top of page
Search
  • Writer's pictureWITY TRAVELS
    • May 28, 2021
    • 4 min read

Americans flying into Athens Greece (Travel Blog 2021)


In case you are new here, we are Will and Katy. We are a travel couple that is traveling around the world. We are currently in Greece. We hope to show you what it is like to travel in 2021!


In this Travel Blog we tell you how Americans can fly into Greece. We flew out of Tirana (Mother Teresa) International Airport to Athens International Airport in Greece. 3 months earlier we flew into Tirana from Florida in the United States with a layover at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. We spent the time since traveling around the Balkans: Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia.








Greece Opens




In this blog we will tell you what you need to do to successfully enter Greece such as the test and filling out the Passenger Locator Form. We tell you how we took the metro from the airport to the stop near our hotel. Before deciding to fly, we looked into crossing into Greece from the Kakavia land border near Gjirokaster but it's still closed.


When we left our full-time jobs in January this year and decided to travel the world we had no idea Greece would be open when we were close enough to drive in. When we were in Bitola, Macedonia we even saw road signs for Athens. As of this writing neither the land border from Greece to Albania nor Macedonia is open but it was still cool to be less than an hour's drive away from Greece on 2 different occasions.


Greece officially opened for US Citizens in mid April 2021 and opened for a lot of other countries in mid May 2021. We decided to wait until restaurants and museums would open in Mid May. We wanted to go for the opportunity to see the historical sights and famous scenes before the herds of people returned later in the summer.



PCR Test


To get into Greece you need to have proof of vaccine or a negative PCR test. We don't have our vaccinations so we needed the negative PCR test. We flew out of Tirana (Mother Teresa) International Airport to Athens International Airport in Greece.


We were able to get our PCR test in Tirana Albania and get our results back in just about 6 hours. They did not email us the results so we had to pick them up in person. We decided to wait until the next morning since we still had plenty of time. Pro tip: double check to make sure your name (as it is spelled on your passport) is spelled correctly on all paperwork! They did not spell Katy's middle name right on the proof of negative test and that could have lead to a problem at the airport.


The link to the U.S. Embassy website for Greece is updated regularly and can be found here: https://gr.usembassy.gov/covid-19-information/




Passenger Locator Form


A new form that we had to fill out for Greece was the Passenger Locator Form (PLF).


This form is several pages but it is pretty straight forward. They ask for the residence that you will be staying in during your stay in Greece. As of the time of this writing you had to do it 24 hours in advance.


Since they ask your residence when you first get to Greece it is important to make sure you get your lodging early which will also allow you to complete your PLF with time to spare. When your PLF is done then they will send you a QR code in an email. If you do not get this QR form you will not be allowed into Greece so give yourself plenty of time.


The link to the updated website with the Passenger Locator Form can be found here: https://travel.gov.gr/#/




Athens Airport



When we got off the plane and into the airport there was someone who scanned our QR code from the PLF. He said that one of us had been selected for an additional covid test.


We met some other Americans on our flight into Athens from Tirana. 1 of the 2 of them were selected for an additional covid test and 1 of the 2 of us got tested. Don't think it's "random" but it wasn't a big deal.


There were 2 medical people who did a mouth swab on one of us and then let us continue on our way.


From there we looked for signs to take the metro. There are a few options to get to the city centre of Athens: bus (line X95, ticket costs 6€), metro or taxi.


We decided on the metro since it would only be a 40-45 minute ride opposed to possibly a 1 hour bus ride. The metro cost 18€ for the two of us and we took the Metro line 3 and got off at Syntagma Square which was only a few minute walk from our hotel.




You can see more of the process of Americans getting into Greece in our travel vlog "Americans Fly into Greece in 2021 (Tirana to Athens Travel Vlog, Requirements, and Forms)" on YouTube. Out now!


Thanks for reading our blog on Flying into Greece 2021!


This is WITY TRAVELS.


What could possibly be next?

Find out by following us on social media!


Follow @witytravels on:

Follow us on Facebook @witytravelstheworld - https://www.facebook.com/pg/witytravelstheworld


Listen to our in depth travel details on your preferred podcast provider:


Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and find out more about us at witytravels.com

10 views0 comments
bottom of page