The shape of the island explains everything

I want you to land here already knowing one thing, because it makes the whole place make sense: Santorini is not an island with a nice view. It is the rim of a volcano that blew its own centre out and let the Aegean pour in, and what you are looking at from your terrace is the inside of the crater. The water in the middle runs hundreds of metres deep. Those little dark islands out in the bay are the newer cone, still quietly growing. That is why the villages sit exactly where they sit, why the houses are carved back into the rock instead of built out from it, and why every single photograph taken here looks like somebody lit it. The light comes off a white cliff, into a blue sea, and back up again. You genuinely cannot take a bad picture, and I say that as someone who tries very hard.

There are three Santorinis, and you want all of them

The first is the caldera edge: Fira, Firostefani, Imerovigli, Oia. This is the one on the postcards, where the hotels hang off the cliff and sunset is an event the whole village turns out for. The second is the back of the island, which hardly anyone books and which I find completely charming. Pyrgos, Megalochori, Exo Gonia, Emporio: proper village squares, old churches, the island’s best wineries, fifteen minutes and an entire world away from the crowds. The third is the sea itself, and it is the one people most often skip. Santorini from the water, with the whole height of that cliff above you and the full striped rock face laid out in reds and blacks and ochres, is the thing you will still be describing to people at home. If you take one piece of advice from me, get on a boat.

Yes it gets busy, and yes it is absolutely still worth it

I am not going to pretend otherwise, and I am also not going to let it put you off, because busy here is a question of hours and metres rather than days. Greece now holds Santorini to eight thousand cruise passengers a day, and since mid-2026 at least seventy per cent of tendered passengers have to come ashore at the old port below Fira rather than at Athinios. What that means in practice is lovely and useful: the pressure lands in a predictable place at a predictable time, which is Fira’s main street from late morning to mid-afternoon. Plan around that one window and the rest of the island opens up. The back villages are quiet all day. The caldera path is glorious at eight in the morning. And a private guide who knows which lane to take, and when, turns the whole question into a non-issue.

And then the food changed completely

This is the part I am most excited to tell you. In October 2026 the MICHELIN Guide included Santorini for the first time, and the island did not get one polite star to be going on with. Lycabettus, at Andronis Luxury Suites in Oia, took two stars, which makes it the only two-star restaurant in the whole of Greece. Botrini’s Santorini at Katikies took one. Lauda at Andronis took one. And Selene, which has been the island’s serious kitchen for decades and now sits in the courtyard of an eighteenth-century monastery in Fira, took one as well. Andronis alone holds three stars across two restaurants, which no Greek hotel group has ever managed. If your last memory of eating here is grilled fish and a very good view, you are going to be delighted.