These were among the first words spoken to me upon arrival at the Pefkos Beach Hotel in Rhodes. I spent a week here and felt that was long enough to see the parts of the island that I wanted to and also to attend a beautiful wedding in Lindos.
A few days into the week I happened to read the guest book and noticed that people were here on their 6th 7th 8th and in some cases 9th stay! A lot of them had also already booked for 2012. This got me thinking about the attitudes people have on returning to the same place. I personally wont choose to ever return to Pefkos myself, it’s a typical purpose built tourist resort that offers nothing but restaurants, bars, hotels, tacky tourist supermarkets and car hire places however it’s still in Greece and not the UK……. it also offers good access to other parts of the island and the gently shelving beach is lapped by that beautiful green azure sea.
I’ve noticed in the travel community a lot of people won’t ever return to a country they have already visited. Instead they are striving forward to tick off a whole host of countries. I guess it looks good and is a social standing? Personally I think it’s a bit short sighted. Take Greece for example let’s say you have hit the a few well trodden tourist paths such as Santorini, Athens and Crete does this mean you would never return to visit any of the other thousands of islands.
So you’ve visited Rome but won’t now bother with Venice?
I’ve been to Florida so perhaps I should give the Grand Canyon and Yosemite a miss in the quest to boast about how many countries I have visited?
I have returned to many countries over the past 10 years, sometimes to places I have visited before but more often to somewhere new. I like to immerse myself really scratch the surface and see as much as I can throughout the country. I have now visited Greece about 8 times but I’m not that person who is on the 8th stay at the same hotel in the same resort. Although I have racked up two stays at the Ios Resort Hotel plus a hotel in Athens but everywhere else has been new scenery.
So back to the family who are on their 9th stay in Pefkos I applaud you I cannot comprehend why you would keep going back? Yes you know the staff, yes its good service and yes it’s a really nice family resort but to me you are just playing safe and being lazy by not making the effort to find somewhere new for you and your children to experience.
Finally to the nice friendly receptionist yes I did like Rhodes, but Pefkos…..?
………not so much and sorry no I won’t be back
So what do you think about the two extremes? Same place same destination or never the same country twice? Comments are always welcome and I’d be really interested to see what other people think?
Em and I felt the same about Pefkos. The hotel/apartment was lovely but very little access to anything Greek. The shop prided itself on heinz baked beans and spam no feta or haloumi. So if its culture your after then this can only be a base from which to explorexx