An Interactive Map of Ulysses’ 10-Year Journey in Homer’s Odyssey

Ancient seafaring was difficult and mostly bound to land. I mean, that they had to travel along the Coast for most of the time and usually tried to avoid high waters. It WAS possible to cross from one side to the other in certain places, e.g. from Sicily to Tunisia, as it is less than 300km apart, but it was generally avoided elsewhere.

Also, sea travel was depended a lot on weather and season. Greeks and Romans were usually advised NOT to travel during winter as winds were rough and unsteady. Even short distance travels took unusually long and were dangerous. The most famous example is of St. Paul who was shipwrecked in Malta at one point. And counter-intuitive at all: The Greeks were actually not very good at seatravel. They always were jealous of the Phoenicians for doing better sea-trade than they.

The Odyssey falls broadly in the category of Periplus. I forgot what a lot of people interpreted into Homer's story, but i guess he just wanted to say "Follow the rules, don't try to sail against the currents or bad things will happen!"

This is why maybe he sailed westward in the story and not straight back...

For a little more detail see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maritime_history#The_M...