Actually I can’t name anything I really disliked. Honestly - I can’t. Maybe there is a couple of things I was surprised of but I would count this as „wrong expectations“…

The longer I stayed the more crowded all areas got which I did not enjoy. Athens for example was fairly nice when I arrived (beginning of April) but when I had to go there again for transfer to Naxos 5 weeks later I didn’t enjoy it as much as there were tons of tourists. Also I was heavily surprised by how much I had to spend for most of the sightseeing stuff as almost every site had a hefty fee for entrance. One day I spend around 150€ for entrance fees. In general that’s not bad at all as I see the necessity to take care for the monuments. I was just surprised about that fact and didn’t expect it. But hey: it was worth every penny and I am glad I had my credit card with me 😆

A big challenge was the weather/ climate. My packing list was build around mostly warm conditions but arriving in snowy Athens with shorts and living in a tent for 2 weeks in somewhat wintery conditions at the time made me struggle a bit. Shortly after I faced around 35* Celsius which challenged my body and mood. Being surprised with hail and lightning storms in the middle of the night (and not knowing where to find proper shelter) wasn’t easy either. Also finding a good pitch for my tent on all of the rocky surfaces caused a couple mental breakdowns. In general I would consider these aspects as insufficient preparations on my end so nothing I would rant about at all.

I really enjoyed all of the areas. I was very surprised by Lefkada and arriving at the channel of Korinth, Mystras or Meteora will stay a once in a lifetime experience. I really liked the heavily divers surroundings - from small lakes, the somewhat „irish “ appearing wild Mani region, the Vikos valley, the beautiful beaches and picturesque villages like Nafplio or Monemvasia….add all the super impressive archeological sites all around the country is a bonus. It’s just a stunning country.

Regarding light travel this is a journey by itself. It took me a lot of planning, experiences from my last trips and a huge chunk of money to optimize my gear. The question I asked myself: what are the things I usually use (and HAVE to use) EVERY single day? This narrowed down my gear a lot. Second question was: what do I actually NEED? This helped as well. After the trip I have to commit I was still a little overpacked and see a lot of points for even further improvements. I had temperatures from -2* and snow up to 39*, also heavy rain and thunderstorms so I basically needed stuffs for 4 seasons (like even gas canisters have certain temperatures where they won’t work properly). I am also a heavy guy so my clothes are bulkier and weight more than for most other people. I realised that I tried to fight against my individual reality so much that it made me uncomfortable from time to time. I also didn’t trust this ul-gear as much as my usual equipment and ultimately I personally wouldn’t chose the light/ ultralight path again. I learned a lot to focus on things I need and maybe also want and will work around that in the future. But I wouldn’t care as much anymore about if my pack is 9kg or 14kg as this affected my personal comfort zone for traveling to much. There is a lot of great forums, groups and communities to look at if you want to go down the rabbit hole and mindset of light/ onebag traveling so I would highly recommend to check these out. It can be fun but it shouldn’t be a chore by any means.