Greece & Italy Vacation With Kids
We just got back from the most magical trip we’ve ever taken: Greece & Italy! And, yes we brought our kids! I love making summer memories with our kids and now that my oldest is about to be a sophomore, I realized there are only a few precious years left of us all being able to travel together. Of course I know there is a chance we can still travel together when the kids are grown, but it’s not a guarantee as adults have jobs and don’t get the summers off. We are going to soak up as much time with our kids as we can for as many years as we can! Copy our itinerary for a Greece and Italy vacation with kids.
How We Could Afford A Trip Like This
With credit card points! I am new to the world of credit card points. I opened a new card back in October and had to rack up enough points within the first 3 months of opening the card to get the 150,000 points bonus. We always pay off our credit cards every month, so we were able to meet this goal just by charging everything and paying it off. Once the points came through we booked the trip using our points during a period where they had a bonus where each point was worth 1.5 points when you booked through the travel portal. This card will also get you 100,000 bonus points if you use my referral link!
What We Packed
We wanted to bring backpacks and to pack light. We had a total of 9 (!!!) flights this trip and weren’t sure of the luggage size requirements on some of the smaller airlines. Plus, sometimes it’s easier to carry the bags rather than roll them through European cobblestone streets. It was a last minute decision and I kind of wished we had done small roller bags like these instead, but it was fine (and definitely got a good rucking workout in this vacation!). My husband, oldest son, and I each had this one, and my two younger boys both just used their school backpacks. We always buy Jansport because they have a lifetime warranty (no matter where you buy it from)! Every summer I send their bags to Jansport to fix and rips or zippers, and they always repair them for free (or send us a brand new backpack).
I never travel without these packing cubes. There are about 1 million choices out there, and we got these many, many years ago when there weren’t may choices, but I still love them because they are color-coded! There are 5 of us and we each get our own color (I bought the blue, green, red, gray, and black since there are 5 of us). They have a mesh side that lets all the air out as well.
My husband uses this one, and I use this one.
What we packed
I bought this sample pack of deodorants before our trip and brought one along (it’s the perfect size for travel!) Make sure you throw one in your purse if you’re out and about doing a lot of walking. You will be sweaty and smelly and be very glad you have your trusty purse deodorant with you!
We packed these water shoes (little kids/toddler size) (big kids/adult size) because I had heard the beaches in Greece and Italy were more rocky than sandy. The boys liked them a lot but didn’t wear them after a while. My husband and I loved them and wore them each beach day!
I always bring this mini sound machine for hotels and travel.
We packed 4 of these outlet adapters.
Definitely bring these if you have any boat rides planned! They saved us in Santorini!
If you plan on doing a lot of walking (you will!) definitely bring this Epsom salt foot rub! It’s amazing! I used it after our long days at Disneyland last summer and was so glad I remembered to bring it along with me on this trip as well!
This was the purse I brought and it was the perfect size! It could hold so much without feeling huge, it had so many pockets, it could easily fit our 5 passports, and it is so easy to clean.
What we packed
This was the perfect plane tote/beach bag for our trip. It’s waterproof and washable and could hold a ton, plus had convenient side pockets all the way around. Lots of colors/patterns available and very affordable.
We also brought this little day pack for carrying our waters while out on our tours.
Keep a small pack of wipes in your day pack or purse, even if you don’t have a baby! These came in so handy so many times.
Other useful items that are always in my purse: hand sanitizer, lip balm, sunglasses, mini purse game, card/cash holder, headache meds.
This was the sunscreen set we used (body, face, and aloe).
As far as shoes goes, my youngest only wore their Crocs the entire trip! My oldest wore his Crocs but also wore some sneakers. I wore these comfy sneakers, and packed these sandals for hiking/beach days and then a fancier sandal for our nice dinners out.
We all brought portable chargers for our phones. This one is cool if you have different styles of phones and need different types of plugs.
These are the softest pajamas and I just love that they were called “Santorini”! I had to bring them to Santorini of course.
These are the goggles my youngest wears and all three boys ended up slipping them on when we saw some eels swimming nearby one day!
I was planning on doing laundry on our last day in Santorini, so I packed these thin laundry detergent sheets. This tiny little clothesline is also helpful if you have to do laundry in the sink at your hotel.
Flight Necessities/Tips
If you are ok with taking melatonin, I highly recommend giving the whole family one so on the flight so everyone can sleep! I also bought these Jet Lag pills and started those a day before we left.
This little toddler plane “bed” worked so well for my youngest! I also used this little foot hammock and it was really nice!
We tried many different neck pillows for our red-eye flight as well, and decided the inflatable ones were the best. I like how the inflatable ones pack down small, plus they even come with an eye mask!
These are new earbuds I got for our trip and I watched almost the entire series of Emily In Paris on the trip.
Get one of these adapters if you want to be able to use your headphones with the in-flight screen.
My kids mostly used screens on the flights, but we also packed these pop-it toys, this toy, this toy, this sticker book, crossword puzzle book, a hidden pictures book, and these folding puzzles (these were a 10/10 hit with my 13 year old!)
Don’t forget to download any shows/movies/music you and your kids might want for the flights!
Do you always get stuffy/sneezy on flights because of how dry the air feels? Having a saline spray and saline gel helped tremendously! This is my new favorite thing to do while flying. I used this to try and prevent getting sick on the trip. It worked for the most part! I started feeling like I was maybe coming down with a cold on the very last flight back to Austin, but I was fine after 2 days.
Jet Lag Tips
One of these best tips I can share is to use the Time Shifter app! You tell it your travel plans and it tells you when you should start shifting your bed time and awake times to help the time change transition. It’s really smart and if you’re able to accommodate the recommended sleep/awake schedule, it really helps eliminate jet lag!
Athens
Where We Stayed
We stayed at the New Hotel and it was perfect! We could walk everywhere we wanted to go, all around the city, and never stepped foot inside a vehicle until it was time for our shuttle ride to the airport! Which is a good thing because on our last day in Athens there was a taxi strike!
We loved the uniquely decorated rooms, our balcony, and the rooftop restaurant. There was no free breakfast included, but there was the most conveniently placed little coffee shop stand directly across the street where we grabbed coffee and breakfast every morning.
Transportation
Like I said, we didn’t use any sort of transportation besides our feet while we were in Athens. We did, however, have the hotel schedule us a ride to and from the airport. They selected the company (Golden Limo) and it was a van that could fit all 5 of us, plus our luggage (and even had a booster for our youngest). It was about a 45 minute drive to the airport from our hotel. They told us we would need to pay them in cash, but they were able to accept credit cards.
Athens Itinerary
We chose to have a mix of scheduled tours and free time in Athens and it worked out perfectly. When we first got to our hotel, it was the afternoon, but we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so we wandered around a bit until we ate “linner” (lunch/dinner) at Ta Karamanlidika tou Fani.
After we ate we wandered around the little shops and found a Fish Spa that the kids begged us to do. It was hilarious and definitely a highlight of the trip! The fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet and it is very tickly!
We were all exhausted and went to bed early that first night.
Athens Itinerary
The next day we had booked a food tour through Alternative Athens. It was a fun way to get a little tour of the city while trying all the local favorite food spots. We started off with spanakopita (my favorite), followed by baklava (my husband and oldest son’s favorite). Then we stopped by a bakery and got some bread to bring along with us to the olive oil tasting. My kids actually really liked this! I was surprised they enjoyed it so much. My oldest son declared that he wants to become an olive oil expert now.
After that, we tried souvlaki, donuts, and sat down at a taverna for some family-style dish sharing. It was a ton of food and we were all very very full. It was fun though and I was glad we got to try so many fun things! This is a great option for older kids, teens, and adults. My 7 year old is a picky eater and we had to give him lots of shoulder rides so it’s not really great for little kids. But I’m still glad we did it!
One positive thing that happened after our food tour was that my picky eater 7 year old became emboldened to try some new foods! He requested we stop by this olives stand and tried (and liked!) several kinds of olives!
After our tour, we happened to catch the changing of the guard ceremony outside the Capitol building. This happens every hour on the hour (I’m pretty sure) and it’s free to watch.
Athens Itinerary
The next day we did another Alternative Athens Tour: Athens Highlights Mythology Tour. My big boys have both read the Percy Jackson series, so I made sure to read some Greek Mythology books to my youngest before we came. This was a fantastic tour and also our day we walked the most steps of the whole trip, so make sure you have comfortable walking shoes on!
It was also our last day in Athens, so when the tour was over we did some more unplanned wandering around. We found ourselves at the Botanical Garden, which also had a playground! I always love to see what playgrounds in other countries look like compared to ours in the US.
Fun Facts About Athens
It’s cheap! I found that on the whole, Athens is much less expensive than I was expecting, and a lot cheaper than Santorini or the rest of our trip. It’s even cheaper than back home in Austin!
You can drink the tap water here! In fact, I don’t think the airport even has those water bottle fillers. If you ask for one, they will just direct you to use the bathroom sinks! Our hotel and tour guides also confirmed that the tap water is safe to drink, so that’s what we did.
If you or anyone you’re traveling with uses a c-pap machine or needs distilled water for any reason, you are out of luck! There is no such thing in Athens (or Greece or the Amalfi Coast for that matter!). My husband just used bottled water for his c-pap.
In Greece, you can’t flush the toilet paper, you have to throw it in the trash.
Speaking of fava beans, did you know that they don’t really eat hummus in Greece?! They make it out of fava beans instead of chickpeas or garbanzo beans! Hummus is more of a middle eastern food than Greek.
There are cats everywhere! They aren’t really feral, all the shop keepers and locals feed and take care of them, but they roam around everywhere.
Santorini
Where We Stayed
We booked a stay at Acro Blue Luxury Villas in the Superior Villa. We had 3 bedrooms, our own pool, our own hot tub, and breakfast was included. It was such a lovely place to stay! They also greeted us with fresh juice and fruit when we arrived, and made sure we had breakfast in our fridge for our last day since we were leaving earlier than the kitchen opened. They were so nice and helpful and even did our laundry (for an extra fee, paid in cash only). This cost us about $5 Euros extra than if we were to find a laundromat and do it ourselves, but it was so worth it to come home from a day adventuring and have a huge stack of clean, folded laundry waiting for us!
Transportation
We had the hotel book us a ride from the airport which was very convenient but also very expensive. We also learned that to get around, we would either need to rent a car or book a shuttle service. The shuttle cost was as much for one day as a rental car for our entire stay would have been, so we decided to rent a car. Driving there isn’t easy (there are no rules! No lights! You have to just go for it and it is stressful!) but it saved us quite a bit of money to drive ourselves and since it wasn’t busy season yet we decided to go for it. Plus they do drive on the right side of the road which was a bit easier.
Santorini Itinerary
We had booked a dinner reservation in Oia, which is at the top of the island. Our hotel was at the bottom of the island (about a 45 min drive away). Oia has the most beautiful views, especially at sunset. We ate at OiaGefsis, which has a spectacular view and amazing food. This was our one pre-planned “fancy” dinner of the trip where we made the boys wear their nice clothes and made a reservation. Turns out, we eat much earlier than most people and the crowds really start coming for sunset, so we didn’t really need a reservation.
Santorini Itinerary
The next day we wanted to hit the beach! Our hotel recommended that we try Perissa Beach (the black beach) since it was close and kid-friendly. I’m so glad we went there! This was one of my favorite days of the trip. We parked right on the beach at one of the restaurants that were right there was was the perfect situation. We got free umbrella chairs, plus they came over and took our food/drinks order and we could use their bathroom the whole day. The food was delicious and some of my favorite from the trip (try the cheese pie with honey)! The restaurant was called Sunny J and it was so family-friendly and perfect for us! They even had some kids toys in the restaurant and we got to meet the owner’s kids at one point.
The boys wanted to ride jet skis, so we walked a little ways down the beach to inquire about that. You have to be 18 to drive one, so we decided to let them do the raft that gets pulled by the boat and they loved that!
That night we went to the town Fira for dinner at Nikolas. Ask for Dimitri! It was a lovely experience. He even helped us fulfill a quest we had of finding the exact spot my Papa had painted from a photo he took while vacationing in Santorini 40 years ago!
Santorini Itinerary
On our last day, we had booked a boat ride. I wish we had just done this through Akrotiri Daily Cruise instead, since that was more what we were looking for. Instead we did a very expensive and long 5 hour boat ride that didn’t even let you go to any of the beaches. We were allowed to jump into the sea and swim around when we stopped for a while, but the water was freezing. I also got really seasick, so I highly recommend getting these patches if you decide to do a boat ride (even if you think you’re not one to get seasick).
Akrotiri Daily Cruise can be found next to Cave of Nikolas seafood restaurant at Akrotiri 847 00, Greece.
Naples
We flew from Santorini back to Athens and then from Athens to Naples. In Naples, we had planned on storing our luggage at the airport so we could take a taxi and go have pizza, since it’s the city where pizza originated from. Unfortunately, the luggage storage was full when we arrived and you were out of luck unless you had pre-booked it online ahead of time (we did not).
We lugged all our luggage with us into a taxi and found one of the first pizza places in Naples. Luckily they had enough room inside to seat us and all our belongings. I’m so glad we went to Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba instead of just any pizza place, because the pizza was as good as I had hoped it would be. Probably my favorite meal of the trip!
We then made our way back to the Naples airport (which has a playground by the way!) to wait for our ride to Positano. We book the Positano Shuttle ahead of time, but I think if I could have done it differently I would have booked Day Trip instead.
Positano
Where We Stayed
We stayed at Villa Palumbo and it was wonderful! It was so hard to book this portion of the trip, because everything in this area is so expensive and not exactly kid-friendly. We based our decision mostly on location, price, and the reviews (especially the breakfast comments). I love when we get a killer breakfast that’s included, so that was one of my top priorities.
Positano Itinerary
We wanted to spend one day at Pompeii, one day doing a cooking class, and one day at the beach.
Pompeii
We took the Positano Shuttle again and drove to Pompeii for half the day. We booked a tour guide who was great with our kids. It gets very hot there, so I recommend starting early if possible to avoid the hottest part of the day. Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes, hats, sunscreen, and bring water.
On the way back we stopped off along the side of the road at one of the little lemon stands and I’m so glad we did! The lemon slushie we got was a handmade granita made with just lemons and ice and sugar and it was perfect! Way better than those machines that make the granitas at all the restaurants. I’m so glad we stopped (they gave us a free lemon there too!) and I highly recommend. The view was incredible too.
It was a nice break from the long drive and all the winding roads. If you have kids who get car sick, this will be rough for them. I recommend bringing a barf bag and also wearing these motion sick patches for this drive.
Praiano Cooking Class
We booked this excursion through Get Your Guide. The little boat shuttle brought us to the small town of Praiano where we went to a restaurant that did the cooking class. It was wonderful! I highly recommend this for families with kids of all ages! They were very patient and kid-friendly and made it very fun. Our whole family loved this. They give the adults wine and everyone croissants upon arrival. Then you head over to the cooking station where you make pasta dough while the Italian music plays (“Hey Mambo!”) and everyone drinks wine and sings and dances. We made ravioli, tagliatelle, and tiramisu. Make sure you tell them which tiramisu you prefer (lemon or traditional coffee). Then we sat down and had bruschetta and our homemade pasta and tiramisu.
We were also granted access to their “beach” umbrellas and beach for the rest of the afternoon, but there isn’t any sand at this beach so we didn’t stay long. My boys wanted to get back to Positano and go to the real beach, so they called a little water taxi over for us and brought us back.
The Beach at Positano
The beach here is the most beautiful beach, but also very rocky. I highly recommend wearing water shoes. There is also a very small portion of the beach that’s free. If you want an umbrella chair, you’re going to pay (a lot) for it. I think it was $40 Euros/adult (they don’t charge for small kids).
My best tip for a beach day is to go ahead and splurge on an umbrella chair, but save your money elsewhere like food/drinks. We stopped at a cute little deli/market on our walk down to the beach and bought fresh fruit, snacks and drinks. But the best part was the homemade deli sandwiches they will make for you to bring for a picnic lunch at the beach! I also got an onion focaccia bread and I highly recommend one of those too.
We stayed all day at the beach, which also helps to off-set the cost (really get your money’s worth and stay as long as possible). When we got hot and needed an afternoon pick-me-up, my son and I went off in search of lemon granitas and lemon sorbet to bring back to the rest of the family. They serve it inside a lemon which makes it extra special.
I don’t remember the names of the places we ate dinner, but if you ask the locals or your hotel to recommend something you can’t go wrong. Da Vincenzo was the one place that everyone said had the best food, but you need to book a reservation for that one way in advance and we didn’t have one so we never ate there. I wish we had known to book that, but everything we ate was wonderful.
Positano Tips
You can drink the water.
You can flush the toilet paper.
The buses get packed and are hard to figure out. We walked everywhere. It was hard and very steep and very hilly and lots of stairs. But also a great butt workout so…worth it? We had multiple people tell us they hated the bus experience. But if you’re going to stuff yourself with carbs and gelato every day, then maybe the intense incline walking is good for you!
The little lemon stands on the side of the cliffs have cheaper lemon granitas that are homemade and taste better than the machine ones they sell at the pricy cafes closer down by the beach and the shopping.
We brought a lemon home and customs didn’t care. The lemons were as big as my son’s head!
There’s lots of shopping so save room in your suitcase. You are going to want to wear head-to-toe lemons while you’re there.
International Travel Tips
One of our favorite things to do when we travel is to go to a local convenience store or mini mart and buy the local brand of Lays. They always have one or two crazy favors that we don’t have back home and it’s so fun to find the new flavors! We also typically buy a few other chips or candy or snacks from there that we don’t get back home as well. It’s a fun and cheap experience to do when you travel internationally!
I highly recommend you get your passports, even if you don’t have a trip scheduled. It is incredibly stressful and frustrating to try and apply for a passport when you have a deadline, so eliminate the stress by just having them already! Who knows, maybe it will inspire a trip?
Get your currency ahead of time from your local bank! I had to order our Euros from my Chase and they came in the next day. The exchange rate is much better this way! Make sure you ask for plenty of small bills for tips and to give to homeless people (my youngest wanted to give coins to every homeless person we passed by in Athens). Also, when paying with your credit card, make sure you select the currency of the country you’re in (do not select US Dollars!)
If you’re flying on smaller airlines like Easy Jet, small roller bags are ok (bigger ones will have to be checked). Also, don’t pay for “fast lane” (it’s a scam).
International Travel Tips
Keep a small pack of wipes in your day pack or purse, even if you don’t have a baby! These came in so handy so many times.
One of my favorite travel hacks is: if you love your toothpaste but can’t find a mini travel size version of it, empty out another travel tube and then line up the holes of the empty with your regular tube of toothpaste, then squeeze your favorite toothpaste into the empty travel one.
Another thing that useful for prepping for a trip like this is to practice doing squats (for squatting over toilets with no seats) and climbing stairs/doing the stair climbing machine at the gym). We did so many stairs and were very unprepared. I wish I had been “training” for a few months before we went.
Before we left, I read a few books with my youngest to prepare him for the trip. My two older boys have both read and loved the Percy Jackson series, but my youngest is still a few years away from reading that. We read the Where is The Parthenon and What Was Pompeii which were both great at explaining what we were going to see. I also read him some beginning Greek Mythology books.
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