Matt Barrett.Net

I wanted MattBarrett.com but it was taken. It was not even taken by another Matt Barrett but by someone who thinks I am famous enough to want to buy my domain name and sell it back to me for a million dollars. It's called cyber-squatting. So I e-mailed this person and they never responded. I suppose that means that I am not famous enough so that he can sell my name for a million dollars and he is going to wait until I get more famous. So until I make enough money to buy the domain mattbarrett.com I am using mattbarrett.net as a sort of index for people to find my travel websites and some of the other projects I am involved in. By the way that is my daughter Amarandi in the photo. She is now 19 years old and I am still not famous enough to buy mattbarrett.com for a million dollars. So most likely I will be mattbarrett.net forever. Well at least it is not mattbarrett.info or mattbarrett.tv so things could be worse. If you have any questions you can e-mail me at matt@greecetravel.com

Index of Matt's Sites

Greece Travel Guide

Kea, Greece The reason I am famous enough to attract cybersquatters is because of my Greece Travel Guides which have been readby about a million people a year. In fact if every person who used my Greece Travel Guides last year had sent me a dollar I could probably buy Mattbarrett.com and not be stuck on the humiliating Mattbarrett.net. But if you are planning to go to Greece in the near or distant future or you just like to look at cool travel stuff on the web because it makes you feel like you have actually gone somewhere then visit my Greece Travel Guides at www.greecetravel.com

Athens Survival Guide

Parthenon, Athens, GreeceYes I know that for a lot of people Athens is no longer on their top-10 places to visit, mostly because of the financial crisis and the perception that it is a nasty place where people just riot and burn and fight with the police. But Athens is a big place with a lot to offer in the way of archaeological sites, museums, wonderful restaurants, beaches, and all sorts of things you don't see on CNN. Despite the economic hardship the people are going through now, tourists are still coming to Athens and enjoying themselves either on the way to and from the islands, or because they just want to go to Athens. So whether you want to visit Athens or not visit my Athens Survival Guide at www.athensguide.com

Lesvos: More Than Just Another Greek Island:

Lesvos, GreeceThe island of Lesvos, in the North Aegean is about ten kilometers off the coast of Turkey and is one of the most beautiful and interesting islands in Greece. It could be a country all it's own were it not so culturally tied to the Greek mainland. It has some of the best beaches in Greece and probably the freshest and most inexpensive seafood in Greece and they claim the best olive oil in Greece. It is also the bird-watching capital of southern Europe and in spring the migrating birds and wildflowers make it seem like paradise. People thought it odd that I would devote so much effort to making a website for one island but fifteen years later I have received hundreds of e-mails from people who used my advice and visited an island they had never heard of, and loved it. Many go back every year now. See www.lesvos.com

SPEARFISHING IN SKATAHORI

This is the funniest book about traveling in Greece ever written. Just ask all my friends, someof whom stopped speaking to me after they recognized themselves in my book. That's the trouble when your humor is brutally honest. But they will forgive me. Maybe at about the same time as I get the million dollars to buy Mattbarrett.com. In the meantime since you don't know me personally and are probably not in the book you have nothing to lose by reading it and everything to gain because besides being amusing and entertaining it also contains lots of helpful information about Greece. But having read a lot of other travel journals I would say this is the funniest. See Spearfishing in Skatahori

A History of Greece

History of Greece logoI began this website as an introduction to Greek history that I could include in my guides for people who knew nothing about Greek history. As I wrote it, the history got longer and longer with more and more photos, music and archival material so that it began to take on a life of its own. It is probably one of the few histories of Greece that begins with pre-history and goes to the present-day. Well maybe not the present day since things now are happening so quickly I can't even keep up with it. But if you want to know about Greek history this is a good place to begin. See www.ahistoryofgreece.com

A Paris Guide

Bridge on the Seine, ParisThis is a website I did wth my friend Stephen Papadopoulos, a Greek-American poet who splits time between Paris and Athens. I discovered a great way to break up the 9 hour flight from NY to Athens was to spend several days in Paris. While this site is not as popular as my Greece websites there is a lot of good information, some nice photos and some excellent travel writing, mostly by Stephen though each time I go and add a little more of my writing and my photos. It may not be the best guide to Paris but it is free and it is good enough and it covers the basics. After your tenth trip or so you might want to move on to something more complete but if this is your first trip you will never know that I don't know everything. See www.aparisguide.com

North Carolina Travel Guide

Wilmington NCI began this site when I went to the beach and tried out a new digital camera. The photos looked pretty good so I made a page for them and then thought that since I spend much of the year in North carolina, why not make a travel guide for the state like my Greece Travel Guides. The first thing I did was write about the music of North Carolina and most people say that this is the best part of my guide, but if you want to visit North carolina you may find the whole thing pretty useful. Actually North Carolina is the 6th most popular tourist destination in the USA and has islands and mountains, like Greece, though not together, being on opposite sides of the state. But the roads are better than in Greece. In fact they are probably the best in the USA. See www.northcarolinatravels.com

Guide to Chicago

ChicagoWhen I visited Chicago Illinois a couple summer ago for the Taste of Greece food festival I really did not know much about the city. What I discovered is that Chicago is an amazingly beautiful place. Lake Michigan reminded me of the Aegean Sea and not only that but there were Greeks everywhere. It was the Greekest place I have ever been besides Greece. So I took about a thousand photographs and put together a Guide to Chicago, which has a slightly Greek slant. So if you can't make it to Greece this summer then why not go to Chicago. Or at least visit my Chicago Guide at www.mattbarrett-travel.com/chicago

Turkey Guide

Agia Sophia, Istanbul, TurkeyOnce I finally visited Istanbul, Turkey I had to ask myself what took me so long. Istanbul was one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to and the people were extraordinarily nice. So of course I had to put together a website about it and to help me with the rest of Turkey I solicited the help of some very wise friends who know the country way better than I do. But this site should continue to grow as I plan to return there as often as possible. You can see my Guide to Turkey at www.greecetravel.com/turkey

Greek Food Guide

sardelles pastes, greek dishSeveral years ago I put together this website on Greek Food, comprised mainly (completely actually) of articles about food from my Greece Travel Guide. The plan was to have one central location that had all my information about Greek food. But as the site seemed to gain in popularity I began to feel guilty about how much of the information on the site could also be found on other pages of my website. Sort of like turning in the same book report or term paper year after year because you have different teachers or switch schools. So I made up my mind that one day I was going to make this website a guide to Greek food that would stand on its own. But what do I know about Greek food besides how to eat it? As it turns out: alot. See www.greecefoods.com

AMARANDI BARRETT'S GREECE 4 KIDS

Amarandi Barrett: Greece4kidsMy daughter Amarandi has put together her own travel guide to Greece called GREECEJUST FOR KIDS. If you are thinking of going to Greece and you have kids that are not yet as enthused as you are about the prospects of a vacation thousands of miles away in a land they have never been to and maybe not even heard of, send them here. Amarandi did most of the writing from the age of 8 until 12 and then she sort of lost interest in it. She is nineteen and in university now but for thousands of children around the world who use her site Amarandi is still around 12 years old and she still gets e-mail from children who want to be her pen pal. You can see her website at www.greece4kids.com

Matt Barrett Music

The RuseFirst of all the reason I am famous enough for someone to buy my domain name andsell it back to me is not because I am a musician, even though I think that is what I should have been famous for. But after years of playing in small clubs....well mostly one small club called the Cave in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I gave it up. Yes the crowds were getting smaller and those that came to the bar were more intent upon watching whatever was on TV. But can you blame them? Who wants to see a fat, bald guy in his fifties singing about the girlfriends he had when he was in his twenties and was skinny, handsome and had hair? But my music was pretty good, especially if you like hard-edged pop. And some of the writing is pretty funny too. See www.mattbarrett.net/music

Greece Photo Album

Greece photosI have taken thousands of photos of Greece. I think I was up to about 60,000 last time I checked. When you take that many photos, no matter how bad a photographer you are, you are going to come up with some winners. So I have put the best ones together along with the slides of Greece my father took between 1963 and 1974. I think altogether they create a pretty inspiring portrait of Greece and if there is anyone you want to convince to go there with you this is a good place to send them. If you have a few free hours yourself and want to browse through them go to www.greecetravel.com/photos