Hey travelers, my husband and I just returned from Greece and I wanted to share our experience. We abbreviated Rick's suggestion from his book and made some changes that fit for us. We were really happy with what we were able to do and see.
General reflections: Really glad we rented a car -- we drove only about 3-4 hours per day and were easily able to stay on schedule. Please note that the tolls on our routes added up to about 35 euro in total and we spent about 100 euro on gas. We usually like to use airbnbs for cost effectiveness and getting local flavor, but this didn't seem to work as well in Greece as it did in Italy. We had 2 hosts completely fall through on us, and found that the cheap hotels were less expensive than airbnbs and still gave a very nice local flavor with family owner/operators. Being in Greece in the off season was really really great for us. We got reduced prices and the sites were not very crowded. Athens was still pretty crowded in November, so I can only imagine how it gets in the summer time. We ran the Athens Authentic Marathon, and it was a great experience, but very very crowded. The runners usually thin out over most road races, but this was very crowded throughout. Still, extremely well organized and there were frequent water stations.
We got in late so spent the first night in Athens.
Hydra - 2 nights
Delphi - 1 night
Olympia - 1 night
Monemvasia - 2 nights
Nafplio - 2 nights
Athens - 4 nights
We felt we spent just the right amount of time in each location and were really happy we didn't spend any more or less time at any place.