The Story Behind Not Just Feta
I’m the insider you’ve been looking for.
The moment I stepped out of the airport doors into the Greek sun, something shifted. It felt like I was home. That was in 1996 and it still feels the same way, every time I arrive.
Back then, I barely spoke two words of the language. I never even saw a beach on the entire first trip. And I didn’t need to.
When I saw the Acropolis for the first time, I nearly died of happiness. It was glorious. The entrance, the Parthenon, the Caryatids. All of it spoke to me. I stood there imagining the great gold statue of Athena inside, the ancients climbing that same hill to worship. How many people of every age, every walk of life, from royalty to celebrity, rich and poor. I was walking in the footsteps of ancient man while walking over 2,500 years of history. MAGNIFICENT!
I walked through Plaka and felt the whole essence of Greece settle around me. Look past the trinkets to the shop owners and say hello, forget the tourists and look at the incredible foods all around, smell of coffee in the air and then notice the music emanating from every shop, from pocket radios, from street performers. The Acropolis looming over head at every turn… that is Plaka.
I was hooked before I unpacked. A year later, I moved to Athens.
Kalimera. You're One of Us Now.
I settled into a charming little apartment just a few train stops from the center. My neighbor was a tiny old woman who didn’t speak a word of English, but she often pulled me into her apartment for homemade cookies and Greek coffee.
She taught me words and we laughed.
Within weeks, the neighborhood knew my name. I was greeted with Kalimera every morning, I was remembered wherever I went. I was completely foreign, and completely welcome.
That’s Greece. The Greece that people rarely get to experience. And the hospitality, the welcome, that’s called Filotimo.
I’ve lived all over Greece, in Athens, on islands, in Thessaloniki, and for 17 years, in a small village in the prefecture of Karditsa (heart of the country). Not the Greece people post about on social media. The Greece people don’t see.
“I was completely foreign – and completely welcome”
Where Work Meets Reality
I went to Mykonos that first spring for work and found community again.
In early April, the locals were just arriving to open their shops for the season. There was a feeling of excitement in the air, a quiet friendliness that felt immediately familiar.
The work was another story. Twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, with the only exception being Easter Sunday. I was working for a scuba diving club right on the beach, learning to dive while working on commission for booking dives. I worked every day in my bathing suit and bare feet.
I left after that first season. I’d had enough. But Greece had other plans. Two months later I was back on Mykonos, and this time, I stayed.
In 1997 I began my career as an internet-based travel agent. I was in reservations and helped create the company’s first website. Internet travel was just starting out and the agency took off like never before. I was in the thick of it, high-volume, high-pressure, nonstop – flights, ferries, hotels, last-minute changes, wedding plans, impossible requests. I handled all of it.
I left the island in 1999 and returned 2 years later, well seasoned after working for a European cruise company in the states.
Over the years, I learned how to deliver a true Greek experience for my friends, family and clients – and I will not settle for less. What I deliver reflects who I am – built on real relationships with locals. The people I trust will open their doors to my clients, welcome them in, and treat them like family.
That doesn’t happen by accident. And it’s not something you can Google.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR TRIP
Every custom itinerary I build draws on those 30 years — not just what’s worth seeing, but who to trust, what to skip, and how to experience Greece the way people who actually live there do. A plan built around you, not around what’s popular.
That’s exactly what you get when you book a consultation.
The Greece Most People Never Experience
I moved back to Greece in 2001 – this time to a small village on the mainland. It was here that I worked as an internet based travel agent while raising my kids.
In the village, your alarm clock isn’t your phone. It’s the rooster. The farmers starting their tractors. The junk dealer driving by crying “o paliatzis, o paliatzis.”
You hear birds all the time, thousands of them. You smell wood burning in winter. You watch people live in a way that hasn’t changed much in generations.
People eat whatever comes from the garden or the barn. Sometimes cooked in the outdoor brick oven slowly. We mainly lived off the land with small, inexpensive trips to the supermarket for the rest.
Life is simple, but it’s not basic. It’s honest. And once you experience that, it’s hard to look at anything the same way again.
It was peaceful, beautiful, with a strong sense of community. It was also, at times, genuinely difficult. The kind of difficult that teaches you things you can’t learn any other way.-
In 2018 I moved to Thessaloniki, my favorite city in Greece. Thessaloniki deserves far more than a paragraph. It is the most underrated and chic city in Greece. read more
Because Greece has earned respect for its authenticity
Adding feta or olives to just about anything and “calling it Greek,”
No. Just no.
Real Greek food is what comes from the land, and is made with the hands. Outside of Greece, we can follow Greek recipes and they will be good, but they won’t be the same.
There, the land is still respected. It’s where clusters of beehives dot the mountain sides. Where medicinal herbs and healing plants grow wild. It’s where crystal clear waters pour down mountain paths, offering cool clean drinking water on a warm summer day.
Imagine a dish made with mountain grown – sun dried oregano, authentic feta from nearby sheep, a few juicy red tomatoes from the garden, slathered in Greek olive oil, a dash of sea salt and a slice of brick oven bread that Yiaya made this morning– for dipping. That with a glass (or two) of homemade wine before your midday nap.
Life is beautiful in Greece, especially the authentic parts of it.
I’m not offering artificial Greek, I’m offering true Greek Experiences through the people, places and products I recommend. – L.M. Karastergiou
Once you experience Greece, something changes.
You get what I call the “Greece Bug.”
And it doesn’t go away.
Windy days will forever remind you of the Greek islands. Sunlight will hit differently, and suddenly you’re thinking about the color of the Aegean. The ocean won’t feel the same… because it’s not the warm, crystal, calm sea you remember.
You’ll crave the pace, the food, the feeling. You’ll start planning your return before you’ve even unpacked.
I’ve had “the bug” since 1996. I go back every year, sometimes twice. I know exactly how to help you catch it.
READY TO PLAN YOUR TRIP?
One hour. Thirty years of knowledge. A plan built for you.
$200 / one-hour session