Santorini · Greece
Santorini with family
Where the caldera turns every sunset into a private performance.
Santorini is two islands at right angles to each other, and a family trip works or fails on which one you sleep on. The caldera rim is a cliff: stepped lanes, long flights between a room and a road, drops beside the path, and a crowd that arrives at a set hour every afternoon. The south-east coast is flat from the road to the water. Sleep on the flat side and visit the cliff.
The two halves, compared on what actually matters with children
| The caldera rim | The south-east coast | |
|---|---|---|
| Ground underfoot | Stepped lanes, long flights, unfenced drops beside them | Level from the door to the shore |
| Moving about | On foot, and mostly up or down | Flat walking, buses along the coast road |
| Swimming | Not from the rim at all | Long dark-sand and shingle beaches |
| Prams and suitcases | Carried | Wheeled |
| Crowds | Heaviest through the late afternoon | Thinning as the rim fills |
| What it is good for | An afternoon and one sunset | Most of the rest of the week |
Why the rim is an outing and not a base
Hotels on the cliff are reached by steps, and often a great many of them, because the villages are built down the face rather than along it. Porters exist and are used, which tells you what arriving is like. Rooms are dug into the rock, so several have no window worth the name, and terraces sit above a fall rather than behind a fence. That is what people pay for, and it is a poor arrangement for anyone carrying a toddler.
The rim earns exactly one visit and repays it. Take the cable car down from Fira to the old port and back rather than the stepped path, which the island's donkeys also use and which is hard work in heat. Walk the clifftop between two villages in the morning, before the day's traffic works north.
What the flat coast is for
Kamari and Perissa sit either side of a headland on the level shore, and both run a long beach with tavernas and sunbeds behind it. This is where a day can be repeated without anyone negotiating anything. Two things to know: the sand here is dark and volcanic and it holds the heat, so shoes matter more than they would elsewhere, and shade is worth arranging early rather than at noon.
For a day off the beach, the excavated town at Akrotiri sits under a roof, which makes it the one ancient site on the island that works in the middle of the day with children in tow. The ruined city on the headland above Kamari is the opposite — steep, unshaded, and better suited to older children who like a climb.
Rooms, and one constraint worth knowing early
Santorini's comfortable end skews heavily adults-only, which narrows the field before you start. Both of the pool hotels in our own directory — Pegasus Suites & Spa on the Imerovigli ridge and Anemoessa Villa above Oia — take adults only, so a family is generally looking at self-catering.
Fira is the useful exception to everything above. The town has a flat interior set back from its own cliff edge, the island's bus hub, and shops that sell what a self-catering week needs. Altea Apartments sits in the middle of it — plain, air-conditioned, soundproofed, with family rooms and no caldera view, which is the trade that makes it sensible. Comparing current stay and experience options across your dates is worth doing before you settle on a side of the island.
The one day worth buying
Get on the water. The coast reads as a different island from below the cliffs, and the Santorini Classic Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Drinks and Transfers is the version that suits a family: shared, lunch cooked aboard, swimming stops, and transfers so nobody drives. Where a group wants its own hours and its own galley, the Santorini Private Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Open Bar & Transfers does the same coast privately.
How long all of this needs, and which month to attempt it in, are questions the sibling pages answer properly.
More on Santorini
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