Living like a local

As I mentioned I like living like a local when traveling. I prefer to stay in one city and just explore all the ins and outs. In reality this may be my only trip here so I want to see more than the top attractions and the airport/train station. I want to walk the neighborhoods. Talk to the locals. Sit down and breathe for a minute or two with no plans outside of living. Being in the moment.

Speaking of living and sleeping, we found a fantastic apartment with BlueGround Apartments. We actually found them via Homeaway. A site that I love that is very similar to AirBnB but a tad bit better in my opinion. More business like and less mom and pop rentals with a side of racism that AirBnB seems to produce. Check them out and let me know what you think.

Now back to our fabulous apartment in Athens. I must first tell you that I travel cheaply, not poorly just cheaply. I pick my trips based on airline sale prices. Once I have that purchased I then start looking for my home for the week. I like hostels. No, that's not quite accurate. What I meant to say is I like single private room hostels, similar to hotels but...not. Way to old for group living but I do want to meet other travelers in an informal setting, hostels do this.

For this trip we chose an apartment because the hostel prices were very similar in cost. Always compare. We googled and searched all the booking sites including Booking.com, Airbnb and Homeaway. We went back and forth before going with BlueGround and chose a nice apartment that was literally across the street and around the corner from the Acropolis. We were good. Got our confirmation email, downloaded the app. All that. Got excited and stuff. Started dreaming about

Two days later we get another email saying sorry...the apartment has issues and is not available BUT we can offer you this new one for no additional charge. Can you say UPGRADE! We got one. Check out the pictures below and on our new IG page.

We are now in the Plaka neighborhood and about a block or so from our original apartment, at least that's what Googlemap indicates. Getting a good deal and then being upgraded to an even better deal excites me if you can't tell.