What The Flux

When planning our trip to Greece, I intentionally booked a two-night stay in Athens at the end of our journey. After three weeks of travel—and a 4.5-hour drive down from the Pelion Peninsula—I figured we’d need a place to rest and decompress before our flight. So I chose a hotel just 20 minutes from the airport. Anticipating some travel fatigue, and given how reasonably priced accommodations are in Greece, I decided to splurge a little and reserved a 5-star hotel for our final stop. What we didn’t expect was that Greece has its own version of Beverly Hills—and we had landed right in the middle of it. Three weeks of travel had shown us a country full of beauty and resilience, but also marked by the lingering effects of a deep economic collapse. We’d had several conversations with locals who generously shared their perspectives in English—stories of hardship, recovery, and daily struggle. So when we arrived in this affluent enclave, we were genuinely taken aback. Locals call it “Beverly ...

Traveling through Greece is a visceral experience. The environment constantly reaches into the senses, reminding us that we are embodied—held within the living fabric of life itself. In Ioannina, the air is perfumed with jasmine. Entire city blocks are draped in its fragrant vines, cascading down ancient walls and wrapping street corners in a sweet, heady scent. Wherever you stand, you seem to be beneath jasmine’s spell.   In the Peloponnese, the air is thick with the tang of ionized ocean breeze, sweeping inland and filtering through each breath—a subtle infusion of sea and earth. On the island of Chios, a singular wonder grows: the mastic tree. Chios is the only place on earth that produces the resin used to create Mastiha, an aperitif with the flavor of pine and cedar. It has quickly become my favorite adult indulgence—complex, aromatic, unmistakably rooted in the land. Driving through Pelion, Rob and I couldn’t help but laugh as we passed a van loaded with towering jasmine plan...

From Volos in Thessaly, we continued northeast toward the Thessaloniki region, skirting closer to Turkey. En route, we explored the stunning Pelion Peninsula—a mountainous finger of land nestled between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea. Its highest peak, Pourianos Stavros, rises to 1,624 meters (5,328 feet), crowned with a small ski lodge and surrounded by villages that seem to cling to the cliffs above the sea. We spent two nights in the coastal village of Chorefto, often referred to as the spot where the woods meet the sea, arriving unknowingly on the final day of a Greek bank holiday. What had been described as a sleepy seaside retreat with a lone taverna felt more like spring break: the beach teeming with groups of young Greeks enjoying the last hurrah of their long weekend. “Hmm… this doesn’t exactly match the description.” Our host smiled knowingly and reassured us, “They’re leaving tomorrow.”   Sure enough, by morning, the crowds vanished—replaced by an endless stretch ...

We spent the day in a place steeped in myth — the legendary homeland of the centaurs. In Greek mythology, centaurs are half-human, half-horse beings, often depicted as wild, impulsive, and untamed. Yet among them was Chiron, a noble exception: a wise and gentle centaur renowned for his mastery  of healing, astrology, and prophecy. Chiron was not just a mythical figure but a mentor to heroes — guiding the likes of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and Achilles, the warrior of legend.  Our magical day began with a wind-swept drive up the narrow, cliff-edged lanes leading to Makrinitsa and Portaria — two of the most enchanting villages in all of Greece. Perched high on the slopes of Mount Pelion, these villages seem suspended between sky and sea. From there, we embarked on the Centaur’s Path, a breathtaking hike through dense, emerald forest. The trail, paved with ancient stones and even segments of petrified wood, whispered of centuries past. Waterfalls revealed themselves at unex...

We’re in our fourth port city, having visited Napflino, Kalamata, and Preveza. Napflino contained a deep remnant old Greece with villages of narrow windy stone built buildings, still housing Greeks living a traditional Greek life. Throughout Greece one happens upon these villages often butted up against newer parts of the area or as is the case in Kalamata, Preveza, Athens the city still contains an old town featuring cobblestone streets and stone buildings usually converted into retail to capture tourist income. We’ll visit one such village later today located in the foothills that over look Volos, which is perhaps the most modern city in Greece. Volos is in the Thessaly region, south of Thessaloniki. A port housing 85,000 residents and low in tourism. The city is an industrial center, a bridge between Europe and Asia.  It’s modern due to buildings erected after a 1955 catastrophic earthquake. There’s also a university which spawned additional cultural growth. Different from previ...

This trip is a scouting mission. With growing instability in the U.S., we’re beginning what could be a short or long journey to figure out where in the world we might ride out the storm. Just before we left, our friend Matty handed us a hard copy of Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book. It explores how information networks—from myth and print to AI—shape civilizations, and how authoritarian regimes centralize information while democracies remain more open and adaptive. Harari warns that AI may tip the balance further toward control and manipulation. This theme hits home. With moves in the U.S. to consolidate data systems and AI accelerating surveillance, our concerns about staying put grow stronger. In Ioannina, Greece, we wandered into a Municipal Art Museum and stumbled on an exhibit about newspapers as primary information sources before the digital age. It made me reflect: Americans have grown used to stability. We’ve never had to think about invasion. But Europe remembers war ...