When it comes to plan a holiday in Greece, your first major challenge will be deciding where to start. You could spend months travelling through this fascinating country and still feel you’ve only just scratched the surface of its treasure trove of natural and archaeological wonders. Cheap flights, affordable cruises round the Greek islands and package holiday deals have combined to give the masses access to a land of legends previously beyond their reach. Until the 1960s only wealthy yachties, flower-power hippies and adventurous backpackers had the pleasure of exploring the countless delights of the Greek mainland and islands. These days more than 12 million foreign visitors pour into the country each year, aided by an ever-increasing number of tour operators, car hire firms and charter flight companies all falling over themselves in a bid to exploit the potential of one of the world’s most alluring holiday destinations. Some of the best budget air fares are to be found on the Internet so it’s worth taking the time to scout around before you hand your money over to a high street agent. The UK currently has more than a dozen airports from which you can fly straight to your Greek holiday destination. These include Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Bristol, East Midlands, Manchester and Newcastle. Plumping for a cheap charter flight means you won’t get all the creature comforts of a scheduled service.but just think of all that extra cash you’ll have to spend on ouzo and souvlakim, If comfort is more important to you than a cheap air fare you’ll probably want to book a scheduled flight. The national airline of Greece, Olympic Airways, serves a worldwide network of destinations including New York, Johannesburg, Sydney, Bahrain and Toronto.
 If you pay more for an Olympian Executive Class ticket you’ll enjoy all sorts of extra goodies including access to a VIP lounge at Athens and other international airports, priority baggage collection, a choice of menu and an extensive in-flight entertainment programme. Olympic Airways has regular domestic flights connecting many of the Greek islands but it’s an expensive way to island-hop. You’ll be better off getting a cheap flight to Athens then island-hopping by boat or hunt around for a low-cost plane ticket directly to one of the islands. Greece has a total of 16 international airports the busiest being, of course, Athens which handles all intercontinental air traffic. Thessaloniki in northern Greece handles both scheduled and charter flights from several European destinations including London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Istanbul. Iraklio Airport on the island of Crete has a scheduled service to and from Amsterdam and also handles a large number of charter flights. Crete also has another international airport at Hania which solely handles charter services. Other international airports can be found on the islands of Mykonos, Santorini, Kos, Karpathos, Samos, Skiathos, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. These airports are used largely by British, German and Scandinavian package holidaymakers. To reach the Ionian island of Lefkada you can fly into Aktion International Airport on the west coast of Central Greece. The island is connected to the mainland by a drawbridge and is only a 30-minute bus ride from the airport. The international airport at Hrysoupolis in Macedonia gives easy access to the northernmost of the North Eastern Aegean Islands, Thassos and Samothraki.
There is nowhere else in the world like Greece and the Greek islands for the summer and every year I try to find the best and cheapest way of getting there. Keeping in mind that airlines sell blocks of tickets at different prices, obviously the cheap seats go first so it is to your advantage to book early. How much can you save. By booking early you can find a ticket for peak season for about $900 from the USA to Athens. Less in the off season If you wait that same ticket may cost you. If you are going to Greece between now and late summer you can get incredible deals if you book at the right time but they get less incredible the longer you wait. By going to Greece in the off-season when you won’t be doing much sunbathing but you can do a lot more exploring you can find flights from the USA. Cheap flights to Greece are readily available in these days of package holiday tourism which has seen air fares falling and flight numbers soaring in recent years. You can fly direct to mainland Greece and many of the islands from several European destinations, securing a low cost flight either independently or as part of a package deal. Unfortnately with the taxes and sir-charges these now come out to about $800 and even this price takes some searching for. There are a number of companies that advertise with paid ads on various travel pages and by visiting their websites and filling out the forms you can find bargains. I recommend shopping around because what one site has, another may not. Some sites where you fill out the form and pick specific dates you should try a variety of dates to get the best price because a cheap seat that is sold out on one flight may be available on another. For those flying from the USA you can visit David at www.greeceflights.com and he does the work for you and comes back with a price.
People flying from the UK or other European cities are better off either booking locally or again looking for google ads for cheap flights on travel sites. Same with those in Australia. In Europe check with airlines like Ryan-Air, Easyjet, Air Scotland, British Air, Olympic and Condor among others. There are also ads in the travel sections of some newspapers for cheap seats on charter flights that have not been filled.You would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not realize that many airlines are in trouble. (Just check out the food they serve these days) So what happens if you have a flight to Greece and the airline shuts down, or the pilots go on strike. Probably you are out of luck. The Greek Islands offer all things to all people. There are the unashamedly hedonistic party playgrounds such as Mykonos, Kos and Ios. There are tranquil, unspoilt islands where rural life continues much as it has done for centuries. And there are islands that offer something for everyone – such as Rhodes and Corfu where you can party around-the-clock or roam the hillsides far from the madding crowds But that does not mean it can’t happen in the future and the way things are going it could happen more frequently. Anyway for what it costs it seems like a good idea. It’s about 5% of the cost of your trip.Greece has the longest coastline of any European country, its islands number more than 2,000 (though only about 100 are inhabited) and its awesome array of ancient sites are unrivalled anywhere in the world. The wondrous legacies of Ancient Greece are too numerous to take in during a two-week holiday, even if you spend the entire time dashing from one archaeological site to another. There’s the Parthenon in Athens, the most famous ancient monument in the world, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the stadium at Olympia where the first Olympic games were held in 776 BC, the almost perfectly preserved 4th century BC amphitheatre of Epidaurus. In fact the list is endless; wherever you turn in Greece there’s another ancient wonder waiting to take your breath away. Everywhere there are reminders of that golden age when Greece gave birth to western civilisation and spawned the greatest philosophers, artists, poets, scientists, healers and warriors of the ancient world.