philosophy ..

Greek Argosy travel philosophy

• Foreign travel can be one of life's most profound and enjoyable experiences.
• The closer the connection to local culture, the deeper the experience.
• What we bring to travel strongly affects what we take away.

Feed your mind and senses
Foreign travel can enrich us on two basic levels, the mind and the senses. Historical travel helps us better understand our own humanity by illuminating how we arrived at where we are today. By exposing us to different cultures and alternate modes of life, travel deepens our awareness of the range and possibilities of human experience. At the same time, foreign travel delights our senses with new sights, sounds and flavors. There is no barrier between the mind and senses; both reside primarily between our ears, and the joys of one enhance the joys of the other.

The closer the connection to local culture, the deeper the experience
The small size of our tour group allows us to get closer to authentic Greek culture. We don't have to eat all our meals in big tourist restaurants or sleep in big tourist hotels. We can blend into smaller communities like Chora on the island of Folegandros or Kato Zakros in Crete where the big tour groups can't go. It is true that some tourists may feel they are not getting their money's worth if every minute of their tour is not packed with as many tourist attractions as possible. This type of traveler should probably look elsewhere for a tour of Greece. Several days on the mainland might do it.

Our philosophy is different. If a traveler makes only one trip to Greece in a lifetime, that trip would, of course, be incomplete without a visit to the Parthenon in Athens. But we believe the trip would be equally incomplete without a simple Greek salad made with freshly picked tomatoes, olives plucked from trees growing in a nearby grove, and topped with creamy Feta cheese from goats whose bells are softly tinkling on the hillside. All the better if you can eat this salad under the veranda of a seaside taverna watching a few small boats cast their nets for the evening dinner. This too is essential Greece, but you won't find it on a standard package tour.

Our philosophy includes a belief that travelers should have opportunities to personalize their experience by having time and freedom to explore Greek culture on their own. Still, we understand that visiting a foreign country can be intimidating, so we take measures to minimize the intimidation factor. At the beginning of the tour in Athens, most activities and meals are planned for the entire group. Later, as we move into smaller communities and become more familiar with Greek customs, our travelers will have increased opportunities to choose for themselves.

Travelers may opt to strike out on their own or to join the tour leaders for meals and other activities. We want our folks to feel as though they helped shape their own Greek experience. We hope that by the end of the journey everyone in our group will be a confident traveler who feels comfortable in a foreign culture.

Hop a ferry, not a cruise ship
Although the Greek Argosy tour visits three Greek Islands, it should not be confused with a cruise, which is a very different kind of animal. Cruise ships typically dock at busy ports where passengers disembark en masse to spend a few hours in the most heavily touristed areas of town before returning to the ship and steaming off to the next port.

By contrast, our travelers will eat, drink, sleep and voyage in Greece among Greeks. As a member of the Greek Argosy tour, you will spend two to four days on each island getting to know the local culture, and you will travel among islands the way locals do, aboard Greek ferries. Ferries are the vital circulatory system of the islands; each week they make hundreds of stops to provide island residents with transportation and needed supplies. Grocers meet arriving ferries to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables; hotels meet ferries to pick up savvy travelers. Greek ferries are an integral part of the Greek island experience.

The difference between a typical Greek cruise and the Greek Argosy tour is the diffeence between sampling a taste of Greek culture and enjoying the whole meal.

What we bring to travel strongly affects what we take away
Why is it that our first glimpse of a famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower or the Parthenon always produces a thrill? It's probably not because we find the distant view of a tall metal tower or an old stone building to be inherently exhilarating. Rather it is because of the mental associations we have built up over time relating to these structures. The excitement already exists in our minds waiting to be called forth by an encounter with the physical object. "Look, there is the Eiffel Tower! .Wow, I really am in Paris!" Clearly, much of the pleasure we derive from travel depends on the mental landscapes we have constructed.

This is why the Greek Argosy tour is committed to helping travelers develop the kind of mental associations that will result in a rich and satisfying journey. Let's say, for example, that you know Mycenae was the hilltop fortress of Agamemnon who led the Greeks into battle in the Trojan War, and you have seen pictures of the golden "Mask of Agamemnon" and the Lion Gate at Mycenae. Then, when you see these objects in person, you may feel a thrill of recognition similar to that which you felt upon first seeing the Parthenon. What might have otherwise been a dry and forgettable encounter is instead a memorable experience.

Now that you've have had a stimulating encounter with bronze-age Greek history, the groundwork has been laid for even deeper understandings. The Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer's epic poems about the Trojan War are more meaningful. You may be interested in learning what led up to the Mycenean Age and what followed it. In this way you are steadily constructing a coherent and rewarding mental landscape of ancient Greece.

The Greek Argosy tour uses several strategies to help travelers develop such a useful mental framework. One is an illustrated timeline that identifies the major eras of ancient Greek history and ties them to specific historical sites and artifacts we will encounter along our journey. When visiting a new site or viewing an important artifact, you can pull this handy laminated timeline from your pocket and quickly see its period of history and its relationship to other sites and artifacts.

Another resource available to our travelers is an annotated, illustrated itinerary that provides an informative overview of each destination on our tour. Still another resource is a concise review of ancient Greek history from Minoan civilization to the Roman conquest. All three of these custom-designed resources are available on this website, so travelers can begin now to construct a useful mental landscape of their upcoming journey. Travelers will have access to these and more unique learning resources during the tour.

In addition, the tour itinerary itself is structured to provide travelers with a coherent framework of travel through time and space. In terms of time, we begin with the Greek classical age in the 5th century BC in Athens and travel back in time to Homer's age of myth and heroes before arriving at the intriguing first civilization of Greece (and Europe) on the island of Crete. In terms of space, our journey begins in busier places primarily on the Greek mainland and progresses in a southeasterly direction to less-visited and more pristine areas on islands of the southern Aegean Sea and on Crete.