Santorini’s Sacred Pull: Intentional Travel in the Greek Isles
How a place of beauty, flavor and connection became the birthplace of a travel philosophy and a setting for life’s most unexpected gifts.
The sunset from my favorite place on earth.
There was something very Christmas morning-esque about waking up today knowing I was going to revisit – through words at least – my favorite place on earth. I have been waiting for Blog 22’s destination to come up on the calendar since I first committed to the idea of writing these weekly reflections. The joy we feel when we go back to places that have left their mark - even when our feet are firmly planted at home - is one of my favorite, often overlooked dimensions of the power of travel.
How many times does a smell, a texture or a taste bring us back to somewhere we’ve once been, magically transporting us to a time when life was in a different place and our hearts, for better or worse were too? If we allow, travel doesn’t just consume mind, body, gut and soul when our heads come to rest on different pillows. Travel can give us the boost we need whenever we call upon it to truly float above in reverie. It soothes and settles us – on demand but without judgment – taking us back to journeys that stirred us however many moons ago, while showering us with cascades of the tiny moments, miracles and mysteries that changed our moods, our mindsets and maybe even our life trajectories.
As I drift back in time and space, I’m held ransom by the freshest of bold, bright flavors, sunsets of vibrant, trademark hues and sweet, meaningful connections struck effortlessly with strangers in taxis, storefronts, and seats with the most breathtaking of views. I feel the sea breeze on my face and the warm Aegean sun beat down on my arms. There’s something about the colors here. They’re mesmerizing and oversaturated. Forever emblazoned in my memory as one of the most amazing souvenirs from any trip, ever. Best of all, they’re always there below the surface lingering, ready to summon when life doles out dark shadows of disappointment and doubt.
Even now, I can’t help but follow the feeling. I close my eyes and swim with carefree abandon through layers upon layers of brilliant, crisp, divine Greek blue. For reasons I can’t express, my soul feels blissfully untethered and weightless here. It’s a simple, natural connection fortified by every breath I take.
Santorini is the first and still the only place I’ve ever been, where my body literally softened at arrival in awe and gratitude. Standing there, on the veranda of my caved hotel room, I took in a kind of sweeping, celestial beauty I had never seen before. While it’s true, up until that point, I’d only been to 15 countries, it says something - to me anyway - that Santorini has remained unquestionably fixed atop my favorite places in the world list. Twenty-seven countries and seven years later, Santorini still holds that spot. Its grip on my heart is stronger than ever.
I know it can be kitschy, cliché and overrun with tourists but I still unapologetically love Santorini. I love it. I also know there’s more of the same Grecian beauty spread about neighboring islands – only two of which I’ve been fortunate enough to visit – Mykonos and Crete. My hypothesis that I hope to one day prove is that Santorini like many of its sister islands emits a kind of frequency that my soul is simply attuned too. The Greek Isles feel like an alluring force of nature all their own to me – their call is strong, direct and uninterrupted. I can see why they have inspired so many masterpieces in literature, history, gastronomy and art and design.
So call it nostalgia, right place at the right time or a metaphysical bond – my connection with Santorini first and foremost arose from a deep appreciation for its beauty and its food. At the time, I also occupied a certain type of headspace that was craving beauty with depth, longing to visit destinations with culture, creativity and soul. I was hungry for travel that would open up the floodgates of the world’s flavors, art and style to me. Though I didn’t know it at the time and didn’t even know it when I started writing this morning, it is clear to me now. The Untethered Traveler, my brand of taste-led intentional travel was born right here in the sparkle and spirit of Santorini.
In equal measure now, I feel gratitude and wanting wash over me as I sense from somewhere deep within that this place was always meant to be a part of my story. First in April 2018 as a source of deep restorative, creative energy and once more in October 2022 as a backdrop for something of much greater meaning and consequence.
And then… it happens again.
This wouldn’t be the first time, a page and a half into one of my Tessera travel reflections that the moral of the story catches me by complete surprise. Just as I was about to take us down hundreds of uneven, cobblestone steps to watch a postcard perfect sunset at Sunset Ammoudi seaside taverna over a plate of juicy tomato fritters, freshly caught octopus and a glass of Assyrtiko Greek wine – travel nudges my story somewhere a lot more raw and meaningful.
As much as I love to see the world through taste-led travel at my own pace, I love sharing exquisite, spectacular places with people I love even more. My brothers and I traveled together as adults for the first time in Greece and Budapest in 2022. Each picked a country, and when my youngest brother said Greece, I just knew we had to see Santorini after Athens and Mykonos. While it was one of many places we went on that trip it was a particularly special one for me to share. It was also the first time I had returned to Santorini since 2018. I was curious if it would still live up… it did.
My brothers are nearly two decades younger than me and live in different states than I do, so this was the first opportunity I had to spend an extended amount of time really getting to know them as the grown men they had become. The trip’s genesis was one of a half a dozen or so Covid Zoom calls. A spark of an idea that before we knew it, had us landing in Europe as a trio of travelers with a wild range of experience among us from first trip out of the country to 10ish to 30ish passport stamps deep. Sharing my taste-led intentional travel philosophy with them was easy as they were open-minded, curious and willing to try it all. They soaked up every bit of every day and every night and I could tell this trip was having the exact effect on them, me and us that I was hoping it would – bringing us together around a shared appetite for exploring the world’s abundance of beauty and taste.
And then… a month after we landed back home, our father very unexpectedly passed away on Thanksgiving. The day it happened, the boys were with their mom 2,000 miles away in southern California. I couldn’t possibly fathom going through that loss if we weren’t as close as we had become. What traveling together did for us – for our bond – was absolutely transformative and irreplaceable.
Travel makes us whole long before we know we’re broken. While we’re tasting new flavors and exploring new cultures, it’s ever so softly scoring just the right notes in our hearts. As life happens – the good and the bad – we discover that a most extraordinary play mix of just the right cascading moments, miracles and mysteries – has been waiting for us. It makes perfect sense now why some places call to us, why they transfix and captivate us. They’re intentional settings not just for inspiring self-discovery but for holding and readying us for the biggest and smallest of life’s shifts and surprises.
My reflections here which started out as a love letter of sorts to a place I have called my favorite on earth, have themselves traveled straight into a most sacred and powerful epicenter. Since I’ve started The Untethered Traveler blog, I’ve felt intentional travel magnetize my calling and my purpose. I’ve felt it soothe me after a career transition. And now, I’ve felt it flood me with love in the face of the most gut-wrenching of inevitabilities – death.
Taking my brothers on this epic trip always felt like the ultimate and genuine expression of my own love language. Now I see that this trip - just like blog 22 - was always destined to be something so much greater – a love story.
