I’ve Been Visiting Greece for 37 Years, but This ‘Expedition’ Helped Me Find Brand-new Experiences

Key Points

• The Luxury Collection Expeditions are curated trips and tours that engage travelers more deeply, delivering a locally rooted experience.

• The brand's "Greece: The Aegean Odyssey" Expedition lets travelers explore Mykonos, Paros, and Santorini with expert planning and guided local activities.

• This approach allows guests to see multiple destinations without worrying about the logistics of planning a multidestination trip.

How do you maximize your time in a country without rushing through the experience or compromising on comforts? Marriott's The Luxury Collection just launched a solution.

Enter The Luxury Collection Expeditions , which essentially lets travelers hit several Marriott hotels, with all their logistics seamlessly organized by experts and locally guided tours in each destination. While some of the Luxury Collection Expeditions are day-long excursions, others are multidestination trips, with itineraries in Japan, Italy, and Greece.

Recently, I traveled to Greece, a country I've visited for 37 years, on an abbreviated preview of the nine-night "Greece: The Aegean Odyssey" Expedition. The itinerary focused on the Cyclades, whisking our group from Mykonos to Paros, and then Santorini, without us having to worry about luggage, restaurant reservations, or local transportation. In the course of three blissful days, we wandered through local villages guided by experts, dined on local specialties at popular restaurants, and slept in the cushy hotel beds of some of The Luxury Collection's glitziest hotels in the region .

Our trip started on Mykonos, where we roamed the winding, whitewashed streets of Mykonos Town, built to twist and turn to confuse the pirates who once tormented the Cyclades. Staying the night on the island meant the usual crowds of day-trippers disappeared in the afternoon, so we lit candles in the chapels, snapped photos of snoozing cats, and browsed shop windows without having to elbow our way. Our evening started with a spectacular sunset from the balcony of Veranda bar, a perennial island favorite in the Little Venice neighborhood. Later, over dinner at Santa Marina Resort's Elais restaurant, we feasted on meze and sea bass while watching fire dancers perform for someone's birthday on the beach below.

For the full-length itinerary, guests will fly from Mykonos to Paros aboard a private helicopter, but we traveled between the islands on a motor yacht, wind in our hair, feeling as playful as the pair of dolphins who frolicked alongside the boat.

Our home base for this leg of the trip was The Luxury Collection's Cosme Hotel, located a six-minute walk from Naoussa, one of the most picturesque port villages in the Aegean, with cobbled alleys dead-ending in the sea. In town, we watched fishermen untangling their nets, and wondered which taverna tables had the best views. Back at the hotel, I stopped by the on-site Anthologist boutique and left with batik robes and enameled hair clips. Then, I whiled away most of the afternoon at lunch at Parostiá, Cosme's beachfront taverna, and perused swimmers dip in and out of the gin-clear sea.

We arrived on Santorini via helicopter, a spectacular way to see the whitewashed houses clinging to the black cliffs of the island's famous caldera. ("Greece: The Aegean Odyssey" travelers will be chartered there aboard a high-speed catamaran, taking in the stunning cliffs from the sea, then spend two nights at  Vedema, a Luxury Collection Resort, in the quiet village of Megalochori.)

From my villa's private pool, I could hear the church bells tolling the hours, and see goats roaming the hillside below. Megalochori had plenty to keep me busy, including Gavalas winery , where the vintner, standing over the drainage system that collected the wine, recalled stomping grapes as a child after harvest. We also stopped by Symposion Cultural Center , where we listened to one of the owners play an ancient Greek lyre he crafted himself. That evening, we enjoyed a wine tasting in the hotel's wine cave, sipping the island's award-winning assyrtiko and nychteri varietals.

In the battle between seeing as much as you can versus slowing down, "Greece: The Aegean Odyssey" turned out to be a (very) happy medium. My abbreviated taste unveiled new experiences in places that I've visited several times before, and convinced me it is possible to see familiar places in a new light.

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