Santorini Map: Every Pin Worth Your Time, Numbered and Priced

The five colours

Red pins charge an entry fee or a park fee: Akrotiri, Ancient Thera, the two Fira museums and Nea Kameni with its €5 park fee. Blue pins are water and views: the beaches of the east and south coast, the caldera viewpoints, Ammoudi Bay and the boat stops at the volcano islets. Dark pins are the villages people base in, from Oia at the north tip down through Fira to Pyrgos, Megalochori, Emporio and the beach towns.

Grey pins are infrastructure: the airport at Kamari, Athinios ferry port, the Old Port and the Fira cable car.

• Red: pay at the door, prices from $5.59 (€5) to $22.40 (€20)
• Blue: free to reach, boats and swims cost what the operator lists
• Dark: villages, free to wander, this is where your bed is
• Grey: airport, ports and the cable car, transit only

What the numbers do

The numbering runs roughly north to south along the caldera rim first, then sweeps the flat east and south coast, then the islets in the caldera. If you are reading a Santorini map to plan a single day, follow the numbers for pin one to ten and you have covered the rim. Pins in the twenties are the ones you visit only with a car, an ATV or a tour van, which is why the guided options sell so well.

Our pick for a first visit without a rental: pins one to eight on foot and by KTEL bus, then one boat day for the caldera pins.

The crescent and the rim

The caldera is a flooded collapse basin left by the Minoan eruption around 1600 BC, one of the largest volcanic events in human history. The island you stand on is the eastern rim of that basin, a crescent curving from Oia in the north to Akrotiri and the lighthouse in the southwest. Every village with the famous view sits on this cliff edge: Oia at 36.46 north, then Imerovigli, Firostefani and Fira, which is the capital and sits at about 220 metres above the Old Port.

The rim villages are where caldera-view rooms cost the most. Read the tradeoffs in where to stay in Santorini.

The flat side and the black beaches

Turn away from the caldera and the land slopes gently to the Aegean. The east and south coasts are flat, built up in a strip, and fronted with black volcanic sand: Kamari under Mesa Vouno, Perissa and Perivolos further south, Monolithos by the airport, Vlychada at the southern tip with its wind-carved cliffs. This is the swimming half of the map and the cheaper bed half.

The airport sits at Kamari, about 6 km from Fira, so transfers from the east coast are the shortest on the island. Compare the strips in our Santorini beaches guide.

What no road reaches

Three famous names appear on the water side of the map and no road touches them. Nea Kameni, the young volcanic islet about 2 km across in the middle of the caldera, and Palea Kameni with its warm springs are boats only, and the €5 park fee is paid on the island itself. Red Beach at Akrotiri lost its land path: the municipality closed it for rockfall danger, tightened after the February 2025 earthquake, so you see it from the viewpoint above or from a boat.

Thirassia, the inhabited fragment of the far rim, is also boat-only from the caldera. The volcano and hot springs cruise from Fira Old Port covers both islets in three hours.

• Nea Kameni and Palea Kameni: boats from Fira Old Port, Athinios, Oia and Vlychada
• Red Beach: viewpoint above, or from the water on a catamaran route
• Thirassia: day boats and a few caique stops, plan half a day

No hotels, no restaurants

Restaurants and hotels change hands too fast to pin responsibly, and the map would drown in markers. Fira, Oia, Imerovigli and the beach towns each have their own page where the names hold still. For rooms start with Santorini hotels and the cave-house option in Santorini villas.

For food, our Santorini restaurants page sorts by village. Accommodation also carries a per-night climate resilience fee from April to October, €2 to €15 depending on star rating and €8 for short-term rentals, which the property charges at check-in. That fee is a cost of any bed on the map, not a reason to pick one village over another.

No taxi ranks, no step counts, no trail lengths

Taxi ranks move and there is no official island tariff we could verify, so transit shows only the fixed things: the KTEL bus hub in Fira, the airport, Athinios and the cable car. Step counts are equally unofficial. The Old Port climb up to Fira is described as several hundred steps on the Karavolades path, and the Oia to Ammoudi stairs are not counted anywhere official, so we print no number.

The Fira to Oia caldera path has no published official length either. Guides, including ours, say about 10 km and 3-5 hours, and we label it our estimate. Treat any map that prints exact steps or trail metres as decoration.

Red Beach is marked, but only as a viewpoint

The pin sits where the cliff is, not where the sand was. The municipality prohibits access to the beach by land for rockfall danger, a restriction in force since 2013 and reinforced after a rockfall following the 4 February 2025 earthquake. No official reopening has been published.

If a map or a seller tells you otherwise, that is out of date. See our red beach Santorini page for the state of access, and plan to see it from above at Akrotiri or from a boat tour that passes the cliff.

Site hours stretch and shrink

Akrotiri runs long in summer, 08:00-20:00 on most days from April to August, then steps down through autumn in half-hour stages to winter 08:30-15:30, closed Tuesday from November to March. Ancient Thera closes Wednesdays in summer, drops to Fridays through Sundays in November and opens December to February by appointment only, so the Mesa Vouno pin effectively vanishes from a winter map. Both Fira museums hold 08:30-15:30 year round, the Prehistoric museum closed Tuesday and the Archaeological Museum open late on Saturdays until 21:00.

Free-admission days at Akrotiri include 6 March, 18 May and the last weekend of September. Full hours sit on our tickets page.

The cable car keeps the summer clock

The Fira cable car runs every 20 minutes in summer, from 07:00 to 23:00 in June to August, which is why late cruise tenders still make it up the cliff. In November and March it runs only two short windows a day, 07:30-10:30 and 14:30-18:00, and in December to February just 07:30-09:00 and 15:00-16:00. A winter map needs the bus times or your own legs instead.

One way is $11.19 (€10), children and luggage $5.59 (€5). Timetable details live on our cable car page.

The meltemi cancels boats

From July into August the meltemi wind blows hard across the Cyclades, and boat operators cancel or reroute caldera trips when it does. The operators list weather clauses in their terms for exactly this reason. If a boat day is the core of your plan, book early in your stay so a cancellation day leaves room to move.

The same wind is why the south coast beaches feel gritty by afternoon. Winter visitors should read our Santorini weather page before fixing any sea day, and our Santorini volcano page explains the crater you are sailing to.

What does not change

Bus fares do not move with the season, nor do museum prices. The KTEL fare from Fira to Oia stays $2.46 (€2.20) in August and February. What changes is frequency, and departure times are seasonal, so check the KTEL timetable PDF closer to travel.

Crowd levels are the other seasonal variable. May, early June and October hold the best ratio of open everything to empty paths, which is the core argument of our best time to visit Santorini page.

The KTEL bus web

Every route fans out from the Fira bus station, and prices are fixed and cheap. Fira to Oia is $2.46 (€2.20) for the 11.8 km run, the same fare to Imerovigli, Kamari, Pyrgos, Megalochori, Emporio, Akrotiri village and the airport line through Monolithos. The longer runs cost a little more: Fira to Perissa or Perivolos and Fira to Athinios port are $3.02 (€2.70), and Fira to Vlychada is $3.13 (€2.80).

Reduced fares run about half for large families and disability. Night departures between 00:30 and 05:00 cost a euro or so more. Departure times are seasonal and we do not print them, so check the KTEL PDF.

The full network is mapped in our getting around Santorini guide.

The cable car and the cliff foot

One pin pair has no bus: Fira down to the Old Port. Cruise tenders land at Gialos and volcano boats leave from there, so the cliff crossing matters. The cable car does it in about three minutes, every 20 minutes in season, at $11.19 (€10) one way.

On foot it is the Karavolades stairs, several hundred steps with no official count. Mules use the same route, and a share of every cable car ticket goes to the mule drivers. When tenders land at once the queue can stretch, which is why some excursions include a boat transfer around the cliff instead.

Our Santorini cable car page has the full seasonal timetable.

On foot along the rim

The caldera path from Fira to Oia is the walking spine of the map. It threads Firostefani and Imerovigli, passes below Skaros Rock and finishes at Oia's edge, about 10 km by our estimate and 3-5 hours at a photo pace. No official length is published, so plan on the generous side and carry water.

Walk it north to south in the afternoon light or south to north in the morning. If you would rather have a guide and a water stop handled, a guided four-hour caldera hike from Fira to Oia runs in small groups. Between Oia and Ammoudi the link is stairs, and between the rim and the east coast it is buses or a rental, which our car and ATV rental page covers with the licence caveats.