Santorini + Mykonos: Plan Your Dream Trip to Both Islands
by
Val Ma
9 months ago
Early last summer I took a 6-night trip to Greece and would love to share my travel tips + advice I picked up from my time there. I picked Santorini and Mykonos because it was my first time in Greece and they are the classic Greek destinations, but during my trip I heard great things about other islands as well which I hope to visit one day.
Travel Route & Itinerary
This first tip is for travelers flying in from the U.S.: I’m based in New York City and when I was looking at flights, I found that it cost significantly less to fly to some major European cities first and then book a flight directly to Santorini than it was to fly to Athens and then to Santorini; this is because flying between countries in Europe is typically cheaper than flying between states in the U.S, especially if you plan early. One day I would love to see Athens but for this trip I just wanted to get to the islands ASAP. I decided to fly into Paris and spend some time there before flying to Santorini, and then on my return flight flew from Mykonos to Paris; this way it also felt like I had 2 vacations in 1! I’ve also seen lower flight prices for London, Dublin, and Berlin from NYC.
My second transportation tip is that if I had looked up the ferry reviews beforehand, I would have chosen to fly from Santorini to Mykonos instead of taking the Seajets ferry. This was the general consensus amongst other travelers we met as well. Flying doesn’t cost much more and we lost an entire day due to ferry delays and inefficiencies, which I learned was a common experience with the Greek ferry system. The road to reach the Santorini ferry port is long, steep, and winding so once you’re at the secluded port and your ferry gets delayed, it’s too much of a hassle to leave and come back. If you do decide to take the ferry, plan to arrive at the port 1 hour earlier as traffic can build up (there are shaded cafes you can sit at).
Overall, this is my recommendation for planning days between Santorini + Mykonos:
Day 1 - Santorini - beach club day on the black sand beaches + Thira sunset/dinner
Day 2 - Santorini - boat excursion day + Oia sunset/dinner
Day 3 - Travel to Mykonos
Day 4 - Mykonos - ATV-ing + access to more secluded beaches with ATV
Day 5 - Mykonos Town for breakfast + pool afternoon
Day 6 - Mykonos - boat excursion or beach club or beach party
Stay
If you want the classic Greek cliff-side and cave-like stay with a plunge pool on the balcony overlooking the caldera and sunset, Santorini is the place. I was unwilling to compromise on this, and found the perfect stay at Modernity Suites which I’ve added to SLEEP on Well Traveled Club and you can read my review here.
Modernity sits high on my list of all-time favorites around the world.
In Mykonos, I found that you got more value for your dollar staying a little bit outside of Mykonos Town. My top priorities were a great pool and an ocean view room, no private plunge pool needed since we had that in Santorini. We stayed at Myconian Ambassador Relais & Chateaux which I loved; read my review here.
If you’re in between splurging in Santorini or Mykonos for the stay, I’d recommend Santorini because the type of stays there are unique to Santorini and there’s less supply (difficult to build cliff-side hotels so there tends to be less rooms per hotel) therefore I found the Santorini hotel rates to be higher than the rates for Mykonos. For context, I was planning my Greece accommodations 6 months in advance of my end of May/early June trip. I’ll also note that the Greek hotel hospitality I experienced was unlike anywhere else I’ve stayed.
Experience/Thoughts
If I could go back, I would have added a night in Santorini to 3 nights because we did not have enough time to see the town of Oia (famous for amazing sunsets) or go on a boat trip to the caldera, and would have loved to go ATVing on Santorini and visit the wineries. We did spend a day at Wet Stories on the black sand beaches which I thought were beautiful.
I had never rented an ATV before but I’m so happy we did because I got to see so much more than I would have via car. Since we had the ATV for 24 hours, the next morning we went ATV-ing to the northwest part of the island. We found the northeast part of the island to be better for ATV-ing but you can’t go wrong with either. Then we stopped in Mykonos Town for lunch and strolling, and then spent the rest of the day at the hotel pool ordering cocktails to our chairs.
The last day was supposed to be our catamaran day but unfortunately it was too windy, so we spent the day at the beach instead.
Mykonos was more touristy than I expected- I knew it would be like this as it’s Mykonos but still expected it to be more of a “relaxed island” feel than it was. A lot of restaurants that friends had recommended to us ended up being fully booked, although we did get to try Hippie Fish for lunch (fully booked for dinner all week) when our flight was delayed and we loved it, and were able to find amazing new spots. My advice is to pre-plan dinner reservations (I liked a 9pm dinner time for Greece) if there’s anywhere specific you want to go, though we did end up having some luck in Mykonos Town for amazing last minute dinner reservations.
In terms of beach clubs, I much preferred Santorini beach clubs to Mykonos ones (by beach clubs I mean lounging on a comfy beach chair all day with cocktails and delicious food being brought to your chair all day). If you aren’t looking for beach partying or to spend a minimum of 400 euros, I would recommend beach clubs in Santorini (more serene, nature is beautiful, significantly lower cost) and then boat excursions and pool days in Mykonos. When our boat was canceled in Mykonos, our hotel recommended Branco for a beach club which was beautiful and only slightly more expensive than what we paid in Santorini.
The most common advice you’ll hear about Greece is that there’s something for everyone, which I completely agree with after traveling to Greece; there’s truly nowhere like it in the world.
Feel free to reach out to me if you want to chat about trip planning!
Happy travels!
Val Ma
I currently live in the Upper East Side NYC, and I love exploring new places around the world and in my home city. I also live for style/fashion + feel most comfortable in color. My go-to travel spot is the countryside of England & London, but I also love to see new places especially spots by the ocean. My recent travel spots include: Paris, Belgium (De Panne beach, Brussels), Croatia (Hvar, Bol, Dubrovnik, Split & The Yacht Week), Curaçao, Ireland (Dublin + Galway), England (London + countryside), Scotland (Edinburgh), Savannah, Montana/Wyoming (Bozeman, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole), Greece (Santorini + Mykonos), Tenerife, and Barcelona. My next up trip is Montenegro and Southern England. Message me for any recs (or if you have any recs for me!).
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