Greece Travel Blog

That’s a main reason we travel—to discover a place so healthy, magnetic and invigorating that we want to take care of it. It’s how I first felt so long ago when my father and I plunged deep beneath the waves of his childhood beach. Even in the muted light of the sea, the seascape was clear: dunes, sea-grass hills, darting sea life, swaying plants.

My father, shy and bookish and far more graceful underwater than on land, glided in elated circles around a glittery school of fish. I followed his deep-sea orbit, hugging the strange beauty around me, and wishing we never had to come up for air.

The deep, clean dive into the sea of Southwestern Greece probably sealed my lifelong attachment to the pristine in places.

My father had grown up swimming in a secluded beach near the village of Kyparissia as a young orphan and had associated its salty breath and blue-green water with a wanderlust that would turn him dreamy-eyed even as a middle-aged man. To him, travel at its most elemental was about the unadorned land, enlivened by tides and breeze and hulking mountains. He described his childhood beach so lovingly that it almost sounded human.

But we travelers have not always been kind to the lands we visit or inhabit. We trash, we exploit, we frequent big-box resorts that often pollute and disfigure the land and take its culture hostage. We can’t keep doing this, of course, and still expect the places we love to stay intact. So how can we be responsible, environmentally conscious travelers without losing the spontaneity of travel itself?

From WorldHum; excerpts, edited by Greece Travel Blog