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Santorini - Private Driver and Akrotiri Tour Guide

Greetings! We are traveling to Santorini, staying in Oia in a couple of weeks. We want to tailor a one day tour of Santorini and need to hire a driver - 2 people for 6 hours. Can anyone recommend a taxi driver for hire or a private driver? Also, we noticed on the Rick Steves video for Santorini that he mentioned that he hired a driver - Demetrius. Does anyone know Demetrius’ last name, name of tour or taxi company, and contact information (website)?

Second, we plan to tour Akrotiri on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 5th, and would like to hire a tour guide. Can anyone suggest a guide? If so, can you please provide the guide’s contact information ( email, cell phone, website)? Thank you!!

Kind regards,
Monica

Posted by
3123 posts

For a car and driver contact Gabi Birbeck or Kostas Sakavaras, both with profiles on Facebook. They are highly regarded and completely reliable. When you go to Akrotiri you will be able to hire a certified guide, one who is available at the entrance.

Posted by
562 posts

Here's what I wrote back on 4/16/23 in response to a similar question:

Way back when during those Pre-COVID times, we used Santorini Tours. Going to their website, it seems it's now named Santorini Private-Tours.
https://www.santorini-private-tours.com
I emailed them and told them what I wanted: To see Oia, and then go to Akrotiri and then what ever was left of the day, take us to see the sights and a lunch place before getting us back to the cable cars by 3:30 pm.
They met us at the top of the cable car in Fira, walked us to the car, met Vicki, our driver who drove us first to Oia, because she said we should see it in the AM before the tour bus crowd arrived. She is just a driver, so she could not conduct a tour, but she told us where to go to get those pictures of the blue domed churches. Then she drove us to Akrotiri, on the other side of the island. Again, she is not a tour guide, so we entered and did that site by ourselves. Then she drove us to eat lunch at a place on the beach on the East side near the airport. We stopped at Red Beach to the overlook. She said we could stop at the winery, but we declined as we are from Northern California and winery tours are a dime a dozen for us. She dropped us in Fira and we walked the pedestrian walkway along the shops to the Cable car station.
Give them an email and see what they say. Back then I emailed several and the prices varied and I told one place their price was too high and they gave me a lower price but I ended up going with Santorini Tours.

Posted by
827 posts

We chose the "A la Carte" Tour with Tours by Kostas" for a day tour and were very pleased. He was extremely knowledgeable; excellent English and very receptive to our requests. I have no qualms about recommending him. https://santorini-private-guide.com/We did not tour Akrotiri, so I am unable to provide a suggestion for that.

Posted by
2 posts

Thanks to all for these very prompt, informative, and thorough replies! We now have sufficient information to proceed with identifying a driver and tour guide for Akrotiri. Thanks again!

Posted by
1373 posts

If you can drive you should have no trouble driving on Santorini - unless you plan a few beverage stops during your exploration. Several years ago I rented a car for 3 days and drove all over the island. Red Beach is near Akrotiri and also worth a visit.