Greece or Italy: Italy Is Cheaper From All 26 US Airports We Price

Of the 6 European countries we can compare properly, Greece is the most expensive to reach from the United States, and it is not close. Its median is $945 against Italy's $712, and Italy is the cheaper of the two from every single one of the 26 US gateways that priced both. No other country comparison in our data produces a clean sweep.

Across the 26 US gateways that priced both

Italy was cheaper from 26 of 26

On median the two are $945 and $712, which favors Italy. The two summaries favor the same destination in this snapshot. Your departure airport’s row is the relevant starting point; matching summaries do not guarantee a lower fare on your dates. 0 gateways had equal observed prices.

Greece

Median round trip

$945

Cheapest fare found

$571 from Chicago

Gateways where it is cheaper

0 of 26

Italy

Median round trip

$712

Cheapest fare found

$461 from New York

Gateways where it is cheaper

26 of 26

Its strongest airport

Washington DC by $386

From	Greece	Italy	Cheaper by
New York	$844	$574	Italy by $270
Boston	$839	$594	Italy by $245
Los Angeles	$818	$638	Italy by $180
Chicago	$851	$662	Italy by $189
San Francisco	$917	$636	Italy by $281
Orlando	$936	$628	Italy by $308
Houston	$858	$707	Italy by $151
Seattle	$960	$670	Italy by $290
Miami	$948	$684	Italy by $264
Charlotte	$933	$701	Italy by $232
Tampa	$936	$702	Italy by $234
Detroit	$904	$736	Italy by $168
Las Vegas	$941	$700	Italy by $241
Minneapolis	$937	$730	Italy by $207
Philadelphia	$1,023	$654	Italy by $369
Washington DC	$1,036	$650	Italy by $386
Atlanta	$945	$759	Italy by $186
Phoenix	$949	$775	Italy by $174
Portland	$965	$760	Italy by $205
Raleigh	$952	$775	Italy by $177
Salt Lake City	$962	$767	Italy by $195
Dallas	$980	$750	Italy by $230
Denver	$960	$778	Italy by $182
Nashville	$974	$768	Italy by $206
Austin	$944	$816	Italy by $128
San Diego	$960	$805	Italy by $155

The Greek destinations inside the country comparison

The destination mix matters when interpreting the median: this country sample includes Athens, Santorini and Mykonos. That is a statement about what was measured, not a claim that distance or island geography caused the fares.

Greece, city by city	Median	Cheapest found
Athens	$764	$571
Santorini	$945	$818
Mykonos	$965	$826

Our grid prices three Greek destinations, and two of them are islands. Santorini at $945 and Mykonos at $965 are the two most expensive cities in the entire 40-city grid, more expensive than anywhere in Scandinavia, anywhere in the Alps, and anywhere in the British Isles. Athens on its own is $764, which is costly but ordinary, and closer to the expensive end of Italy than to its own islands.

The two island observations contribute to Greece’s country result. The table does not establish how popular those destinations are, how airlines construct the fares or whether an island ticket is expensive on every travel week.

Fly to Athens, take the ferry

Athens is an alternative to investigate, not an automatic saving. Santorini medians $945 and Mykonos $965 in the city snapshot, against Athens at $764. The gaps between those medians do not price matching flights, a ferry, airport transfers or a night on the mainland.

The arrival comparison records scheduled surface travel times separately from airfare gaps. Check the actual onward service for the day and time your flight arrives, the journey from the airport to the port and the transfer at the island end. Include the journey home too: an outward connection that works does not establish a useful return schedule.

Compare a through-ticket to the island with an Athens arrival and separate onward transport for all travelers. Add the actual ground fares, bags, transfers and any extra night. Consider the consequences of an arriving flight delay when the onward journey is a separate booking. A larger historical gap can justify doing that comparison, but it does not prove the ferry costs less than the flight difference.

If the trip is short, the time spent reaching an alternative arrival can be a substantial part of the visit. If the mainland is already part of your trip, some of that transport may be planned regardless of the airfare choice. Count only the costs that genuinely differ between the options, and keep the itinerary that works for you rather than following a national-median rule.

Italy, for comparison

Italy, city by city	Median	Cheapest found
Rome	$669	$461
Milan	$691	$571
Venice	$712	$574
Naples	$738	$579
Florence	$764	$594

Italy's cheapest city, Rome at $669, has the lowest fare of either country anywhere in our grid: $461 from New York. Even Italy's most expensive city, Florence at $764, is cheaper than Athens. That is the shape of the comparison. It is not that Greece has a weak airport; it is that Italy's whole distribution sits below Greece's.

Washington had the widest Italy-favoring gap in the historical country comparison. That is an airfare observation, not a measured week of ground expenses or a saving guaranteed on matching dates. Compare the intended destinations rather than assuming the country result settles the whole trip.

Which US airport is best for Greece

If Greece is settled and the question is where to leave from, the ordering is not the one you would guess from the national gateway ranking.

Chicago held the lowest individual Athens observation at $571 in the historical city snapshot. Compare your own gateway’s recorded floor before treating a national minimum as a fare you could obtain.

Los Angeles had the lowest gateway median across the priced Greek destinations. Its island observations contributed to that result, but the flexible-window city search did not establish how any airline constructed the fare or why the route was priced that way.

The Deal Alert Setup Wizard can help define an airport-pair search. A list of observed airlines is context for that search, not a prediction of the fare or proof of what every airline can sell.

Read the two country summaries correctly

The national country figure is the median of the ranked city medians inside that country. The gateway-by-gateway comparison asks a different question: it takes each US gateway’s median across the cities it priced in each country, subject to the comparison’s coverage requirement. Both sides must qualify before that gateway enters the win count. Neither figure is the cheapest available ticket into the country.

This distinction matters for a country sample containing mainland and island destinations. A gateway can have the lower country median without offering the lowest Athens fare, and a low individual island observation need not make that gateway the best starting point for every Greek trip. Read the relevant city row before treating the country result as your answer.

All those city observations retain August 30, 2026 and the departure window August 30, 2026 – February 28, 2027. A destination’s lowest recorded week can differ from another destination’s. The table does not hold every itinerary, departure week or fare restriction constant, and it cannot isolate an airline’s pricing motives. Use it to select a current comparison with the destination and dates fixed, rather than adding unrelated historical fares into a budget.

When to pay it anyway

This site's rule is that cheap and worth-paying-for are different judgments, and Greece is the clearest case in our data of a place where the expensive answer may still be the right one. A Cycladic week is not an Italian week. If Greece is the trip, the data should change how you book rather than whether you go.

Price the Greek destination you actually want, then inspect an Athens alternative only if the complete onward journey is acceptable. Use Italy as a comparison if it is a trip you would also take, not as an interchangeable destination by default. The Fare Deal Checker supplies historical context for a quote rather than a normal price or a prediction.

The dataset does not establish that alerts are more valuable for Greece or that a sale will make the trip affordable. If you monitor fares, set conditions you can actually use and check the full live offer when an alert arrives.

For the full ranking Greece sits at the bottom of, see the cheapest countries to fly to in Europe, and for the city-level picture, the cheapest places to fly into in Europe. Our Greece guide goes deeper on which US airport is best for Athens specifically.