Beautiful Hotels in Santorini
Every photograph of Santorini is the same photograph: white walls, a blue dome, a caldera dropping away into the sea. What the pictures never show is the staircase. On this island you are not really choosing a hotel — you are choosing a village, and the village decides how far you carry your own suitcase, whether you can walk to dinner, and whether you get that view at all. Here are four places we’d book, one from each version of Santorini.
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First, the village — not the hotel
Santorini is the rim of a drowned volcano. The famous side is the inner edge — the caldera — where the villages of Oia, Imerovigli, Firostefani and Fira sit on the lip of a cliff. The other side slopes gently down to black sand beaches. Everything expensive is on the rim; everything easy is not.
What that means in practice:
- Oia is the postcard, and it is busy from mid-morning until well after sunset. The caldera-edge hotels are reached on foot, down stepped lanes no vehicle can enter.
- Imerovigli is the highest point of the rim and the quietest of the caldera villages — the same view, fewer people, still a great many steps.
- Fira and Firostefani trade some of the drama for being able to walk to shops, ferries and buses.
- The flat side — Megalochori, Kamari, Perissa — has no caldera view and no steps, real villages, beaches, and prices that are not the same conversation.
Ask how many steps lie between the road and your room, and ask before you book, not after. On the caldera edge the answer is routinely counted in hundreds, luggage is carried by porters or by donkey, and nobody mentions it in the listing.
Those lanes have no street names and no numbers either. You find your hotel by following a blue dot down a staircase, which is fine right up until the moment your phone has no data.
Arriving is its own small problem. The airport and the port are both on the flat side, the caldera villages are up and across the island, and the ferry port at Athinios is a single switchback road that jams solid whenever a boat lands.
Getting To Your VillageA driver who meets you at the airport or the port and takes you as far as the road goes.
01 · Katikies — Oia
The hotel that taught the internet what Santorini looks like: cave suites cut white into the cliff, small pools hanging over four hundred metres of air, and a terrace where the sunset happens to you rather than being queued for.
Worth the money for one reason above all the others: staying in Oia means you watch the sunset from your own terrace instead of standing three deep at the castle ruins with two thousand other people.
If it is your first time and you want the Santorini you have already seen, this is it. Come knowing that you will walk, and that you will walk uphill.
Worth Booking
The island’s three faces in one afternoon — the red cliffs, an inland village, then Oia for the sunset. Worth booking if you are not staying on the caldera and still want that evening.
02 · Grace Hotel Santorini — Imerovigli
Higher up the rim and around the corner from the crowds, with the long dark infinity pool that turns up in every second photograph of this island. The view is the same caldera; the difference is that you can hear it.
Our pick if you want the caldera without Oia’s foot traffic, and if a long evening on a terrace is the point of the holiday rather than a break from sightseeing.
On the caldera you are not paying for the room. You are paying for the last twenty metres of cliff in front of it.
And having paid for the view of a volcano, it is worth remembering you can go and stand on it: the crater is a boat ride across the water, with hot springs to swim in on the way back.
Don't Miss
The only way to understand what you have been looking at all week. Worth doing early in the trip — the caldera makes far more sense from the middle of it than from the rim.
03 · Vedema — Megalochori
Inland, in a real village, built around a four-hundred-year-old winery. There is no caldera view here at all, and that is the trade: in exchange you get shade, quiet, a square with a church and old men outside a café, level ground, and somewhere you can actually park.
The one we’d choose for a second visit, or for anyone who has looked at the step count and quietly reconsidered. Santorini’s vineyards are on this side of the island, which is the other reason to be here.
A Day Off The Cliff
Vines grown in baskets on the ground because of the wind, and Assyrtiko that tastes of the volcano it came out of. Worth it if you’d rather taste the island than photograph it.
04 · The beach side — Kamari & Perissa
Black volcanic sand, water that stays swimmable into October, tavernas along the front, and design hotels at a fraction of the caldera price. Istoria at Perissa is the one we’d book: low, quiet, more Aegean farmhouse than resort.
You give up the sunset view and you gain a beach holiday. For a week rather than three nights, that is not obviously the worse deal — and the caldera is a twenty-minute drive away whenever you want it.
There is also a better way to get that sunset back than driving up for it, which is to be out on the water when it happens.
Our Favourite Evening
Along the caldera cliffs, past the red and white beaches, anchored offshore as the light goes. The one thing on this island that is better than the terrace view, and the only way to see Oia at sunset without standing in it.
Two small things to sort before you fly, both of which are easier now than on the island. The first is data: the lanes have no addresses, the buses have no printed timetable worth trusting, and every boat you book will be booked on a phone.
Stay ConnectedA Greek eSIM installed before you leave — the caldera lanes are navigated by map, not by address.
The second is that this is a trip which depends heavily on boats. The meltemi wind cancels ferries at short notice in July and August, caldera hotels tend to have stricter cancellation terms than chains, and a missed connection here means a missed night rather than a delayed one.
Before You GoCover that pays for cancelled ferries and lost nights, not just medical bills.
If the trip is about the two of you rather than the island, the wider choice is on the mainland and the other islands — see our guide to adults-only hotels in Greece. And for where to swim once you’re off the caldera, our 10 most beautiful beaches in Europe.
Good to Know & FAQ
Which village should you stay in on Santorini?
Oia for the classic caldera sunset and the biggest crowds; Imerovigli for the same view with far fewer people; Fira or Firostefani if you want to walk to shops, buses and ferries; Megalochori, Kamari or Perissa on the flat side for villages, beaches and lower prices. The view costs money and steps in roughly equal measure.
Is the caldera view worth the money?
For a short stay, yes — the sunset from your own terrace instead of a crowded viewpoint is most of what you are buying. For a week, many people are happier splitting it: a few nights on the rim, the rest on the beach side.
Do you need a car on Santorini?
Not if you are staying on the caldera edge, where cars cannot reach the hotels anyway. On the flat side a car or an ATV is genuinely useful. Either way, book the airport or port transfer in advance — the road up from Athinios jams every time a ferry arrives.
When is the best time to visit Santorini?
May, early June, and September into early October. The sea is warm by September, the light is better than in high summer, and the caldera paths are walkable rather than airless. July and August are hot, crowded and at peak prices.