The 4 most common mistakes Santorini travellers do
The biggest Santorini mistakes are connecting a ferry to a same-day flight, booking a caldera hotel without asking how many steps, planning six stops on an island whose roads allow three, and being in Fira or Oia between eleven and five. Fifty more are below.
It’s summer and you’ve already planned (Santorini Tours) your vacation. Santorini or any Greek island, you will find somewhere to get away from your everyday life and fill your batteries for the upcoming winter. And you may think everything is ready and planned, but you have to know that there are some things that, if you do not consider it, your vacation may be a nightmare.
What should you do before you start your vacation?
In order to protect yourself, we should list the 4 most common mistakes Santorini travellers do!
1. You should always keep copies of your travel documents
You might want to have a photocopy of your ID, your ticket and your passport somewhere in your suitcase. You never know what can happen. So if you lose or fall victim to theft at least you will make your life easier with the specific copies.
2. You’re loading your schedule
It is understandable that when you travel (especially in Santorini) you want to visit all the sites (SANTORINI SIGHTSEEING PRIVATE TOUR) they have suggested to you and have discovered with a few searches on each of the online platforms. However, travel and holidays are consistent with rest, so loading your schedule without ensuring the required time of relaxation is not the most prudent.
3. You should book private tours for all activities
Get ready for your trip and make sure to book a Santorini private tour for theatres, restaurants and museums in advance. This is one of the biggest mistakes a traveller can do because without good organization you lose a lot of the magic of your vacation and the freedom of movement in the new place you visit. Enjoy the local culture and eliminated any compulsions.
4. You do not have the right budget
Correctly calculate both your revenue and the expense you will have for the trip you are planning. Take care of the room that you choose to stay so you can afford to go further to the places you visit and SANTORINI SUNSET PRIVATE TOUR. Make a plan and calculate how much money you can spend each day of your stay.
Do not forget:
With the right preparation you can enjoy your vacation without affecting your budget! You can take a tour of Santorini!
See more about Santorini island:
- Santorini Summer 2019
- Top 10 Restaurants in Santorini
- Santorini: A Great Gastronomic World
- Six Things You Should Not Do In Santorini!
- Five magical shades of Santorini Tours
- The top Santorini Tours
- Santorini, the island that never rests
Santorini Mistakes: The Short List
The ten Santorini mistakes that cost visitors the most, in order of how often we watch them happen.
1. Connecting a ferry to a same-day flight. The wind cancels sailings at short notice and the flight goes without you.
2. Booking a caldera hotel without asking how many steps.
3. Planning six things in a day on an island whose roads allow three.
4. Being in Fira or Oia between eleven and five in summer.
5. Expecting a taxi. There are about thirty licensed cars for the whole island.
6. Watching the sunset from the Oia castle with three thousand other people.
7. Eating every dinner on the caldera rim at triple the inland price.
8. Skipping Akrotiri because a Bronze Age site sounds dull.
9. Hiring a quad on unlit roads with gravel on the bends.
10. Leaving the cable car until the end of a cruise call.
Everything below expands on those and adds about forty more. None of these Santorini mistakes are exotic. They are the ordinary ones, made by sensible people, because the island does not behave the way it looks on a map.
What Are the Planning Santorini Mistakes?
Connecting a ferry to a flight on the same day
The single most expensive of all Santorini mistakes. The meltemi wind cancels high-speed craft first and sometimes closes the port entirely, usually with a couple of hours’ notice. If your flight home is at six and your ferry from Naxos is at two, you are gambling a plane ticket on the weather. Leave a full day, or fly.
Going in August because that is when the holidays are
Thirty-five degrees, five cruise ships a day, the strongest wind of the year and peak prices. May, June, September and early October give you the same island at half the cost and a third of the crowd. If August is genuinely your only window, plan an early-start, inland-midday trip and book everything months ahead.
Booking two nights and expecting to see the island
Two nights is a stopover. Three is the workable minimum, five is comfortable. A great many Santorini mistakes are really one mistake – not enough time – wearing different clothes.
Booking ten nights and expecting to fill them
The opposite of most Santorini mistakes. The island is eighteen kilometres long. Ten nights here should be a slow holiday with a lot of swimming, not a ten-day itinerary.
Booking in the wrong order
Order is where a surprising number of Santorini mistakes begin. Fix the dates, then the flights, then the accommodation, then the boats, then the transfers, then the sightseeing days. Restaurants last. People routinely book a catamaran before they have booked a bed.
Not leaving a single unbooked day
One of the quieter Santorini mistakes is a schedule with no slack. Something will be cancelled by wind, or something will be good enough that you want longer at it. An empty slot absorbs both. Nobody has ever complained about a free afternoon on this island.
Assuming you can island-hop casually
Ferries are frequent in July and August and much thinner in the shoulder months, and all of them are subject to the wind. Two islands in a week is comfortable; three is a lot of packing and a real cancellation risk.
Ignoring the cruise schedule
A one-ship day and a five-ship day are different islands. The schedule is published. Plan your caldera-village time around the quiet days and you will avoid half the Santorini mistakes on this page without doing anything else.
What Are the Accommodation Mistakes?
Not asking how many steps
The complaint we hear more than any other, and the most avoidable of the accommodation Santorini mistakes. A good number of caldera hotels in Oia, Imerovigli and Firostefani sit fifty to eighty steps below the nearest road, and you carry your own luggage down them. The photographs never show the stair. Ask the property directly, in writing, before you book.
Assuming a vehicle can reach the door
Among the Santorini mistakes that only surface on arrival: many rim hotels have no vehicle access at all. Your driver gets as close as the lane allows and tells you the walk in advance – but only if you tell us where you are staying.
Booking a cave hotel for the pool
One of the family Santorini mistakes that only becomes obvious on day two. Cave hotels frequently have a plunge pool the size of a large bath. If you want to swim lengths, or you have children who want to be in water all day, stay on the coast. This is one of the Santorini mistakes that ruins whole family holidays.
Confusing “sea view” with “caldera view”
They are different products at very different prices, and confusing them is one of the costlier Santorini mistakes. Sea view means the open Aegean on the east side. Caldera view means the crater. Read the listing carefully.
Staying in Oia and expecting convenience
Oia is beautiful, expensive, twenty-five minutes from Fira, and full of steps. It is a wonderful place to stay for a honeymoon and a poor one for a family with a pushchair.
Staying on the rim for a whole week
You will pay two to three times the coastal rate and you will not swim. The best-value approach is to split: two or three nights on the rim, the rest on the coast or inland.
Ignoring the airport flight path
Kamari, Monolithos and Messaria are under it. In season that means early mornings.
Booking a winter room without asking about heating
Rooms built for August are not always well heated, and the wind here is persistent.
What Are the Transport Santorini Mistakes?
Expecting a taxi
Around thirty licensed taxis serve the entire island. At the airport in season, at the port after a ferry, or anywhere at all after dinner, you will not get one. Almost every transport-related Santorini mistake begins with this assumption.
Hiring a quad or a buggy
The most dangerous of the transport Santorini mistakes. Popular, cheap, and responsible for a great many holiday injuries. The roads are narrow, unlit at night, with no hard shoulder and loose gravel washed onto the bends. Helmets are compulsory and licences are checked.
Assuming your licence is enough
One of the Santorini mistakes you cannot fix after arriving: many non-EU licences require an International Driving Permit here and it is genuinely checked by rental companies and police. You cannot get one after you arrive.
Hiring a car for the whole week
Then paying to park it in Fira and Oia, and not drinking at the wineries. Three days of car plus a driver for the sightseeing day is usually cheaper and always easier.
Relying on buses for everything
KTEL is cheap and reliable, but every route changes at the station in Fira. A fifteen-minute journey becomes an hour, and evening services stop early. Buses are fine for Oia, Kamari, Perissa and the airport, and useless for Ancient Thira, the wineries and the inland villages.
Leaving the cable car until the end of a cruise call
The costliest of the cruise Santorini mistakes. The down queue is worse than the up queue, because several ships try to leave at once. Be back at the top ninety minutes before all-aboard, not thirty.
Riding a donkey up the cliff
588 unshaded steps, thirty-five degrees, and animals that have already done the climb several times that day. Take the cable car. Why we ask you not to.
Walking up the steps in August
Down is fine. Up, in summer, with no shade and donkey traffic on the same stair, is not.
Not booking an arrival transfer
You land or dock, and then you queue. A pre-booked driver with your name on a board removes the two worst moments of the trip. Transfers.
What Are the Sightseeing Mistakes?
Being in Fira or Oia at midday
Between eleven and five in summer, those two villages hold everyone who came off a ship plus everyone staying on the island. Go at seven in the morning or after seven in the evening. Of all the Santorini mistakes, this is the one that most changes how people describe the island afterwards.
The Oia castle sunset
Among the most photographed of all Santorini mistakes. Several thousand people arrive two hours early to hold a position on a ruined wall. The sun sets identically over Imerovigli, Firostefani, Pyrgos and the Akrotiri lighthouse, all of which are quiet. Imerovigli.
Planning both ends of the island in one day
Oia in the morning and Akrotiri in the afternoon is two hours in a vehicle on roads that were not built for it. Group each day into one corner: south, east, centre or north.
Skipping Akrotiri
Skipping this is one of the Santorini mistakes people only realise later. A Bronze Age town buried under ash in around 1600 BC, with paved streets, three-storey houses and drainage, under a modern roof. It is the best thing on the island after the caldera itself, it is shaded, and a surprising number of visitors skip it because “ruins” sounds dull. Akrotiri.
Visiting Akrotiri or Ancient Thira without a guide
One of the Santorini mistakes that makes people call a world-class site overrated. Neither site has meaningful signage. Without someone explaining it, a good deal of both reads as low walls, and people leave saying it was overrated.
Turning up at Ancient Thira in the afternoon
It closes in the early afternoon and one day a week in low season, and the exposed road up is occasionally wind-closed. Morning only. Ancient Thira.
Trying to do the volcano and Oia on the same day
Each is half a day. Together they are a day of transitions and nothing else.
Doing the caldera walk in the afternoon
Ten kilometres with no shade and very little water on the route. First light or late afternoon, never one o’clock.
Never leaving the rim
Pyrgos, Megalochori, Emporio, Exo Gonia and Vothonas are fifteen minutes inland, almost empty at midday, and where the island actually lives. Missing them is quietly one of the biggest Santorini mistakes, because nobody knows they made it. All 32 villages.
Booking six things a day
Three stops. The road does not negotiate.
What Are the Beach Mistakes?
Expecting white sand and shallow water
The beach Santorini mistakes all start here. Every beach here is volcanic: black, red or grey, with water that deepens sharply within a few metres. If you came for a soft sandy bay, you came to the wrong Cyclades island – Naxos does that far better.
Walking barefoot on black sand
By ten in the morning it is painful and by midday it will burn. Take something for your feet.
Assuming Red Beach is always open
Rockfall closes the access path periodically. Check on the day rather than driving down and finding a barrier. Red Beach.
Ignoring the wind
Ignoring wind direction is a small Santorini mistakes classic. The meltemi can make the south coast unswimmable on an afternoon when the east coast is calm. If Perivolos is churning, drive twenty minutes to Kamari.
Taking small children to a steeply shelving beach
Monolithos is the one the island’s own families use: shallow, sheltered, with playgrounds and shade. Monolithos.
Expecting the best swimming from the shore
It is not. The best swimming here is from a boat in the caldera, which is why the catamaran trips sell out.
What Are the Food and Money Mistakes?
Eating every dinner on the caldera rim
The most expensive of the everyday Santorini mistakes. You are paying for the view, and the view is free from the street outside. A taverna in Pyrgos, Megalochori, Exo Gonia or Emporio costs roughly a third and generally cooks better. Do the rim once, for the occasion, and eat inland the rest of the week.
Buying wine in a Fira gift shop
A minor entry on any list of Santorini mistakes, repeated thousands of times a season. The estates are fifteen minutes away, the same bottle is cheaper at the door, and they will crate and ship a case home for you.
Not carrying cash
Cards are taken almost everywhere, but the cable car, bakeries, small tavernas and boat fares all want notes. Running out of cash at the bottom of the cliff is a small but avoidable one of the classic Santorini mistakes.
Buying breakfast at the hotel
Every village has a bakery, they open early, and breakfast costs a fifth of a hotel buffet.
Drinking the tap water
The island runs largely on desalination. It is safe for teeth and washing; drink bottled.
Not booking a caldera-view table in season
The ones worth eating at fill several days ahead in July and August.
Assuming a service charge is a tip
Tipping is not obligatory in Greece. Rounding up is normal, ten percent is generous, and nobody expects twenty.
Missing the local food entirely
One of the sadder Santorini mistakes. Fava, tomatokeftedes, white aubergine, chloro cheese and capers all grow or are made here and nowhere much else. Eating club sandwiches on the rim for a week is a genuine loss.
What Are the Cruise Passenger Santorini Mistakes?
Believing the published call time
Subtract about two hours for tendering and the cable car queues in both directions. A nine-hour call is seven hours ashore.
Expecting a pier
There is none. The caldera is four hundred metres deep, ships anchor, and you come ashore by tender at the old port below Fira.
Expecting a vehicle at the quay
There is no road to the old port. Cable car, 588 steps or donkey, and drivers meet you at the top in Fira. Cruise guide.
Planning five stops
Two, and a lunch. This is the most common of the cruise Santorini mistakes and the one with the highest cost, because the penalty is a missed ship.
Forgetting ship time
Ships frequently run an hour off island time. Check before you go ashore.
Booking the ship excursion by default
The ship waits for its own coaches, which is worth something. It is also forty people, a fixed route, twenty minutes a stop and a vehicle that cannot reach several of the best places here. A private car is usually cheaper for a family and always goes further. Shore excursion.
Trying to reach Oia on a short call
On five or six hours ashore, Oia is the one thing you do, or you do not do it.
What Are the Practical and Safety Mistakes?
Underestimating the sun
There is essentially no natural shade anywhere on this island, and the breeze on the rim hides how strong the sun is. Hat, cream, water.
Wearing the wrong shoes
Marble lanes polished smooth by two million visitors a year, uneven archaeological sites and stepped paths everywhere. Sandals with no grip are among the most quietly costly Santorini mistakes, because a sprained ankle takes the rest of the week.
Driving tired or after a tasting
Unlit roads, no hard shoulder, and bends with gravel on them.
Travelling without insurance
The island has a health centre in Fira. Anything serious is flown to Athens.
Not checking site opening days
Archaeological sites close one day a week in low season and run short winter hours. A wasted drive is entirely avoidable.
Ignoring the wind forecast
It decides whether the boats run at all. Check the night before and have a land plan.
Assuming everything is open in winter
Akrotiri, the museums and the wineries are. The boats, the beach fronts and most of Oia are not. Santorini in winter.
What Are the Santorini Mistakes by Traveller Type?
Honeymooners
Booking Oia over Imerovigli. The classic honeymoon entry on any list of Santorini mistakes. Twice the price, more crowds, and a shorter walk to the same view from Imerovigli, which is higher and quieter.
Over-booking the week. The single most common of the honeymoon Santorini mistakes. You are not going to see everything and you did not come to.
Every dinner on the rim. By night four you will want a taverna in a village.
Not booking the private boat. A semi-private catamaran is twelve strangers. The upgrade is one of the few here that consistently earns its money.
Families
Staying on the caldera. The family Santorini mistakes usually start here. Steps, no pool worth the name, and nowhere to swim. Kamari, Perissa or Monolithos instead.
Using buses with small children. Everything changes in Fira, and Fira in August is not a place to wait with a pushchair.
Midday sightseeing. Akrotiri is roofed, the wine museum is underground, and the beach is for the afternoon.
Assuming the beaches are safe for toddlers. Most shelve steeply. Monolithos does not.
Cruise passengers
Covered in full above; in short, subtract two hours, pick two stops, and be back at the cable car early.
Backpackers and budget travellers
Assuming the whole island is expensive. It is not. Karterados, Messaria and Perissa are ordinary Greek prices, the villages are cheap to eat in, and the best thing here – the caldera walk – is free.
Eating where the view is. The most reliable way to spend a budget in two days.
Repeat visitors
Doing the first trip again. Ancient Thira, Thirasia, the wineries, Emporio and the far south are a completely different island, and the classic Santorini mistakes of a second visit are all forms of nostalgia.
Older travellers and limited mobility
Booking a caldera hotel. Steps, uneven marble and no vehicle access.
Assuming the cable car solves the cliff. It does, but the lanes at the top do not level out.
Not telling the operator in advance. Akrotiri is roofed and largely level and Vlychada marina is flat. A day can be built around that, but only if we know.
What Are the Etiquette Mistakes?
Photographing inside private property
Terraces, courtyards and rooftops in Oia and Imerovigli are people’s homes and hotel rooms. A great many of the Santorini mistakes that annoy residents come down to this one.
Wearing beachwear in villages and churches
Among the etiquette Santorini mistakes that residents actually notice. Fine at Perissa, not fine in Pyrgos, and definitely not in a church. Shoulders and knees covered inside religious buildings.
Turning up at a taverna at seven and complaining it is empty
Greek dinner is nine. Restaurants that look dead at seven are full at ten, and the ones that are busy at seven are cooking for tourists.
Blocking a lane for a photograph
People are getting to work through those lanes on foot, with deliveries, all summer.
Arguing with a taxi driver about availability
There genuinely are only about thirty of them. It is not personal.
Treating the island as a set
Fifteen thousand people live here all year, most of them nowhere near the caldera. The village you are photographing is somebody’s street.
How Do You Avoid All of This?
Six habits, and between them they prevent almost every one of the Santorini mistakes listed on this page.
1. Be out before nine. The single highest-value decision anyone makes here. Empty villages, cool air, parking, and the light photographers come for.
2. Go inland between eleven and five. Pyrgos, Megalochori, Emporio, the wineries and roofed Akrotiri are all quiet exactly when the rim is not.
3. Three stops a day. Not four. Group them by corner of the island.
4. Eat away from the view. Halves the food bill and improves the food.
5. Book the fixed things first. Boats, sites with closing times, and transfers. Everything else moves around them.
6. Leave one day empty. Weather will take an afternoon, or something will be good enough to stay at.
Follow those and the Santorini mistakes on this page mostly cannot happen to you. Ignore them and you will have the version of this island that people complain about online, which is a real version and an avoidable one.
What Are the Photography Mistakes?
Shooting Oia at midday
The commonest of the photography Santorini mistakes. Flat overhead light, white walls blown out, and several hundred people in every frame. Oia before seven in the morning is a different village and the only time the blue domes are clear.
Standing where everyone else stands
The famous three-dome view has a queue. Imerovigli with Skaros in the foreground, Firostefani’s campanile in late afternoon, Pyrgos from the castle and Vlychada in flat light are all better and all empty.
Trespassing for the shot
Many of the terraces and rooftops in Oia are private property and people live behind them. This is one of the Santorini mistakes that makes residents dislike visitors, and it is entirely unnecessary.
Never shooting from the water
The caldera only makes sense from inside it. A catamaran gives you the one angle a land-based visitor never gets.
Missing the winter light
Low sun, long shadows, dramatic cloud and no people. Serious photographers come in January for exactly this.
What Do People Get Right?
Worth saying, because a list of Santorini mistakes reads like a warning and this island genuinely rewards visitors.
Booking a boat. Almost nobody regrets the catamaran.
Going to a winery. The ungrafted basket vines and the saline Assyrtiko are unlike anything else in Europe. Wine tour.
Getting up early once. One sunrise on the rim is worth three sunsets in a crowd.
Taking a guide to Akrotiri. Universally reported as the thing that changed the visit.
Eating inland. Everyone who does it says so afterwards.
Leaving a day empty. The most-mentioned day of the trip, every time.
What Are the Seasonal Mistakes?
Spring
Assuming the sea is warm. In April and May it is not, whatever the air temperature says. Come for the walking, the sites and the wildflowers.
Summer
Planning an outdoor midday. It does not work in July and August; the roofed sites and the inland villages are the answer between eleven and four.
Autumn
Assuming everything runs to the end of October. Boats and beach fronts thin out through the second half of the month.
Winter
Turning up without checking what is open, and booking a same-day onward connection when winter flights are cancelled several times a season.
Easter
Assuming it is a quiet shoulder week. Greek Easter is the biggest event of the year and the island fills with Greek visitors.
What Is the Single Biggest Mistake?
Trying to do too much. Every other item on this page is a detail; this one is the shape of the whole trip.
The island is eighteen kilometres long and it looks like an afternoon on a map. In practice the roads follow the contours of a collapsed volcano, every bus route changes in Fira, there are thirty taxis, and the two villages everyone wants to see are full for six hours a day. A realistic day holds three stops.
Visitors who plan three stops a day come home describing the caldera, a meal and a sunset. Visitors who plan six come home describing a minibus. That is the difference, and almost all the Santorini mistakes on this page are variations of it.
The second biggest is closely related: never leaving the caldera rim. Half the island – the inland villages, the wineries, the archaeology, the food – is fifteen minutes from Fira and almost nobody goes there.
What Do Visitors Regret Most Afterwards?
Different from the Santorini mistakes themselves. These are the things people say once they are home, when it is too late to fix.
Not staying longer
Almost universal among people who came for two or three nights. The island rewards a slower trip and nobody has ever said they wished they had left sooner.
Not getting up early even once
The single most repeated regret, and the easiest of all the Santorini mistakes to fix. One sunrise on the caldera path, or Oia at half past six, is the memory everybody wishes they had. It costs nothing but an alarm.
Not going inland
Visitors who spent the whole trip between Fira and Oia find out afterwards that Pyrgos, Megalochori and Emporio existed fifteen minutes away, and that the food there was better and cheaper. Of all the Santorini mistakes this is the one people learn about from someone else’s photographs.
Not booking the boat
The caldera only makes sense from inside it. People who skipped the catamaran to save money almost always mention it.
Taking a guide only at the end
Those who did Akrotiri unguided and then took a guide at Ancient Thira invariably wish they had done it the other way round.
Not eating properly
A week of rim restaurants and no fava, no tomatokeftedes, no white aubergine, no chloro. The island’s food is genuinely distinct and it is easy to miss entirely.
Rushing the last day
Packing a final morning full of stops and then sitting in an airport. Better to keep the last morning empty and use it on a terrace.
What Does It Cost to Get It Wrong?
Concrete numbers, because “avoid these Santorini mistakes” is easy to nod at and hard to act on.
A missed flight after a cancelled ferry. A new one-way ticket in August, plus a night’s accommodation you had not planned. Easily the most expensive item on this page.
Seven caldera dinners instead of three. Roughly the price of a private full-day tour, spent on the same food with a better view.
A week of caldera accommodation instead of a split stay. Frequently more than the flights cost.
A hire car for seven days plus parking, when three days and one driven day would have done.
An hour lost in the cable car queue, twice, on a seven-hour cruise call. That is a third of your time ashore.
A quad accident. Excess, medical costs, and the rest of the holiday.
A day lost to a closed site you drove to on its closing day.
None of these are dramatic and all of them are ordinary. The Santorini mistakes that actually cost money are boring ones, which is precisely why they keep happening.
Why Do These Santorini Mistakes Happen at All?
The Santorini mistakes on this page are not carelessness. Almost every one of them comes from a reasonable assumption that happens to be wrong on this particular island.
The map lies about scale
Eighteen kilometres long looks like nothing. But the island is the rim of a collapsed volcano, so the roads climb, switchback and go the long way round almost everywhere. A twelve-kilometre journey can take thirty-five minutes. Every over-packed itinerary starts here.
The photographs are all taken at the same hour
Everything you have seen of Oia was shot between six and eight in the morning or at sunset. Nobody photographs the eleven o’clock queue, so nobody expects it.
The island reads as a resort and behaves as a working place
Fifteen thousand people live here. Bus routes are built for residents, taxis are licensed for a small population, and the archaeological sites run on state hours rather than tourist ones. A great many Santorini mistakes are visitors applying package-resort assumptions to a working Greek island.
The weather looks reliable
It is, for sunshine. It is not for wind, and weather-related Santorini mistakes almost all come from that gap. and wind is what cancels the boats and the ferries. Nothing in a weather app prepares people for the meltemi.
The two famous villages absorb all the attention
Oia and Fira take up the entire image of the island, so visitors plan around them and never discover that the other thirty villages exist. The result is the most common invisible mistake of all: a perfectly good week spent on ten percent of the island.
Advice online is written by people who came once
Most of it is honest and most of it is from a single trip in July, which is why the same Santorini mistakes keep circulating. It repeats the things that are easy to see and misses the things you only learn by being here in February as well as August.
What Would We Tell a Friend?
If a friend rang and said they had five days here next June, avoiding every one of these Santorini mistakes, the whole conversation would be about six sentences long.
Stay two nights on the rim at Firostefani or Imerovigli and three on the coast. Be out before nine every day and go inland when the sun is high. Book the boat and the transfers now and nothing else. Take a guide to Akrotiri. Eat in the villages. Leave one day completely empty.
That is it. Every item on this page of Santorini mistakes is a longer explanation of one of those six sentences, and a visitor who follows them will not need the rest of it.
The island is genuinely one of the great places in the Mediterranean. It is also one of the easiest to get wrong, because the version in the photographs exists for about two hours a day and the rest of the time you have to know where to be.
A Quick Santorini Mistakes Checklist
Print it, screenshot it, or ignore it. Every line is a mistake somebody made last week.
Before you book. Have you left a day between any ferry and any flight? Have you asked the hotel how many steps? Have you checked whether a vehicle can reach it? Have you looked at the cruise ship schedule for your dates? Have you booked the boat before the restaurants?
Before you fly. Do you have an International Driving Permit if your licence needs one? Do you have travel insurance? Do you have shoes with grip? Have you checked which day the archaeological sites close?
On the island. Are you out before nine? Are you inland between eleven and five? Are you doing three stops, not six? Are you eating away from the rim? Do you have cash for the cable car? Have you looked at the wind forecast?
If you are on a ship. Have you subtracted two hours from the call time? Are you back at the cable car ninety minutes before all-aboard? Have you picked two stops rather than five? Do you know whether your ship is on island time?
Before you leave. Have you been out for one sunrise? Have you been to one village that is not Fira or Oia? Have you had one meal that was not on the caldera? Have you had one day with nothing booked?
Anyone who can answer those honestly has avoided essentially every one of the Santorini mistakes on this page, and will have a considerably better week than the average visitor. That is the entire point of writing it down.
None of this requires spending more money. Most of it saves money. The Santorini mistakes that cost the most are the ones made at the booking stage, months before anyone arrives, and every one of them is reversible with a single email at the right moment.
What Does the Corrected Version Look Like?
Three worked plans that avoid all the Santorini mistakes above, so the advice is not purely negative.
A corrected three-day trip
Day 1. Arrive, drop bags, walk the rim from Fira to Firostefani and Imerovigli, sunset from Imerovigli rather than Oia, dinner in Fira after nine.
Day 2. Akrotiri at half past eight with a guide, the lighthouse at eleven, lunch in Megalochori at half past twelve, a winery at two, Pyrgos castle at half past three, Oia at six when the excursions have gone.
Day 3. A catamaran from Vlychada, five hours, back for a late dinner. Nothing else booked.
A corrected week
Two or three nights on the rim, then move to Kamari or Perissa. Add Ancient Thira in the morning, three wineries in an afternoon, the Fira to Oia walk at first light, and two entirely unbooked days. That plan contains none of the Santorini mistakes on this page and it is not a demanding week.
A corrected cruise day
First tender ashore, cable car up before the queue, met at the top at nine. Akrotiri, then lunch inland, then Oia. Back at the top of the cable car by four, ninety minutes before all-aboard. Two stops and a meal, and you will have seen more than the coach party who tried for five.
Santorini Mistakes: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the biggest of the Santorini mistakes? Trying to do too much. The island looks small on a map but the roads follow a collapsed volcano and a realistic day holds three stops, not six.
Is visiting in August one of the Santorini mistakes? Not exactly, but it is the hardest month: thirty-five degrees, five cruise ships a day, the strongest wind and peak prices. May, June, September and early October are better in every respect except school holidays.
Should I stay in Oia? Only if you want the view more than convenience and you have checked how many steps there are. Imerovigli and Firostefani give a similar view for less, and the coast gives you swimming.
Can I connect a ferry to a flight on the same day? No. This is the most expensive of all Santorini mistakes. Wind cancels sailings at short notice.
Do I need a car? Not for a short stay. For a week away from Fira, either a car for part of it or a private driver for the sightseeing days. A car for the full week means parking problems and no wine.
Are taxis really that scarce? Yes. Around thirty licensed cars for the whole island, and none available at the airport, the port or after dinner in season.
Is the Oia sunset worth it? The sunset is; the crowd is not. Imerovigli, Firostefani, Pyrgos and the Akrotiri lighthouse all give you the same sun and almost nobody else.
Why do people say the beaches are disappointing? Because they expect white sand. They are black, red or grey volcanic beaches with steeply shelving water, and they are dramatic rather than soft.
Is Akrotiri worth it? It is the best thing on the island after the caldera. Take a guide; without one the site has almost no signage.
How many days should I stay? Three minimum, five ideal, seven comfortable.
Is Santorini too expensive? The caldera rim is. Sleeping inland or on the coast and eating in the villages roughly halves the cost of the same trip.
What should I not miss? Akrotiri with a guide, one winery, one boat, and one morning where you are out before the island wakes up.
Let Us Plan Around Them
We are a local operator, based on the island, running private tours and transfers in our own vehicles. Most of the Santorini mistakes on this page are things we spend the working week quietly steering guests away from: the midday rim, the six-stop plan, the caldera dinner, the missing hour at the cable car.
Tell us your dates, where you are staying, how you are arriving and what you have already booked, and we will build the days around the island rather than against it. Prices are per vehicle rather than per person, so a family of four pays what a couple pays. Hotel pickup is included, flights and ferries are tracked rather than assumed, and an 80 EUR deposit confirms a date.
See the full list of tours, the personalised tour, or the FAQ.
Every Village and Site on the Island
Any of these can be built into a private day. Each has its own page with what to see and how long to allow.
Caldera villages: Fira · Firostefani · Imerovigli · Oia · Finikia · Baxedes
Inland villages: Pyrgos · Megalochori · Emporio · Mesaria · Karterados · Vothonas · Vourvoulos · Exo Gonia · Mesa Gonia · Pigadia
Beaches: Perissa · Perivolos · Kamari · Vlychada · Monolithos · Red Beach · White Beach · Agios Georgios · Agia Paraskevi
Sites and landmarks: Akrotiri · Ancient Thira · Akrotiri Lighthouse · Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni · Thirasia · Athinios Port
All our tours: All Santorini tours · Full day tour · Sightseeing tour · Personalised tour · North part tour · Horse riding · South part tour · Sunset tour · Shore excursion · Caldera tour · Food experience · Wine tour · Historical tour · Small group tour
Planning and services: Famous sights tour · Private transfers · Transfers to Oia and Finikia · Transfers to other villages · Villages of Santorini · History of Santorini · Tours near you · Languages we guide in · Food and fun tours · Gay friendly tours · Our tour buses · Daily tours · Day tours · FAQ · Gallery · Tour photo gallery · About us · Contact · Blog
