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Our story
Three friends, one promise: wherever you go in Greece, you should feel like you are travelling with a local.
The Greek Local was started by three friends with roots in Greece, Cyprus and Lithuania. Two of us grew up with the language and the culture. One of us arrived in Greece as a traveller, fell in love with it, and never stopped coming back. Between us, we know Greece from the inside, and we also remember exactly what it feels like to land here without that knowledge.
That mix is the whole idea behind this company. Finding the right experience in Greece is harder than it should be. The big international platforms simply put a wall of tours in front of you and leave you to guess. The knowledge that actually matters, which boat trip suits the wind that day, which village is worth the detour, which experience is right for your family, is surprisingly hard to find. We know this from both sides, because even speaking Greek does not guarantee you good answers.
We have also seen what those platforms look like from the other side. One of us spent years working with tours in Cyprus and watched how heavily platform commissions press on the small, family-run businesses that actually deliver your experience. Most of what you pay on the big sites never reaches the people who take you out on the water or guide you through the hills.
We believe this can be done better for everyone. We keep our fees to operators low, we keep prices fair for travellers, and we make sure more of every euro you spend stays with the people who run your experience and with the local economy around them.
Meet the founders
Canoeing on the Nestos river
Co-founder · Born and raised in Greece
I was born and raised in Greece, and I have travelled to more than 15 countries across 4 continents and over 200 cities. On every journey I was searching for the same thing: to experience a place the way a local does, not as a tourist but as a resident.
That search was never easy. It took hours of research, chance encounters and a good deal of luck. That is why we created The Greek Local: to make finding authentic experiences simple, and to connect every traveller with local experts and the activities they know and love. I did not want to build just another booking platform. I wanted a bridge between the people looking for the real Greece and those who live it every day.
Fishing on the Greek coast
Co-founder · Four years in Cyprus tourism
For the last four years I have worked in tourism in Cyprus, helping local operators run their experiences, among them the largest sea-turtle watching tour on the island. Work that closely with people and you learn what a small business really offers, and how little of it survives the way the big platforms package and sell it. Superb operators handing over a heavy slice of every booking, then waiting a month to be paid money they had already earned, or surrendering an even bigger cut just to be paid sooner, while travellers are served the same generic recommendations as everyone else.
Greece has run through my whole life, from a Cypriot childhood to every trip since, and it always troubled me that its best experiences were the hardest to find and its best operators the least looked after. The Greek Local is my answer to both: a platform built with our operators, not around them, where the people who know a place best are the ones who help you experience it. No wall of tours. Just Greece, shown to you by people who love it as much as I do.
Hiking on Meganisi
Co-founder · Builds The Greek Local
I came to Greece for the first time when I was eight years old, to Thessaloniki. I had no idea then how important Greece and its culture would become in my life. Thirty years, one Greek wife and countless trips later, Greece is what I live and breathe. Marrying into a Greek family means I see the country from the inside, away from the tourist path.
At The Greek Local I am the one who builds the site itself, making sure everything you need is easy to find and easy to take in, so the knowledge does the work and you simply enjoy your trip. I do not learn Greece from behind a screen, though. I hike its trails and I am out on the water whenever I can, jetskiing and water skiing, trying the kinds of experiences you will find here. It still mesmerises me every time, and I want to help you fall in love with it the way I have.
We do not just list activities. We help you choose the right one for the place, the season and the conditions, the way a local friend would.
Lower fees for operators mean healthier local businesses, better experiences and a warmer welcome.
Wherever a local or European service does the job well, we choose it for our own ecosystem. It is a small way of making sure the value created by Greek tourism supports the economies it comes from.
You are not a conversion rate to us. If you are unsure what to book, ask us. A real person who knows Greece will answer.
Our goal is to be at your side for the whole journey: from the moment you land at the airport or arrive by sea, to choosing your next activity, to the small local questions in between that only a local can answer. We are building towards that, step by step, starting with the experiences on this site.
Wherever you go in Greece, we want you to feel like you are travelling with a Greek local.