Alright all you TA refugees and serious Grecophiles, I got a simple question: Should I rent a car for our time on Santorini?
For context:
- We will have just shy of 4 days on Santorini, the first few days of October 2026. Our first time there.
- Personally, I was not super-enthusiastic about including Santorini in our all-too-brief trip to southeast Greece (Santorini looks too crowded, too instagrammed for my tastes), but my dear spouse made it a non-negoitiable condition, and offered me full power to plan everything else on this trip as long as we include a few days there on Santorini. So it's an easy call to keep her happy.
- I'm sure the landscape is beautiful without all the crowds. My hope is to enjoy the place without dealing with the crowds all the time, to the extent that we can. I'll manage with the crowds as necessary and will be happy enough.
- We're staying in a lovely place in Firostefani (Santorini View Studios - thank you @DebH for the rec!) with our own, nice (private) view of the caldera and all the cruise ships coming and going, so we won't need to spend a lot of time in the thick of things, jostling and throwing elbows just to get a photo.
- I'm sure we are going to want to get out to some of the other corners of the island (exactly which places TBD). But I'm assuming that some (most?) of the places we will want to go are do-able on foot. True?
- I assume that parking on Santorini is pretty constrained, and that driving is no fun at all in the center of everything, but once outside of the tourism nexus, is more reasonable, perhaps even pleasant.
- I've driven a lot overseas and am usually perfectly comfortable and happy enough driving in strange, challenging places.
- I'm guessing that a car might be handy for a day or two, but probably not needed for the whole time we are there (but that's without having done a lot of detailed research on specific places to go, things to see, other than the island itself).
- I'm sure we could hire a driver for a few rides. I have no idea how expensive that would be.
- Spouse says "of course we're going to want our own car" but could (probably) be persuaded.
So this boils down to the trade-off between: renting a car (cost, parking and driving hassles, a cost we know in advance, and allows greater spontaneity) versus hiring a driver a few times (requires more planning, cost-per-ride is higher but maybe cheaper than renting and using a car only part of our time).
Thoughts on renting a car versus just hiring a driver a few times? Thanks!