We had a great apartment in Athens which was perfect for our teens and tweens.
Why book an apartment with teens and tweens?
We prefer to book an apartment when travelling with our teens and tweens rather than a hotel. A hotel is ok for a one or two night stay. However, we like to have a living room and a terrace / balcony when staying for longer. We all need time – and space – to chill when we are not out sightseeing. Plus, our boys definitely need space from one another! An apartment with a terrace or balcony also gives you somewhere to sit out with a glass of wine once the teens and tweens are finally asleep!.
If, like us, you are travelling on a budget, having an apartment allows you to at least partially self-cater. Exploring a foreign supermarket or bakery is all part of the experience for your teens and tweens! You may want to go armed with a translator on your phone to avoid any surprises. I say this from bitter experience of a supermarket trip in Billund, Denmark when I bought what I thought was milk in a carton and poured it in my tea to find it was yoghurt!
Finding a good apartment for teens and tweens
Our main go-tos for apartments are AirBnB and Booking.com. I like the ability to filter my search on AirBnB by number of bedrooms and beds. The four of us don’t want to sleep in one bedroom and the boys don’t want to share a double bed!. I also search by location, safety features (smoke alarm, carbon monoxide detectors), outside space etc.
Also, both sites have reviews from previous guests. I would avoid any property which didn’t have at least 30 positive reviews. Negative reviews wouldn’t necessarily stop me booking. However, I would read them to see if the complaints are about things which actually bother us. For example, I would always be put-off by reviews complaining of lots of noise late at night but I wouldn’t care about a lack of aircon if I was travelling in April.
Our Athens apartment
We booked this apartment through AirBnB in the Koukaki district. The apartment had 3 good sized bedrooms over 2 levels. There is also a spacious living room, a small but adequate kitchen and several balconies / terraces.
The icing on the cake was the roof terrace a few floors up. The roof terrace had amazing views across Athens to the Acropolis in one direction and the Aegean Sea in the other! I believe access to the roof terrace is shared with the 2 other apartments in the building. However, we didn’t see anyone else using the roof terrace during our 5 night stay.
From the apartment, we could walk to the Acropolis and Acropolis Museum in around 10-15 minutes (read more about both in our Athens Itinerary with teens and tweens). We could also walk into the Plaka district in about 15 minutes and to Monastiraki Square in just over 20 minutes. The nearest metro stop is around 5 minutes downhill. We found our favourite street of restaurants a 10 minute walk away from the apartment in the opposite direction.
