Have Backpack – Will Travel

When our year in Costa Rica was coming to a close around April/May, we started researching options for travel in Central America for a week or two before heading back up north to Canada. Our shortlist of countries consisted of Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama. However, safety issues deterred us from travelling with the kids to Guatemala and we found that plane tickets were pricey flying to Nicaragua or Panama from Costa Rica. (There was also the option of travelling overland from Costa Rica to either of the two neighbouring countries but Gabriel gets carsick quite easily and we felt that he had endured enough long car journeys over the last 12 months.) With Central American travel being out of the equation, we focused our research on the rest of the globe.

Europe

We started brainstorming the possibility of taking the kids to the place where we met to celebrate our anniversary. Mélanie is a black belt at working the travel websites and found some options to fly to either Belgium or Greece at very reasonable rates from Montréal. The timing for Greece worked better for us so we booked a charter flight from Montréal to Athens, and informed the kids that we would be backpacking in the Greek Islands for two weeks. (A screening of the movie “Mamma Mia!”, which was filmed on the islands of Skopelos and Skiathos, helped them visualize the destination.)

The bags that we brought are small enough to have them categorized as “day packs” rather than “backpacks”.

Each of our kids had their own little bag to carry some toys and a book. Naimah’s bag was so small that it could contain just her blanket and two Barbie dolls.   

With only the first two nights in Athens booked, we headed to Greece with some guidebooks in hand and a completely open itinerary.