America is a paradise for consumers. We can satisfy just about any consumer desire that strikes our fancy, even if it’s 3 a.m. on a holiday weekend. The one big exception to this rule is on our beaches, where most of the time we’re forced to lug coolers, chairs, umbrellas, beach toys and anything else we’ll need. There are some exceptions to this rule, but at many beaches around the country municipal restrictions prohibit entrepreneurs from renting chairs and umbrellas on the beach or selling food or drinks.
This point was driven home for us on a recent visit to the Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS) in Massachusetts. The CCNS is a glorious 40-mile stretch of sand that encompasses six beaches. We were there in late August – peak season – and had to park about a mile away from the entrance to Marconi Beach. I pulled up to drop off our gear – we had no chairs or umbrellas – so it wasn’t that much effort to carry our cooler and my children’s beach toys.
But other people, particularly seniors, who were schlepping all kinds of stuff looked like they were ready to pass out from the exertion of hauling their gear in the heat. There are no chairs or umbrellas for rent at this beach and I didn’t see any food or drink for sale. The result of this dynamic is that 90 percent of beachgoers cluster right at the bottom of the stairs leading down from the parking lot.
Right at the bottom of the stairs the beach was absolutely jam packed with people so close that their towels practically touched. I know that some like to people watch and be where the action is, but I was happy to keep walking for about ten minutes to reach a spot where we had the place all to ourselves. The video that accompanies this post illustrates the crazy dynamic of this beach – it’s enormous but 90 percent of it is empty because people don’t want to haul their gear very far.
The weird dynamic at this and many other American beaches is in stark contrast to the way beaches are set up in many other parts of the world. We spent several weeks in the Greek islands earlier this year, and there, all of the most popular beaches have either chairs and umbrellas for rent at a reasonable price or cafes and tavernas with the same – right on the beach.
I’m usually the last person to argue for public spaces to be given over to commercialization. In fact, I get really sick of how we’re constantly bombarded with advertising and sales pitches here, even when we’re going to the bathroom in some cases. But I have to admit: I love having the option of renting a lounge chair and umbrella at a beach. And if there is reasonably priced food and drink available – even better.
If you’re visiting a beach close to your home, bringing your own gear is less of a pain, but when you visit a beach on vacation, bringing your own chairs, umbrellas and cooler isn’t very practical.
In late May, we were at a beach bar near Lecce, in Italy, where the lounge chairs and thatched roof shelters were free if you ordered a meal. In Italy, you can always eat well and I had a linguini with clam sauce dish that was out of this world for 7€, right from the comfort of my beach chair. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven, but couldn’t help but wish we had the same sort of beach café culture here in the U.S.
That said, I do like my peace and quiet at the beach, so I am not enamored of countries that allow roving vendors to aggressively hawk their wares on the beach. And beach bars that play music so loud that you can’t hear the waves are a plague. No, I don’t want to turn our beaches into shopping malls or discos, I just want to have the option of not hauling chairs, umbrellas, and coolers. With our economy still a mess, municipalities around the country should be thinking about how to create opportunities for entrepreneurs that want to fill this void.
The man approaching our parked car had an unkempt beard and was wearing a dirty T-shirt. My first inclination was to try to avoid him, but then I had a sudden change of heart. Earlier that morning, I remarked to my wife that we’d been traveling around the U.S. for more than a month and hadn’t really made a single new friend or, for that matter, even had a very substantive conversation with anyone other than people I was interviewing for a story.
This realization came to me after noticing that a friend we had met on the Greek island of Patmos a few months before had posted a photo of his cat on my Facebook page. Seeing Vlachos the Cat made me think of all the friends we made while traveling in Italy and Greece over a three-month period earlier this year. Now that we were back in the good old USA, how come we weren’t meeting people on our home turf?We were in Manchester, Vermont and had just parked our car in front of a breakfast place we were about to patronize when the scruffy looking guy that I had decided not to avoid parked his bike across the street and ambled over to our car.
“You’re from Virginia?” he asked, noticing our license plate.
“We spent the last two years in Falls Church,” I said.
“I hate Virginia,” he said. “You should move here.”
The man introduced himself as Chris and he and I got to talking, as my wife tried to corral my two young sons, who were playing on the sidewalk. In about 15 minutes, Chris told me the Cliff Notes story of his life. After graduating from college in the ’70s he walked across the state of Ohio to meet Ralph Nader because he wanted to work for the Green Party and thought that might impress him.
In the ’80s, he gravitated to Arlington, Virginia, but hated it there, so he moved to a town called Strasburg in the Shenandoah region based on his desire to live in the “real Virginia.”
“I hated that goddamn place,” he said. “I’ve never seen more ignorant, backward people in my entire life.”
It seemed as though Chris had stopped to talk to us primarily because he wanted to vent a little about our adopted home state, but I didn’t mind because our morning had just gotten a bit more interesting. Chris moved to Manchester earlier this year and said he’d found paradise. He said he was “hoping to get into environmental engineering,” and I loved the fact that at his age he was still wondering what to do with his life.
“Don’t let the high home prices here in town fool you,” he said. “I just picked up a log cabin, a little primitive but not bad, for 80k, about 20 minutes away from here.”
Eventually, we parted company but I was glad that I stopped to talk, or mostly listen, to Chris. The friends you make while traveling might not become lifelong buddies but if I don’t meet people when I’m traveling I feel a little like I’ve missed something. When I think back to my favorite trips, I tend to remember the people I’ve met more than the things I’ve seen.
After talking to Chris, I thought about how we had made so many friends in the Mediterranean and realized that the reason we weren’t making friends on the road in the U.S. wasn’t because people here are less friendly or approachable. It was us and how we were traveling. Here are a few thoughts on making friends while on the road.
Get out of your car. In three months on the road in the Mediterranean, we rented cars for a grand total of just two weeks and, while not having a car can be an inconvenience in some places, it also creates opportunities to meet people. We met loads of people on trains, buses and ferries and a few more while mooching rides to places we couldn’t get to on public transport.
Trying to visit places in the U.S. without a car is a lot harder than it is in many other parts of the world but you can still park your car and sightsee on foot or bike more often than you might think. When you’re driving around seeing things inside your car, you obviously aren’t going to meet anyone.
Brings kids and/or dogs. OK, I admit that bringing small children on a trip isn’t the most relaxing way to spend your holiday, and a lot of hotels don’t allow dogs, but kids and dogs are great conversation starters.
Don’t be in a rush. People who know me know that I have a hard time with this one. Americans have a tendency to travel like cheetahs on amphetamines. We want to cover 12 countries in 6 days and see everything that’s listed in our guidebook. That’s a surefire recipe for not meeting anyone.
Don’t get too comfortable. When we travel to another country, especially if we don’t know the local language, we are in many ways helpless. We need to seek people out to ask them how to get places and how to do things, but when you’re in your own country, you’re a lot more self-sufficient.
Here in the U.S., we have a GPS and I have a phone that allows me to pull up restaurant reviews or anything else I need in a moment. I like that technology, but it also robs us of the chance to stop and ask people for help, directions and recommendations. Use the technology, but still stop and ask someone if the route your GPS suggests is a good one, or if the good reviews you read about on Yelp are legit.
Stay in small hotels or bed and breakfast places. When visiting large U.S. cities, we have a tendency to stay in big chain hotels, but if you seek out smaller, independent places you can get to know your hosts – who are often very interesting people. In Italy, we made friends with landlords who rented us apartments in Spoleto, Perugia and Lecce and they helped give us insights into their hometowns, and in Greece, we became friendly with a host of couples that ran the small hotels we stayed in.
Some bed and breakfasts in the U.S. don’t welcome families with small children but if you do your homework you can find family-friendly establishments.
Become a journalist, if only for a day. Blog about your travels and use your site as an excuse to interview people you want to talk to.
Split from your group at least once. Solo travelers are more approachable and when you travel as a couple or a group, you tend to rely on each other for conversation. At least once or twice on any trip, split up from your party for at least a half day and see what happens. When you reconvene, you’ll enjoy each other’s company all the more so.
Make the effort. This is really the most important rule. We managed to sleepwalk through a month of travel in the U.S. largely because we were a self-contained unit, dependent only on each other, traveling by car and mostly staying in large hotels. Strike up conversations with people and don’t assume that everyone that approaches you is hoping to save your soul or fleece you.
[Photos of strangers met on the road by Dave Seminara]
It only takes a minute to buy a souvenir from someone on a beach but if you stop to find out about that person’s life, you might take away more than just the memory you’re holding in your hand. In May, while visiting the Greek island of Kos, I took an excursion boat to Pserimos, a tiny little island with just a few dozen inhabitants, and bought a handmade magnet (see photo below) from a local woman who spoke English with an Australian twang.
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I was excited by the fact that she spoke English because all of the other people I’d encountered on my brief visit did not and I was curious to know what it was like to live on a remote little island with a tiny population. But almost as soon as I bought the magnet, the skipper of our boat called us back onto the boat, so I lost an opportunity to find out what it was like to live on Pserimos. I know that I’d hate living on a remote island but every time I take an excursion boat to these kinds of places, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to not get back on the ship.
Weeks after my visit, I thought about the experience again and recalled that I’d seen a sign in Pserimos which read, “Welcome to Pserimos, Pserimos@gmail.com.” The fact that the island had its own Gmail account amused me, so I fired off an email to the address on the off chance that the person would be able to hook me up with my souvenir lady.
I received a reply right away from George Karaiskos, who, oddly enough, lives on the nearby island of Kalymnos, which is famous for its sponge divers. George wasn’t immediately sure of whom I was talking about, but he filled me in on his own interesting story. He was born in L.A., but at age 8, his father died in a car accident and his mother took him and his siblings and moved to Kalymnos, where he has worked for the municipality for the last 28 years.
A few days ago, George got back to me to give me the souvenir woman’s name and mobile phone number. Her name is Vaggelio Koukouvas and she’s 53 years old. She was born on Kalymnos and immigrated to Darwin, Australia, at 13. She married her husband, who is from Pserimos, in Australia and the couple returned to live on Pserimos in 1994. When I called her, she was initially surprised to hear from me. “Do you know you are calling Greece?” she asked. But once she understood the nature of my call, she was happy to share her thoughts on what it’s like to live on a remote Greek island. Here are excerpts from our conversation.
Why did you and your husband move back to Pserimos?
We bought a sailboat, a day-trip boat and came back from Australia with our four boys, and started a family business. My husband grew up until age 10 on Pserimos, then moved to Kalymnos and then to Australia at age 17. He never forgot Pserimos for one minute when we were in Australia; every day he was talking about how much he loved Pserimos. So we saved our money to go back.
How many people live in Pserimos?
About 35 people live here year round. Up until two years ago, we had a primary school here, but the kids grew up and moved on, so the school closed down. The nearest school now is in Kalymnos.
When your husband grew up on the island in the ’60s, were there more people living there?
When my husband grew up there, they had 150 kids. There were fewer houses than now, but everyone had a lot of kids – at least four. His grandmother had 11 kids, for example.
And your husband returned to look for work in Australia?
He left. We sold the boat because we got tired of it and there was too much competition in Kos with other boats. And you can only make a living doing that for five months out of the year. In Australia now, he’s working as a heavy machinery operator – something completely different. And my sons are all working in Australia, because there’s a crisis here and there’s no work at the moment.
I have my little business selling souvenirs that I make here in Pserimos and I don’t really want to leave because I’m happy. It was hard this year with the bad economy; even the tourists who are coming are really watching their money. It’s hard for me but I like this work. I’m fighting for my bread here but I want to stay.
Is it difficult to make it through the winter there?
In the winter, Pserimos is nice and quiet, especially if you’re a pensioner and have enough money to get by. But if someone gets sick, there are problems because we have no doctor on the island. No one has died though because we can always find a boat out to Kalymnos or Kos, but it isn’t always easy in winter. If the seas are bad, we can go two weeks without a way to leave the island.
Who lives on Pserimos?
We have a priest, some fishermen, pensioners and me. Pserimos is known for producing sea captains – one family can have three captains in it. There are some families that have goats and sheep. That’s all you can do on a place like this. There aren’t very many young people.
How do people pass the time?
If you have animals to care for, there is always something to do. The old people watch T.V., talk to each other, and have coffee. If we get bored, we go to Kalymnos.
But you have to be careful not to make enemies on a small island, right?
(Laughs) That’s true. Almost everyone here is related in some way by blood.
And do you all get along?
We have arguments sometimes. And there’s gossiping too, just like any small village. But this makes life a little more interesting, doesn’t it? Otherwise, we’d be really bored.
But if you get into an argument with someone on an island with only 35 people, it’s pretty hard to avoid them, isn’t it?
You can’t avoid anyone here, that’s for sure, so we do have to get along. People are busy and our houses aren’t that close to each other though, so in some ways, we are on our own, especially in winter.
I didn’t see much in the way of shops. Where do you buy food?
There is no supermarket, that’s for sure. We have a minimarket that’s open in the summer. In summer, the boats come every day from Kalymnos, so there’s plenty of food available. In the winter, the boats come three times a week, or less if the seas are bad, so it’s harder to find products – that’s why people stockpile food here.
Is it lonely living there on your own?
Yeah, it is sometimes. Now, it’s September and it’s already quiet. Most of the tourists are all gone. Sometimes I go down to the beach and I feel like I’m the only one living on the whole island. It’s really quiet – people come out of their houses when the boat arrives from Kalymnos to see what’s going on.
Is your husband planning on coming back to Pserimos?
He does come back to visit and he’ll return. He’s in Australia for work – a lot of men do that now, because there’s not much work here. He’ll come back one day because he loves it here.
How has the crisis in Greece affected Pserimos?
A lot of the people who live here are pensioners and their pensions have all been cut. And they used to get a bonus in their pension, an extra 50% payment that would come at Christmas and Easter but that’s gone now. It’s hard to live on what they get now – impossible I would say.
What do you like about living on Pserimos?
Every day is a new day. It’s quiet. It makes me happy to see the sea. I don’t care if there are people. I enjoy it here. Everybody loves Pserimos. If people could make a living here, we’d have so many more people living on the island.
During the summer season, how many hours a day do you work selling the things you make to people that arrive on the excursion boats?
About 12-14 hours per day, seven days a week. I start at 6 a.m., making the items I sell, and getting my stand ready. I’m there in the sun, the wind, with the sand blowing in my face all day. By the time I get to sleep, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning. This is how I make a living for five months of the year. People think it’s fun, but it’s not.
Will you go off to Kalymnos to look for work this winter?
I might, but there’s not much work there. If I can clean some houses that would be good but I need time to make the items I sell to get ready for next summer. You always have to be ready.
I love the little souvenir I bought from you because I can look at it in my home here in Chicago and it transports me back to Pserimos.
That’s why I make these things. I don’t make much money, but I don’t care because life isn’t just about getting rich. I know that people like the things I make and that makes me happy.
The Italians have their pizza, Mexicans have tacos, America is the home of the cheeseburger, the Germans dig their sausages and the French eat crepes. In almost any country there is one ubiquitous food staple budget travelers can count on for inexpensive sustenance. I recently spent six weeks in the Greek Isles, where the Gyro is king.
By my own informal calculation, I think I ate about 30 gyros while in country. I’d hate to have my cholesterol checked, but I’d guestimate that my level went from 210 to about 250 while in Greece. So my arteries might be very clogged, but I had some awfully good gyros and never spent more than €2.5 anywhere. In fact, I’d say the average price of a gyro in the Greek Isles is a paltry €2, making them a must eat treat for anyone traveling on a budget in Greece.
I got sick of eating gyros at times – I even resorted to eating at a couple of crap Mexican restaurants – but if you want something fast and cheap on the Greek Isles, there aren’t a lot of other options. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish one gyro place from another but there was one establishment called Thraka (charcoal in Greek) in Chania on Crete that stood out from the pack.
I knew I had to try it the first time I walked past the place, which is located just past the Old Town on busy Chatzimichali Ginnari street, just down from a pet shop. While every other place had a smattering of customers, Thraka was packed with locals devouring gyros, souvlaki and kebabs. Aside from the cheap, mouthwateringly delicious gyros, you can also get a three skewer plate of souvlaki for €5 and kebabs for a ridiculous €1 each.
What makes the gyros at Thraka special? For me, it’s the quality of the pita, the meat and the tzatziki. And the fact that you leave full after spending €2 is an awfully nice bonus. My vote for world’s best gyros actually goes to a place called Samos, in Baltimore’s Greektown, but like all gyros in the U.S., they go for twice the price you pay in Greece. Check out the video but be forewarned – you’re going to want to run out and get a gyro when you see it.
Trying to find a vacation destination where you indulge both your curiosity and your desire to lounge on the beach can be a chore. The most interesting cities are often nowhere near a good beach and the best beaches often have very little else to see. But if you’re looking for a small city that’s packed with history and is close to world-class beaches, consider checking out Chania, an atmospheric old town in Crete that was built by the Venetians on the ruins of the ancient Minoan settlement of Kydonia in 1252.
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Chania’s Old Town (see video below) is a lively stew of colorful old homes, narrow lanes filled with outdoor restaurants, and architectural treasures. On sultry summer evenings, the streets are packed with children playing in the squares, couples enjoying romantic meals and partiers guzzling beer and ouzo.Chania’s Archaeological Museum is small but packed with must-see mosaics, statues and artifacts. And when you’ve had your fill of history, head about 15 minutes northeast of Chania to Kalathas Beach, a beautiful sandy beach that has very shallow, clean water and a good taverna right next to the beach.
Initially, we stayed at the Halepa Hotel, just outside Chania’s Old Town, but, despite the glowing reviews we read on Trip Advisor, we thought the place was overpriced given its location and small rooms. We moved to a small, brand new boutique hotel just off the harbor in the Old Town called the Palazzo Duca, which turned out to be cheaper, nicer and in a much better location (see video). But one word of caution about Chania – we were there in June and it was already getting quite hot, so you definitely want to visit in the shoulder season.