After several years of playing “tour guide” for multiple family members and friends, I began outlining my vacation plans in a word doc that I could simply email to my “tour group” beforehand. This gave everyone who was joining me a chance to get familiarized with where we’d be going and what we’d be seeing before the trip even started.
Each of my trip itineraries features suggested daily activities, websites with additional information and a list of resources I found helpful to reference before and during our journey. I have made several of my itineraries available for you to download and print. Use them as a starting point to plan your own vacation or, if you’re feeling daring, follow my plans as they are!
14-day tour of Morocco (Rabat, Meknes, Fez, Midelt, Erfoud, Dades Gorge, Ouarzazate, Marrakech) – Download
13-day tour of Egypt (Cairo, Luxor, Sharm el Sheikh & Alexandria) – Download
15-day tour of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic (with a teeny bit of France) – Download
17-day tour of Greek Islands: Santorini, Rhodes & Naxos and Mainland Greece – Download
11-day tour of Ireland – Download
10-day tour of Croatia – Download
17-day tour of Spain (Following the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela) – Download
11-day tour of France (Loire Valley & Dordogne) – Download
9-day tour of Romania (Transylvania & Wallachia) – Download
23-day tour of India (main focus is Rajasthan) – Download
11-day tour of Poland – Download
18-day tour of Turkey – Download
Questions? Don’t hesitate to ask! Email: theindependenttourist@gmail.com.
The Independent Tourist 
Hello. I am very interested in learning more about the underground city in Turkey. Derin??? Anyway, whatever help I could get would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much & have a great day.
Sincerely, Eric Brentin
Hi Eric,
I apologize for the very slow response, I have been traveling and somehow missed your note. Derinkuyu is an incredible place, located in central Turkey not too far from Goreme in Cappadocia, and can be done as a day trip. It dates back at least to 600-700 AD. You can wander through the levels and rooms on your own. There is some signage and a guidebook is handy to have. There are several underground cities in this area that can be visited. This part of Turkey has a lot to offer, a lot of rock-carved churches and many other sights. If there is something more specific you’re interested in, please let me know and I promise to respond more quickly.
Wow, marvelous blog layout! How long have you been blogging for?
you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your
website is great, as well as the content!
Thanks for your kind words. I’ve been at it for about 3 years. I wish I had more time to spend on it!
Hello,
We’ve been trying to figure out the best trip to Greece for 10-15 days and we don’t know how to plann it the best way…we’d like to have a quiet holliday with beach time and little charming towns and sceneries to visit. We were thinking of visiting 3 or 4 islands (Santorini, Ios, Naxos and Mikonos) for example, we are traveling with a 20months baby which should be a problem as we are used to make long and quite moving trips with her, she is 4×4 as her parents 😉
We were wondering if you could provide us any king of trip planning as well as the best way to move from one island to another, if we should rent a car once in the different islands, etc, etc, and the best way of traveling without spending to much time on traveling.
Please excuse my english…and thanks very much in advance!
Great blog!
Best Regards,
Elsa.
Hi Elsa,
I am so sorry for this tardy reply. I’ve been traveling! A few suggestions for you: I would suggest fewer islands for longer lengths of time, to minimize the required travel between islands. if you have 10-15 days, I would suggest 3 islands. Most island to island flights go through Athens, there are not many direct flights between islands, so you burn up a half day just getting from one island to another by air. The other option is by ferry, which is a good system, but once again there are only certain routes available on certain days, so you have to plan your time and islands carefully. I would suggest visiting islands that are close together to avoid too long of travel in between. Car rentals are good, but on some islands you may find the bus system to be all you need. For example, on Santorini we just used the buses, since parking a car in Fira (the main town) would be very difficult – the streets are just sidewalks. However, we did rent a car on Naxos and this worked out well, to see the little villages, and there is very little car traffic. Mykonos is not a quiet island, it is very much a “party” island. Naxos is lovely, as you’ve seen on my posts, and is very quiet. Santorini is beautiful, and has a lot of tourists, but I would highly recommend going there – the scenery is stunning.
If you wanted to just stay on one island and see a lot without moving around, Crete would be perfect. It’s very large, with a lot to see and great beaches. Yes, it has a couple large cities, but once you get outside these the rest of the island is quiet. If you have not read Matt Barrett’s website (just Google his name with Greece), I highly suggest it. He has a lot of information on different islands and what you can do.
I hope this helps!
Paul Terry
Loved reaading this thank you