a little tough to navigate. We also took some walks on some of the islands where dirt roads and rocky paths would have made a stroller unusable. The last thing I want to do is carry a kid and a stroller, no matter how tiny it folds up.
- Transportation and car seats. In my opinion, the toughest part about traveling with babies and toddlers is ground transportation. Being in a place with good public transit (think subway, metro, train) is really helpful. For this reason, we chose lodging in Athens that was near metro stops and did not rent a car there. I was really happy with that decision. We had some long walks to see everything we wanted to see, but each one was pretty doable and our itinerary was pretty flexible in Athens. In Paros and Naxos, I knew we wanted to rent a car, because of (1) more limited public transit, (2) the freedom to see everything we wanted to see while there and not be bound to a bus schedule, and (3) to choose the hotel/accommodations we wanted most, rather than limiting geographically to tie us to public transit lines. Renting a car was generally pretty easy and seamless, but renting car seats (directly from the rental companies) came with one hiccup. With one of the companies, they didn’t initially have car seats that were compatible with the car. Of note, this issue would not have been solved by bringing our own car seats, as the cars in Greece had neither the auto-lock mechanism on the car seatbelts nor the hook attachments in the vehicles needed to attach the type we have at home. I was SO glad we didn’t lug our car seats on a long travel day only to then not be able to use them at all! Once we had this issue solved, all went smoothly with rental cars in both places!
Overall, we found Greece to be extremely kid-friendly. We love introducing our kids to a new place, a new language, and incredibly gorgeous scenery. Greece fit the bill in every way. Highly recommend! Happy travels!