Santorini is incredibly beautiful, with adorable towns, delicious food, and sunsets that are famous around the world. Unfortunately, all those things mean it’s also ridiculously popular. But we managed to visit the island without getting caught in a crush of people, and I want to share how to avoid crowds in Santorini.
Shoulder season
The first, and best, way to avoid crowds in Santorini: Visit during the shoulder season. Shoulder season, if you’re not familiar, is the time frame on either side of the high season — so, for Santorini, the shoulder season is April-May and September-October. The sweet spot is probably somewhere in mid to late May (after it warms up but before schools let out for summer vacation) or mid to late September (after school has started but before it gets too cold). We went in early October and it was wonderful, though it did get chilly at night and we did have one cold day. But those time frames will be MUCH less crowded than summer, with the added bonus of everything still being open and the weather being pretty. The hotel prices are often lower, too!
Don’t stay in Oia or Thera
Oia and Thera (also known as Fira) are the biggest towns in Santorini, and the site of most of the hotels and other places to stay. Thera/Fira is also where the cruise ship passengers unload, and Oia is where everyone goes to watch the sunset. They are both definitely worth visiting — and there are plenty of places to stay in both, if you don’t mind lots of neighbors. But if you really want to avoid crowds, try staying in Imerovigli, or on the Eastern side of the island. We stayed at Xenones Filotera in Imerovigli, which has an unobstructed view of the caldera (volcanic crater) and just a few other hotels nearby. You also don’t have to worry about randoms climbing onto your balcony for the perfect Instagram photo, which is a very real thing in Oia.
Stay away from big tours
This may seem like a no-brainer, but doing things on your own or sticking to small tours is your best bet for avoiding crowds — not only because the tour/transportation itself won’t be packed, but also because you’ll have more flexibility if something you’re planning to do or visit ends up more popular than you anticipated. For example, we went on a sunset catamaran cruise (which I do NOT recommend), and there were just too many people on board. But we did a wine tour on a different day, and that was fantastic — because it was a small group, and everywhere we went was practically empty. Everything else we did was on our own, so we could be super flexible.
Keep the cruise schedule in mind
Santorini is a super popular cruise destination, so if you really want to avoid crowds, you need to avoid the cruise passengers. As you might guess, the cruises tend to come in in the morning (around 8ish) and leave in the evening (around 6ish), so you can’t TOTALLY avoid them, but just as an example: I wouldn’t plan to have a casual breakfast in Fira at 9:30 a.m. It does take a while for everyone to get up to town from the water (by stairs, donkey, or funicular), so you don’t need to hightail it out of the most popular spots at 8:05 a.m., but just keep that in mind when you’re planning.
Make reservations
This goes for almost any place you might visit, but I’d recommend making reservations for dinner (and maybe even lunch, if you have a place you really want to go). We were able to get same-day reservations in some cases, but the most popular places fill up fast, and you don’t want to have to wait in a long line to eat. Same goes for any tours or tickets that can be reserved ahead of time — go ahead and book things ASAP, so you don’t end up scrambling once you’re there. Sadly, our favorite restaurant from our visit is now closed, but I’d recommend looking into Varoulko (which is close to the one that closed and has a similar epic view, as well as very good reviews). As far as tours, we loved the Santorini wine adventure tour.
Go to a different island
OK, so I understand that you want to go to Santorini, because it’s Santorini. But there are plenty of other beautiful Greek islands, and most of them are significantly less crowded. So if your schedule allows it, you should consider spending some time on another island or two (not sure where to start? Look up Paros, Naxos and Rhodes), and maybe even skip Santorini altogether.
Other tips for Santorini
One of our favorite days in Santorini was walking/hiking from Imerovigli to Oia, wandering around, and then taking the bus back to the hotel. But I was under the impression that the trail (which goes from Fira to Oia) was going to be paved and mainly flat… and I was sorely mistaken. You don’t need hiking boots for this walk, but sneakers are recommended. Sandals or Toms (like I wore) are definitely not a good idea.
As I mentioned above, I would not recommend going on a sunset catamaran cruise in Santorini, because a huge part of the reason the sunset is so epic there is the way the colors reflect on the white buildings… and those buildings will be behind you if you’re on a boat. You’re basically just watching the sun set into the water. But going on a boat of some kind while in Santorini is still not a terrible idea. Just be sure to bring your own towels (no matter what the booking page says)! Also, something I didn’t realize until later is that while many of the boat day trips visit the Red Beach, you aren’t actually allowed to swim up to the beach from the water. So if you want to go on the actual red sand, you’ll need to take a bus or cab and then walk down.
Tips for Athens
If you’re going to Santorini, you’ll likely go through Athens to get there. We had heard a lot of negative things about Athens, and only spent about a half a day there, but we enjoyed it and would go back to explore more. If you’re staying overnight, I’d recommend getting a hotel near the Acropolis (we stayed at the adorable Home & Poetry) and walking up to see it. There are also tons of hotels and restaurants with rooftop bars with views of the Acropolis, which is pretty magical. We chose to take an early morning (very inexpensive) flight from Athens to Santorini, and on our way to the airport, our driver told us about the Temple of Poseidon. So when we flew back to Athens and had a couple of hours to kill before our flight home, we had a driver take us south to the temple.
This was a great way to end our trip — this temple wasn’t crowded at all, plus it’s on a cliff overlooking the beautiful water (because Poseidon, obviously). We also got to see a little more of Greece, and our driver stopped on the way back so we could get an authentic gyro! If you have a few hours to spare and don’t want to sit around the airport, I’d definitely recommend visiting the Temple of Poseidon.