Where Did Odysseus Really Travel to in Homer’s Odyssey?

Greek Reporter ^ | May 3, 2025 | Caleb Howells

[nickcarraway]

In the seventh century BCE, the Greek poet Homer wrote the Odyssey. This fascinating tale of adventure and loss would captivate readers for centuries, even millennia. It tells the story of Odysseus attempting to travel home after the Trojan War.

One of the most intriguing things about this lengthy poem is that there is significant controversy surrounding the locations mentioned throughout. Based on the best available evidence, where did Odysseus really travel to in the Odyssey?

Does the Odyssey take place all over the Mediterranean?

The most common belief is that the Odyssey takes place over a very large area. After all, this seems logical at first. Odysseus takes a full ten years to return home after the Trojan War. Taking the normal route from Troy, in northwest Anatolia, to Odysseus’ home island of Ithaca should have only taken a few weeks at most.

For this reason, many people today believe Odysseus must have traveled all over the Mediterranean. In fact, this belief goes back to ancient times. For example, the common belief concerning Scylla and Charybdis was that they lived on either side of the Strait of Messina.

In fact, certain ancient writers suggested the Odyssey is set across an even wider area than that, claiming that some of the locations were outside the Mediterranean. For example, some writers argued that Calypso’s island, Ogygia, should be identified with one of the islands of the British Isles.

Blown off course at Cape Maleas

In addition to the fact that the journey in the Odyssey took a long time, there is a more specific reason as to why many researchers today believe Odysseus must have traveled throughout the Mediterranean.

Odysseus’ journey starts off perfectly normally. The locations that appear obviously correspond with actual locations along the coast of the Aegean Sea between Troy and Greece. However, things take a turn for the worse—and the unusual—when the hero gets to Cape Maleas.

This is the eastern headland in the southernmost part of Greece, forming one side of the Gulf of Laconia. It is notorious for its strong winds. As Odysseus attempts to round the cape, a strong wind blows him off course in a southerly direction for nine days straight. Based on estimates concerning how far such an ancient Greek ship would go in a similar situation, many scholars have concluded that Odysseus must have traveled at least 630 miles from Cape Maleas.

Where did Odysseus travel to?

The problem is that the Mediterranean is not 630 miles from north to south at that point. In theory, then, this means that Odysseus simply cannot have been blown directly south. Rather, the wind must have blown him off course in a south-westerly direction along part of the length of the Mediterranean. This would take him to the coast of Africa, far west of Egypt, perhaps to Tunisia.

However, there is an important reason to challenge this assumption. As the late historian, sailor, and explorer Tim Severin pointed out, any reasonable interpretation of the Odyssey must be that Odysseus was trying to get home. This is the entire point of the story after all.

In such a situation, what would he logically have done while being blown off course? Would he have merely allowed the wind to carry him, or would he have steered the ships into the wind to try to hold his position as much as possible until the wind abated? The latter is obviously more logical.

This being the case, there is no reason to conclude that Odysseus was blown significantly to the west. Nine days of a wind driving him to the south, with him fighting against it during those nine days, would give a likely total distance of just 270 miles or so.

The Head of Polyphemus, the Cylops defeated by Odysseus. Credit: Steven Lek/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0 This would mean that Odysseus would have reached the coast of Africa much further east than Tunisia. In fact, his fleet likely would have arrived more or less at the site of the later Greek colony of Cyrene. This is essentially directly south of Greece. Thus, as Odysseus continued on his journey home, he would logically have traveled directly north, likely stopping off at Crete on the way.

In line with this conclusion, Severin highlighted evidence that the setting of almost all the subsequent locations that appear in the Odyssey is to be found close to Greece. For example, the next location in the Odyssey is the island of the Cyclopes. If Severin’s argument is correct, this would be Crete.

As it happens, Greek mythology regularly associated Crete with the Telchines. This mythical race was similar to the Cyclopes in many ways and was sometimes conflated or confused with them. Furthermore, Severin recorded the presence of local folklore on Crete about a monstrous race that lived in caves, ate people, and had an eye on their forehead.

Around the coast

Severin went on to demonstrate that most of the other locations were places on the coast of Greece itself. For example, the Odyssey describes a small, round harbor in the shape of a horseshoe. It had an entrance so narrow that men with long spears could block it. A cliff face surrounded the small harbor, allowing men to stand on the edge and throw rocks onto the ships below.

Severin stated that in all his years of sailing, he had never seen a location that matched such a description. However, he then found it on the coast of Greece, at the unique and fascinating harbor of Mezapos on Cape Taenarum.

Another example is the entrance to the underworld. Homer explains in the Odyssey how Odysseus went down into the underworld through an entrance by the Acheron River. The Acheron River is in Thesprotia, a region in northwestern Greece. Here, in ancient times, there was an oracle of the dead, closely matching Homer’s description.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a good argument can be made that the Odyssey did not tell the story of Odysseus traveling all over the Mediterranean. Rather, with the arguments made by Severin, we see a far more logical scenario emerging. Odysseus evidently had his adventures fairly close to Greece, where the locations in the story can be convincingly placed.

[nickcarraway]

He had a prototype of a typewriter.

[PeterPrinciple]

Poets didn’t write, back then it was all told from memory.

---

and because it was told from memory it used vivid words, pictures to tell the story.

They would imagine a room for example, have different objects in the room would remind of parts of the story. The teller would walk through the story in his mind.

We ,if doing it right. will create a word picture or emotion to help us remember a name.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

I was just thinking this. And why gender theory isn’t more popular.

[virgil]

One of my favorite stories. What about Scylla and Charybdis? I always thought that was the strait of Messina. And what about the island of Calypso?

[PIF]

There is as real Netherworld in Italy. See Robert Temple's Netherworld

[nickcarraway]

Penelope. She told suitors she’d be ready to be courted when she weaved a burial shroud for her husband, but she unraveled it every night.

[1066AD]

This would take him to the coast of Africa, far west of Egypt, perhaps to Tunisia.

I worked I Tunisia in early 1970s and we were told the island of Djerba was the Ilead’s Isle of the Lotus Eaters.

[Larry Lucido]

Wife: And where have YOU been Mr Greek warrior?

Odysseus (in Sam Kinison voice): Not that you would care, but I was blown off course by heavy winds, and I was attacked by monsters!! Oh oh ooooohhhhh!!!

[Verginius Rufus]

We don't know if there was a real person named Odysseus.

If I remember correctly, 7 of the 10 years after the fall of Troy were spent on Calypso's island--she wouldn't let him leave.

[FLT-bird]

Its not BCE. There is no “common era”. Its Before Christ.

This Agnostic will happily tell everyone so.

Change in western terminology rejected.

[odawg]

“Poets didn’t write, back then it was all told from memory.”

Yes, I heard that but I don’t believe it. The ancient poets, earlier than that, wrote their poetry down. The Egyptians wrote literature strictly for entertainment and we still have them. In fact, all the earlier civilizations wrote in poetry but the Egyptians wrote in prose, which is why we have the Old Testament in prose. The Israelites picked up the method from the Egyptians.

700 B C would be approximately about the time of the Book of Judges in Israel’s history, more or less.

And it is obvious to me Homer wrote down his writings himself.

Homer’s writngs were the Greek’s scripture, and they used his writings as textbooks in school and developed a great civilizaton with them.

[bakeneko]

The real literary question is whether or not Odysseus actually went to any of these places or did any of these things.

The ‘travels’ portion of the Odyssey is only four books out of twenty-four. Odysseus, a known liar, is telling this story to the gullible Phaiakians, who aren’t really the brightest bulbs in Greece. None is this journey stuff is narrated in third person.

Odysseus is like “Well I’m about to get home; I’ve got to get my story straight about how I left Ithaca with all its best men and ten warships, and yet they’re all dead, and I, their commander, am the only one left alive.”

[gwjack]

There is a major movie that is scheduled to be released this summer or next. I am curious as two of my Malinois are named Charybdis, and Scylla. I couldn’t bring myself to name the third Polyphemus so I named her Cerberus. I am looking forward to the movie. I read the book in HS and an English Lit class in college.

Gwjack

[reasonisfaith]

It is impossible to use “BCE” and be taken seriously.

If anyone thinks they can take such a person seriously, it’s because they are themselves not a serious thinker.

[Fiji Hill]

"In the seventh century BCE BC, the Greek poet Homer wrote the Odyssey."

FIFY

[Fiji Hill]

I read it when I was a student at Darmstadt American High School in Darmstadt, Germany and found it to be a fascinating because many of the places Odysseus visited were only a few hundred miles away. The teacher was a rookie, but nonetheless, she was effective in getting us interested in the story, and we used names like Scylla, Charybdis, etc., as insults.

In college, I read The Odyssey twice.

[FreedomPoster]

When I see that, I say Oh! Before the Christian Era!

[rlmorel]

I didn’t like it, just watched it recently.

In my opinion, they made Odysseus out to have some kind of PTSD, he was a broken man who had to be prodded into action.

As I watched it, I thought WTF? This isn’t how I remember Odysseus from the book!

So I went back and re-read the book just to be sure I wasn’t remembering it incorrectly.

I like Ralph Fiennes as an actor, and there were a few things to like about the movie, but it was not what I hoped.

I am a bit discouraged-I love the story, but...I have not seen a version yet that does it justice, and I am not hopeful for the one coming out, although I suspect we may finally see some great looking special effects for the Cyclops and other things.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I figured it wasn’t faithful to the original. My standards for movies these days have gotten more relaxed. To me, any movie that doesn’t have gender deranged people in it is passable.

[Steven Tyler]

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour...........