Living My Best Mamma Mia Life in Greece

In August 2023, I flew to Greece for the kind of girls trip that honestly felt too good to be real, a Mamma Mia themed adventure through the islands of Skiathos and Skopelos. It was the kind of trip you imagine while blasting “Dancing Queen” in your kitchen. Sun-soaked beaches, white-washed buildings, and spontaneously bursting into ABBA sing-alongs.

And while we absolutely got all of that… the journey there was its own adventure.

In True Mamma Mia Fashion…

My two travel buddies and I flew from LA to London, where we had a long enough layover to sneak in an evening in the city. Then alarms went off at 3:30 a.m. the next day, and we were up and out the door for our 4:00 a.m. cab to the airport. It arrived at 4:30.

Already behind, we were dropped at the wrong terminal and had to scramble for a shuttle to the correct one. Inside, it was wall-to-wall people — the most crowded I’ve ever seen an airport and it was only 5:00 in the morning. As we got a notification that our flight was boarding, we paid for priority security… only to have all of our bags flagged and searched. Once cleared, we sprinted through the terminal and made it to the gate just in time, literally the last three people allowed on board. But as we were about to step on the plane, an airport worker asked,

“Where are you going?”

“Volos, Greece,” we answered.

He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

Turns out, they’d boarded the entire plane with people heading to the wrong destination. We all had to shuffle back into shuttles and head to a different aircraft. Then we sat for two extra hours on the runway waiting for a new departure window.

Once we finally landed in Greece, we raced to the port to catch the last ferry to the island. We didn’t make it.

In true Mamma Mia fashion, I missed the last ferry of the day. But in true Mamma Mia fashion, I managed to find a few random Greek men to help me get where I needed to go.

After calling our Airbnb host to say we wouldn’t arrive until the next day, he sent me a phone number with little explanation. Five minutes later, a man named Manthos pulled up and said he was driving us to a different port, an hour and a half away, where a private boat would meet us. We had no idea what we were agreeing to, but we went.

Manthos, to his credit, was incredibly friendly and taught us some Greek on the drive (while taking his turns hard enough to make us carsick). He dropped us and our belongings at a tiny, completely deserted dock and said a boat would come soon. We had no choice but to believe him.

Fifteen minutes later, a man in a small boat pulled up and yelled,
“Ladies! Get in my boat!”
“Are you here for Marissa?” I asked.
“I don’t know your name,” he said.
“…”
“Did you come with Manthos?”
“Yes!”
“Then get in my boat.”

That was how we met Lukas. His boat was so small that I had to stand beside him and hold onto a rail as we crossed the open water. But sure enough, we made it to the island. He pointed toward a steep staircase carved into the cliff and said, “Climb these stairs. Get on a bus stop at the top.”

So we climbed — with all of our luggage. At the top, a bus arrived almost immediately. We had no idea where it was going, but we got on and rode it for 22 stops through the island, hoping we’d end up somewhere near the original port. Miraculously, we did. When we finally stumbled off the bus, I was delirious and desperate for water. As I made my way to a fountain, I heard someone ask, “Vera House?” — the name of our Airbnb.

“Yes!” I yelled, probably too excited.

That’s how we met Bledar, our sweet and wildly helpful host, who carried our bags and showed us into the house. We hadn’t eaten, we were sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and a little bit out of our minds — but after 15 straight hours of chaos, we’d made it. And somehow, we laughed through the entire thing.

The Mamma Mia Dream

The next morning, we woke up in a dream. The skies were clear, the sea sparkled, and the stress of the previous travel day was long behind us. The three of us rented a private boat and drove it around the island ourselves all day, exploring the local coastlines of Skiathos. It was the kind of day you knew you would never forget, even while you were living it. Sun-drenched and salty, full of swimming, singing, and hours stretched out under the Greek sun.

After our day in Skiathos, we traveled to Skopelos, where we met up with the rest of the girls and that’s when the real Mamma Mia energy kicked in. We shopped in the local markets, ate Gyros every chance we could, swam in the Aegean, threw disco parties, and made it our mission to find every spot the Mamma Mia movie touched — including Agios Ioannis, the chapel where the wedding scene was filmed. Getting up there required a bit of a climb, but standing at the top with that view was worth every step.

There’s something special about Greece — something gentle and warm, beautiful in a way that feels like it can’t quite be real. It made time stretch. It made everything feel slower and brighter. It felt like living inside a movie.