One of our best travel experiences EVER! Thank you Greece Insiders!
Going to Greece? Want a travel agent? If so, I highly recommend Greece Insiders! I planned a multigenerational family trip to Greece that included young children (7y and 10y), young adults (22/23), and adults in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Unfortunately, my parents who are in the 70s couldn’t make the trip due to a last minute health issue but it turns out that’s for the best as they aren’t as mobile as they used to be and many of the areas we went wouldn’t have been navigable for them.
Back to the travel agency experience though… I had worked with a couple other travel agents when trying to plan our trip. I like to call my travel style Selective Luxury or Cost Conscious Luxury. Meaning, I want luxury experiences, but money is an object. I don’t want to spend much more than I need to for luxury experiences, but I’m ok spending a bit more to get a luxury experience and to ensure the get the level of service and experience that we expect. That makes it difficult to work with some travel agents. It seems like travel agents fall in two camps: 1) bulk travel agents who basically have a cookie cutter plan that they effectively try to force fit you in for their efficiency, or 2) full service luxury travel agents who do amazing things but don’t want to talk unless you’re willing to effectively give them a blank check. I initially tried Amex Travel, and I had good experience with them on some domestic trips, but in this case I kept finding travel agents that only fell in the two categories above. I needed something in the middle. Then I came across Greece Insiders via KimKim. Chris was our agent. HE WAS AMAZING.
He took the time to understand what we’re trying to do, who was going on the trip with us, what types of experiences we were most interested in. He gave me a lot of options to start with so he could start seeing what I was drawn to. There were things that immediately resonated, things that didn’t and stuff in between. But he continuously learned our style and expectations. He was also flexible… Remember those categories of travel agents above? It seems like neither of those two categories are willing to work with you if you want to book any lodging via AirBnB or similar sites. They have their own channels they prefer and those channels typically have minimum stays of a week or more. In our case, our trip was going to be 10 days split between 3 places – Athens, Mykonos, and Santorini. I wanted luxury accommodations, preferably homes with swimming pools, hot tubs, several bedrooms, at least two master bedrooms, several bathrooms, and large gathering spaces where we could eat and hang out. So we had very specific expectations. I was able to find places in all three locations that fit the bill through our favorite short-term rental site. Chris was more than happy to work with that and was able to even work with the owners/managers to help us coordinate chefs and other services that we had come in occasionally on specific days.
He pulled together the perfect vacation for us. It had the right amount of activity, relaxation time, exploration, and experiences. I would absolutely recommend Greece Insiders and Chris in particular. FABULOUS!