Meet the midlife backpackers who swapped boutique for basic
Mandy and Alan Gravett ditched the idea of a luxury cruise and five-star hotels to explore the Greek islands by foot and ferry
Last September Mandy and Alan Gravett arrived at the port on the Greek island of Tinos in plenty of time to catch a ferry back to Athens for their flight home to London. It was the final leg of a three-week trip around the Cyclades, a smattering of islands in the Aegean Sea that bring to mind dazzling white stucco buildings overlooking azure waters.
The port at Tinos is split into two with “a 15-minute walk between them,” Alan says. The Athens ferry docks at only one of these ports — and the couple were waiting at the wrong one. “We only realised our mistake at the last moment when an elderly local on a moped, cigarette dangling from his lips, rode past shouting, ‘Athens ferry!’ and pointed us in the right direction,” Alan explains.
Cue a frantic dash — not easy with a 30-litre backpack and the late summer sun beating down on you — to make the ferry in the nick of time.
It may sound like the kind of mishap that would befall a couple of gap year students but Mandy and Alan are 60 and 58, respectively — and for them, it was all part of the fun of their spontaneous island-hopping adventure.
“We knew we wanted to visit the Cyclades. We’d been to the islands of Paros and Antiparos 25 years earlier and wanted to return and explore some of the other islands too. Beyond that we didn’t have a plan,” Mandy says. “The only part of the trip we booked before leaving London was our flight to Athens, our first night’s accommodation, and our first ferry from Piraeus on the Greek mainland to Milos.”
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From then on, there was no firm itinerary. The couple booked ferries on the hoof via the Ferryhopper app — and their spontaneity paid off all but once. Mandy explains: “After Milos, we wanted to head to Santorini but ferry tickets had sold out, so we diverted to Naxos instead and went on to Santorini afterwards.”
In total, the three-week trip for the two of them cost £5,000, including flights, accommodation, ferry travel, food and spending money. While it’s not an insignificant sum, they say they would have spent a whole lot more had they been in a resort.
Budget aside, the Gravetts were motivated by nostalgia for the kind of travel they did in their twenties and thirties — but rebooted for 2023. “We did a similar thing backpacking in Thailand for our honeymoon. But that was in 1994 when we had nothing more than The Rough Guide to Thailand to help us out,” Alan says. This time around, they had smartphones to book accommodation along the way.
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To ramp up the backpacker vibe, the couple stayed in the lively Athens neighbourhood of Monastiraki on the first night of their trip — and decided it would be remiss not to join in the partying. “Our flight was delayed so we didn’t arrive at our hotel until about 1am. I popped out to see if I could get a bottle of water and there were bars open everywhere. So I got back to the hotel room and said, ‘Come on, Mandy, let’s go out for a few drinks.’ We didn’t get back until three in the morning,” Alan says.
They had to travel light — which meant it was out with roomy roll-on luggage and in with sensible backpacks. “We didn’t know where we’d end up in terms of accommodation and whether we’d have to walk a long way from ferry ports so we couldn’t lug cases around with us,” explains Mandy.
They packed the bare minimum — a few T-shirts, pairs of shorts and walking trainers for Alan, while Mandy’s travel wardrobe consisted of little more than “a couple of light cotton dresses and bikinis, plus a pair of walking sandals which I wore for almost all of the holiday. I squeezed a bit of make-up and toiletries into small plastic travel containers,” she says.
Mandy’s top tip for aspiring midlife backpackers? “Check with hotels whether they’ll provide you with beach towels. Every place we stayed at did and it saved us a lot of space.”
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A good thing, too, because the Cyclades are home to some astonishing beaches. On Milos, the couple were blown away by Sarakiniko beach, known for its otherworldly, lunar-like appearance. “When you first approach, it looks like snow but as you get closer you realise it’s actually huge, smooth white rock,” Mandy says. Alan adds: “It’s stunning the way the water and the wind have shaped the landscape over time. It was almost like a piece of art.”
Other highlights included a 20-minute walk uphill from the main town on Milos to a ruined 13th-century castle built during the time of Venetian rule, where they were rewarded with panoramic views of the entire island. “It was just stunning and we had the whole place to ourselves. It didn’t seem to be on any of the tourist trails — we chanced upon it because we spotted a tiny handwritten sign stuck to a lamppost guiding you up to the castle,” Alan says.
Fast forward to Naxos for unforgettable food at Stella, their hotel next to Plaka beach. “The hotel’s owner made the most delicious jams, pies and pastries using produce such as plums and spinach from the hotel garden, which we stocked up on at breakfast time,” Mandy says.
While the Gravetts didn’t stay in five-star hotels, they sought out high-standard, budget-friendly accommodation. Their favourite? Perivoli, a series of three modern apartments on Paros, a steal at £50 a night (parosperivolirooms.gr). “The apartments had amazing gardens filled with herbs and lemon trees. It was a hidden gem off a busy road but once you got off that, it was a calm oasis,” Mandy says.
So do they have plans to sling on their backpacks again as sexagenarians? You bet. Mandy says: “We’d love to travel around South America or go back to southeast Asia. Don’t get me wrong, I like lying on the beach doing nothing but we’d never want to be stuck in one resort. We want to be flexible and travel independently, seeing as much as we possibly can.”
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