A little travel flashback today…

My man-friend and I traveled to the Greek island of Kalymnos in the fall of 2012. As far as travel to Greece goes: Athens is where you go for the history, Santorini is the tourist island, Kalymnos is the party island, (we started there) but Kalymnos is the adventure/climbing island! This island is a climbing mecca! The island itself is small, but with TONS of climbing areas. I hear you can go scuba diving and participate in other fun activities, but we were there just for the climbing. We stayed at a small hotel  for 5 days (our total bill was 145 euros!) and rented a scooter to get around on (for 50 euros total, make sure to get an international driver’s license first!)). There were hotels closer to the crags, but they were the normal hotel prices. Ours was about a 15 minute scooter ride away, which was cheaper and more exciting to commute to each day!

Thank goodness everybody rides scooters there and only go about 20 mph… because people were either not wearing helmets or wearing their climbing helmets, like us.

As far as the climbing goes, there’s no shortage of routes for every ability level. Every route is well marked on the rock, with the name of the climb and its difficulty rating. Since the climbing scene there has just recently exploded (in the last decade) all the routes are very well bolted, so no huge run outs! The week we were here, The North Face was having its annual climbing competition so the energy around the rock was amazing! World-class climbers and amateurs alike were everywhere, just having the best time.

Note the goat…

We took the scooter for a ride around the entire island (which took about an hour) and found this little inlet. There was a lone church on the hill and this boat, but nobody else around.

So we did a little making out… naturally.

We spent our whole trip climbing all over the place and eating the most delicious, fresh food you can imagine.

Very fresh.

We went to the a few different places for lunch during the week, but we went to the same restaurant nearly every night (I unfortunately can’t remember the name). It was this little place a few minutes walk down the road from our hotel. The owner was the nicest man in the world. We had a blast each night… Including when this happened. Definitely the most “Greek” thing we did:

If you’re not a climber, Kalymnos is huge for scuba diving as well. The island also works out as just an amazing trip for you and your babe, or the whole family! You’ve got water all around, amazing people and food, (eat lots of tomatoes!) and an energy that can’t be beat.

Other posts about the TRX Summit and the rest of that trip here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.