"You'd Have to Be Dead Not to Like it Here"

One August evening some years back, in a tiny hotel room in Athens, I was getting ready for a first date.

I was so nervous that I asked the non-English-speaking housekeeper, with pointed gestures, which shoes she liked best with my dress. Worse, I later went back for her opinion on my earrings. By then, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t her opinion she thought I needed, but a Valium.

As my date and I wandered Athens’ cobblestone streets… listened to a lone saxophonist in an ancient city square… and sipped champagne on a rooftop, the lights of the Acropolis glowing in the distance, a love affair began… with the city of Athens. (The guy, not so much.)

It’s a place Jeff Opdyke and I are mutually besotted with. “Few places can grab and shake me the way Athens does,” he says. “The food, the culture, the people, the landscape, the history, the mythology… the sea.”

This month, he takes us on an exploration of five Athens neighborhoods… including the one he’d recommend most for expats.

He also ventures south into the Peloponnese Peninsula, the sun-soaked land of Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey. “You’d have to be dead not to like it here,” he quips.

There’s a contagious sense of joie de vivre in this month’s issue. When you’ve been gifted the freedom to sample life beyond your native borders, it creates a kind of punch drunk desire to experience more… more… more.

You’ll witness it in Tim Ward’s 80-day, “idiotic” quest to travel Europe in an electric vehicle… in Jaimie Seaton’s love letter to London (and guide on how to see it like an insider)… and in Ted Baumann’s exposé on four romantic retirement destinations (like South Africa) you probably aren’t considering—but should…

Sometimes, it’s an exotic cuisine we can’t get enough of. After extensive scouting for an overseas home, Mexico’s gastronomic capital of Oaxaca reeled in expat Donna Shields. Your mouth will water reading about a new food & wine festival she’s launched for February (VIP ticket details inside).

 

 

 

 

P.S. A few tickets also remain for our October Bootcamp in Vegas… I hope to see you there!