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Cruising the Greek islands (with a little help from some Netheads) A honeymoon cruise through Santorini, Crete and Naxos, with an itinerary culled from the Internet This article appeared in the Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze in 1998 and the San Francisco Examiner (entire Travel cover), Chicago Tribune, Newsday, New Orleans Times Picayune, Buffalo News and the Rocky Mountain News in 1997. Last updated June 20, 1998 By J.D. Lasica CRETE, Greece — Xerxes had led us astray. Xerxes, the nom de Net of a wired wayfarer on the Internet, had advised my wife and me by e-mail to bypass the resorts on Crete's northern coast and head straight for the island's hilly heartland. "To capture the real soul of Greece, avoid the tourist traps and hit the smaller villages," he (or she) wrote. "You'll love Skalini. I'm sure there are rooms to rent there." Well, no, as we discovered to our dismay. That false lead, however, turned into one of the memorable encounters on our trip. In our phrase-book Greek, we asked directions from a 70-year-old villager clad in a black shawl as she hand-watered the fragrant bougainvillia in her garden. She shepherded us into her clean, spare living room and served us a bowl of figs and two slices of lemon pound cake, all the while ignoring our protests. Then she brought out a photo album and began slicing a cucumber for her two guests while thumbing through pictures of her family. Soon, her teenage granddaughter, Elinor, arrived, not sure what to make of the strangers in her house. Elinor shyly quizzed us, "Are you English?" For she and Agathi, her grandmother, had never before met an American. That touched off a long, animated round of questions — and an invitation to return. We didn't find a room for rent in Skalini that night, but no matter. We were on our honeymoon, and we had opted for serendipity over certainty. Our 12 days on the Greek islands of Crete, Santorini and Naxos last summer were filled with such chance encounters. My wife, Mary, and I both dabble in the Internet, so we thought it would be both fun and instructive to forgo the usual guide books and rely instead on virtual advice from mailing lists, Usenet groups, Web sites and, chiefly, e-mail messages from kindred souls who had made small, enchanting discoveries off the beaten path. Getting advice from the Internet isn't just for Netheads anymore. Of Americans who traveled abroad last year, an estimated 33 percent relied on guide books, 27 percent got their travel advice from a travel agent, 24 percent used travel magazines, and 17 percent tapped into the Internet, according to a study by Withlin Worldwide, a market research firm in Mclean, Va. To be sure, the quality of that advice is uneven, as our experience in Skalini showed. But our online surfing also turned up tidepools of vacation tips that were more timely, offbeat and original than the usual oracles of travel wisdom.   n e x t NEXT: Santorini Santorini Naxos Crete Greece resources Greek islands photo gallery Travel articles CONTACT JD