Santorini, Greece | Day Trip to the Island of Naxos

Written By Kate Stephens

One of the top destinations on my travel bucket list has been Greece for as long as I can remember! We spent a full week on the dreamy island of Santorini along with a ferry day trip to Naxos. The earthquakes from earlier in 2025 reduced tourist rates for the summer and left us with ample room to explore heaps of restaurants and cover the whole perimeter of the island with our ATV. Everything from the caldera views and pita-wrapped gyros to iconic Santorini sunsets and Greek salads somehow exceeded our high expectations! Scroll through my Instagram page and watch our YouTube vlog for even closer looks at everything in this blog post, designed to help you plan your own incredible trip!

Accomodation:

  • Hotel located in the village of Imerovigli. This intimate hotel gave us such a personable experience to where the owner quickly learned our names and gave us recommendations for activities and restaurants in every area of Santorini. There’s a beautiful pool and view of the sunrise each morning. The location isn’t in the heart of tourists such as would be in villages like Fira and Oia. It was extra peaceful and perfect!

Restaurants:

Breakfast:

  • The Finch

  • Karma

  • Pink Sophia Maria

  • Tholoto

Lunch/Dinner:

  • Elias Grill

  • Fanari Fira

  • Melitini

  • Peirasmos

  • Pyrgos

  • Rastoni

  • Terra Nera

  • The Vine

  • Theros Wave Bar

  • To Briki

  • Yogi Gyros— We got €4 takeaway gyros from here twice!

Activities:

  • Caldera Yachting Catamaran Blue Sunset Tour

    • Our hotel coordinated the booking for this, and we are so happy we did it! There were 15-20 people on our boat, we snorkeled in a few spots (saw a sunken ship!), had a delicious grilled Greek dinner, unlimited drinks, saw the south side of the island and a few islets (and by chance, dolphins!), and it lasted about 5 hours overall. The cost was €120/person and we highly recommend it!

Beaches:

  • Ammoudi

    • Very small, but we settled on some rocks and did a bit of cliff jumping!

  • Baxedes

  • Caldera

  • Cape Columbo

    • We lounged at Gia Sas (beach bar) - €5 for a chair.

  • Eros

  • Kamari

  • Katharos

  • Paralia Thermis

  • Pori

  • Vourvoulos

  • Vlychada

Naxos Day Trip:

Beaches:

  • Agia Anna

  • Ai Giorgis

  • Hawaii

  • Little Paradise (more private, our favorite!)

Restaurants:

  • Avalon 1793 | Rooftop bar & Restaurant

  • Elliniko | We almost went here for dinner!

  • Honey & Cinnamon | Such a good brunch spread!

Transportation:

  • Book ferries through Ferryhopper! We did this months in advance and added the maximum travel insurance, which gave us priority assistance when we needed to add our ATV to our bookings. We took an early morning high-speed ferry there and a late-night, standard ferry on the way back that gave us about 13 hours to explore Naxos!

Hot Tips:

  • I definitely recommend renting a vehicle— an ATV or motorcycle if you can because it’s often easier to park than it is with a car. It takes 40 minutes maximum to get anywhere in Santorini (Naxos is 5-6x larger though!) and having an ATV allowed us to cover the whole perimeter over our week here!

  • Turns out, just like in Bali, it’s not safe to drink the tap water. Thankfully, stores like Carrefour are widespread and water bottles are often really cheap. We bought a 6-liter pack and were set. We also used the water we bought to brush our teeth to be extra safe.

  • Especially if you’re going in summer, book a few dinner restaurants in advance. We got super lucky and went during a time of reduced tourist rates, but it was so nice to have secure spots for prime sunset viewings. If you go in July, book for around 20h and it’ll be perfect for watching the sun go down!

  • Get all the gyros you can! They cost anywhere between just €4-6 everywhere. We always got ours wrapped in pitas, and bought two for each of us on our last night for traveling from Santorini to the South of France the next day.

Kate Stephens
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