Santorini car and driver by the hour

What is a car and driver by the hour, and what is it not?

It is a vehicle with one of our own drivers at your disposal for the hours you book, with the route decided by you: the villages, the beaches, the wineries and the viewpoints, in the order you like and for as long as you like at each. The driver waits while you visit, eat or swim, and gives practical orientation on the road. It is not a guided tour: guiding inside a museum or an archaeological site is reserved to state-licensed guides under Law 5121/2024, and one can be added on request, quoted separately. It is not a ride from one address to another either; our sister brand Santorini Taxi does those, without the waiting. The tipping guide answers the question guests ask at the end of the day, and private driver in Greece covers the mainland. This page is for a day you design.

How are the hours counted, and what does it cost?

You book the hours you want and they run from the pickup to the drop-off, waiting included. The rate is per hour, from 50 EUR, as the ticket above prints it from the office’s rate card, and the office confirms the total by email for your hours and the vehicle your party needs: a sedan for up to three, a minivan for four to seven, a minibus or a coach beyond that. The request form never computes a total for this service, so you always see the figure before you commit to anything; for a day with stops from our Santorini list, the build-your-day page prints the price at once, hours times the rate of the vehicle your party takes. Entrance fees, tastings, meals and cable car tickets are paid on the spot; the price guide has the fixed tours’ rates beside it for comparison.

Three sample days: 3, 5 and 8 hours

Drive times are routed on OpenStreetMap without traffic and start at the top station of the cable car in Fira; from a hotel elsewhere the first leg changes.

• 3 hours, Oia and the rim: Firostefani (2 min, 0.9 km) for the blue-domed church, then Oia (13 min, 10.2 km) with well over an hour to walk it, and back to Fira (13 min, 10.8 km).
• 5 hours, Akrotiri with a licensed guide and the beaches: Firostefani (2 min, 0.9 km), Pyrgos (21 min, 11.6 km), Akrotiri (15 min, 9.3 km) with an hour and a half inside and the guide quoted separately, Red Beach (8 min, 3.5 km), Perivolos (18 min, 9.5 km) for lunch and a swim, a winery with a caldera view (13 min, 8.2 km) and back to Fira (12 min, 9 km): about an hour and a half on the road.
• 8 hours, the whole island: the route of our full-day tour with the minutes set by you: Firostefani, Oia (13 min, 10.2 km) for an hour, the Prophet Elias monastery (35 min, 25.2 km), Pyrgos (12 min, 4.3 km), Akrotiri (15 min, 9.3 km) for an hour, Red Beach (8 min, 3.5 km), Perivolos (18 min, 9.5 km) for lunch, a winery (13 min, 8.2 km) and back (12 min, 9 km): 128 min of driving in the day.

What does the driver do while we are inside?

Waits with the vehicle, however long you take; the hours are yours. At Akrotiri the driver waits outside the site while you visit; the entrance fee, 20 EUR (checked 8 Oct 2026, hh.gr), is paid at the gate, and the official amenities list names a café, a shop, a WC and parking, with the excavation under a bioclimatic shelter, so the visit is in the shade. For the villages and the beaches, ask the driver where the nearest toilets are, where the shade is at midday and which lane climbs in steps; for cruise guests the only fixed climb is before the day starts, the cable car or the 587 steps up from the old port. Lunch happens wherever you decide: on our full day it is usually at Perivolos by the black sand, and the driver waits through it.

Where does the day start?

Anywhere on the island: your hotel or villa, the exit of the cable car’s top station for cruise guests, the quay at Athinios for ferry arrivals and for the guests a large ship lands there, or the arrivals area of the airport, always with a sign with your name. Cruise guests book the hours their call allows: the day ends 90 minutes before all-aboard, and the cruise port page and the cable-car guide explain the tender, the queue and the two landing points. Child seats are free on request, a folding wheelchair travels in the boot, and the vehicles have no lift or ramp, so tell us what you need when you book.