Best Of Santorini Private Half-day: Oia, Red Beach & Hidden Gems

Ted made our Santorini experience truly unforgettable. From the moment the tour began, his warmth, knowledge, and effortless storytelling stood out. He didn’t just show us the island—he brought it to life with fascinating history, local insights, and little details we would have completely missed on our own. Whether it was navigating the charming streets, pointing out hidden gems, or recommending the best spots for photos, food, and sunsets—he nailed it every time. His passion for Santorini is genuinely contagious, and you can tell he loves what he does. The pacing of the tour was perfect—not rushed, but never dull—and everything was well-organized. We had a great time 😊♥️

We had a wonderful private tour with Greece Holiday Tours, all perfectly arranged by Nick. Our driver and guide, Billy, was fantastic! He took us to many of Santorini’s highlights, including Fira, Oia, the monastery, the lighthouse, and even a refreshing swim at the beautiful black sand beach. A big thank you to Nick — and especially to Billy — for making our day so memorable. – Gerard and Susan

Just a simple class act experience. From start to finish, everything was excellent. We where in Santorini for 4 days and used Nikko's and team services for all that we needed: transport other tours and bookings. Always on time and so knowledgeable. We felt in confidence and never concerned. Wish partners like him where everywhere.

Wow! What an amazing experience! Our guides, Billy and Nick, were amazing! Very professional and knowledgable. It was a fun day filled with stops at places we would have never known about. Great way to see the island of Santorini. Fantastic picture opportunities. We were two families with six teenagers from the US! Highly recommend this tour. The transportation was top notch with air conditioning. What an unforgettable adventure!

Billy was by far the best tour guide we’ve had. I have had many tours in Europe over the years, and he definitely exceeded our expectations. He was kind, knowledgeable, organized, funny, and spoke English very well. I came with my fiance coming from the U.S., and we were a little nervous regarding how to navigate Santorini, but Billy made sure we had the absolute best day! We saw beautiful Oia, churches, beaches, cliff side winery with a view of the caldera, highest point in Santorini, and the list goes on. All while still making stops for us for restroom breaks and making sure we made it back to cruise ship perfectly on time to see sunset. He was recommended to us by a mutual friend I have from home, and I will continue to recommend him to others moving forward!!

Billy was great at driving and walking us throughout the sites of Santorini (which we learned was actually the island of Thira thanks to him). He even helped arrange our next day’s adventure by coordinating transportation to a nice beach and arranged for the restaurant to be expecting us and take care of us while we spent the afternoon with them. He was a great host and helped make it enjoyable to broadly see and experience the highlights of the island. I’d recommend have him take you to a local place for a meal rather than sticking to a convenient option in the tourist areas.

Start to finish great experience. We requested a 5 hr tour starting early at 7am in order to escape the crowds and heat. Our driver was Vasilis (Billie) who picked us up near our hotel. Very friendly, professional guide who knew everything about the island and its history. He took us all over the island, everywhere we wanted to go. Such a relaxed and informative way to see the island. Great value for money, clean & top range car. Nothing was rushed. Vasilis is a credit to the company. Don’t hesitate to book (we were recommended this company via our hotel reception staff)

Jim was our driver and guide. He took us around Santorini in a luxury Merc. All the time we had fantastic conversations in our private vehicle. Jim took us to all those tourist spots which were practically impossible to be done in any bus site-seeing. Even such a personalized experience is impossible if you go in a group site-seeing. Jim clicked our photos wherever we wanted. He was the best. We recommend to have this customized 5 hour trip. A must visit on your trip to Santorini. I also thank Nick for all the logistic support for any queries prior to us meeting the driver on the ground. We did not see any hesitation and Nick and Jim were always available for any kind of support needed. I am going to recommend Nick and his team to all my friends and family whenever they visit Santorini. I rate this trip 5/5.

Honestly wanted to love it; but our guide spent more time talking about himself than the island. We learned very little about the island and their culture and what made them special, but boy do I know all I need to know about him, and then some. While we didn’t follow the itinerary; which was fine, it seemed like we were on a hit list of his favorite places, and he was sharing stories about what we could afford on the island. He would stop to roll his window down to tell other drivers they were in the wrong spot, or complain about their driving. It was to the point where my family decided to end the tour early to get out of the car with him. All of the other reviews seemed positive, maybe it just wasn’t our day, but for wanting to experience the culture of Santorini on a private tour a lot was left to desire.

Amazing tour guide and experience. We saw everything we wanted to see and it was so fun in the process. He knew all the good local spots.

Billy and the driver were great, very informative and it was a blast. We were able to see everything that we wanted to see and had a great time. I could not recommend it more to my family and friends .

We booked this tour through Dimitri at Sunshine Hotel for us and our friends. Our driver was john in a beautiful clean Volvo. Our tour took us to the monastery at the highest point in the island, then onto other beautiful places, including red beach, white beach, the lighthouse, megalachori, Firostefani and finally to Oia to see the blue domes. John took us to some superb locations for photo opportunities. John has a fantastic knowledge of the island, and we can highly recommend him and the company he works for. John's english is excellent. Thank you so much. Alex, Cindy, Lynn and Paul

Today, we disembarked our cruise ship in Santorini, Greece for a 5-hour shore excursion booked thru Greece Holiday Tours. Our guide was Jannis “Jon” Mouzas. I have been on many shore excursions and tours in my extensive travels , but I have never met a more professional, courteous and knowledgeable guide. He shuttled us around the island in a luxury vehicle, which was very comfortable. Jannis was able to tailor an island tour based on our interests, not a canned tour with planned stops. Everywhere we went, Jannis was well known and obviously well respected by the staff and ownership, and due to our interests, he arranged last minute tours and tastings at a winery, a brewery and finally a fantastic beachfront lunch at a restaurant called “I Frati”, which is on a black sand beach and easily one of the better meals I have ever eaten, certainly the best meal of this vacation. If you come to Santorini and want the best guide the island has to offer, than Jannis is your guy. He is definitely the “A” Team. Much respect Jannis !! Don’t forget to look us up when you make it to Texas !!

An amazing day on the beautiful island of Santorini! We booked a 5 hour private tour guide and it was perfect. We were traveling by Cruise ship so our time on the island was limited. John was our guide and he was absolutely wonderful. He was a driver, tour guide, teacher, photographer, and even held my bag at times! He took us to all the highlights of the island. Viewpoints for photos, Oia for a little free time of shopping and walking through town, a winery and brewery stop, a quick visit to a monastery then lunch at an amazing restaurant, I Frati. It was on the black sand beach, beautiful view, unbelievable food even better service. It was the best meal we’ve had on this trip! Having John made everything better. He knew where to go and who would take care of us to make it the best day. Our goal of this entire Mediterranean cruise is to figure out where we want to go back for an extended stay… after today, Santorini tops our list of places we have to return!

The tour was amazing and Billy our tour guy was very knowledgeable and very personable! We had an excellent time in Santorini!

Billy is an experience tour guide who provided excellent service and took us to few beautiful places in Santorini! He is personal, approachable , and asked us the itinerary we preferred at beginning. We had a chance to take some pictures, our own time in Oia as well as watching sunset. The car is Mercedes Benz and very comfortable. Highly recommended!

Booked this trip independently from our cruise to Santorini, absolutely amazing experience from Billi our guide and chauffeur. Tailored our day as we requested, mixture of sightseeing and culture, hospitality second to none, would highly recommend this to anyone visiting Santorini for the day.

Enjoyed the experience, but most expecially Billy was very pleasant, knowledgeable and very interactive. The experience was full of fun, laughter.

We had the best tour guide Billy! He was promptly waiting for us at the top of the cable cars where he then took us to his very nice car with the best A/C. He gave suggestions on an itinerary and let us put in any input we wanted. We wanted to eat like a local so he took us to a nice spot by the beach. We got to see everything we wanted and more! He navigated us thought the crazy streets of Oia and even took some amazing pictures for us. He went above and beyond as a guide! By the time we left we were all friends. 10/10!

We did the private island tour with John (Yannis) and had a phenomenal time! Yannis went above and beyond to make us comfortable and explain/show us all of the sights of beautiful Santorini. He also took wonderful photos throughout the journey - he is a great photographer. This was the highlight of our trip, and the best tour we have ever taken! He made my birthday the best one yet! Thank you Yannis and Greece Holiday Tours!

Had an amazing time! Panos was an excellent tour guide! He knew so much about the island. Gave our group a brief history of different parts of the island. He showed us a cute coffee shop that had the best iced coffee. He also recommended a place to eat right on the black sand beach. Couldn’t have asked for a better spot to eat next to the ocean. If you’re only here for one day you have to get a tour guide. We would have never been able to see everything we wanted to see in 5 hours. Our driver knew ways to get around the traffic and help save us time on our tour.

My husband and I had the tour with John, we had an absolutely amazing day thanks to him! He was so knowledgeable and kind. We would highly recommend this tour to anyone!!

Highly recommend this tour - clean cars, awesome driver (Billy) who made our day very enjoyable with his knowledge of the island and local recommendations.

My husband, daughter and I went to Santorini in June as a port stop on our cruise and ended up booking a private tour so we could try to see as much of the island as possible, especially with a three year old….. it was a brilliant decision!!! Billy was our driver and tour guide and honestly guys, half way through the tour my daughter was holding his hand and saying I love you. Like she preferred hanging out with him instead of us (which suited us just fine - free babysitting woohoo!). THAT’s how great he was with her! If anyone is thinking about doing a private tour and has children with them, I cannot recommend Billy enough - he was our tour guide, babysitter, photographer all in one, and made amazing recommendations once we gave him a sense of what we liked. Also he was super friendly and we learned a ton of history about the island from him. He took us to a ton of spots that we otherwise would’ve never been able to get to ourselves - and most importantly in the oppressive heat we were so grateful to have the chance to duck into a car with AC after every stop. We are not fans of super touristy spots in particular, so after the obligatory Oia stop with some great photos, he took us around to some much more local areas, like a small village with some underground caves that locals used to live in, and the highest peak of the island with a great view! We also went to this really fun winery with some art, where we tasted this super delicious vinsanto that reminded us of rum raisin cake. If you are considering a private tour, highly highly recommend booking with them and asking for Billy!

We loved our trip with “famous Jan”, the best guide and the best photographer! He took us to the nicest spots here in Santorini. We had 5 hours but could have a hole day with Jan. Thank you! Chrsitian and Emelie

We were picked up at top of cable cars by John in a nice air conditioned car. Because we weren't sure about where to go, he made several suggestions. We visited Oia, stopped along the way for pictures, ruins at Akrotiri, several other small towns and had a great lunch of gyros. John was a wonderful guide and it was great to talk to him about like on Greece and the islands. Overall it was an awesome experience and I would recommend using John as a guide and using Greek Holiday Tours.

If you want to see all the highlights of Santorini in a day, I highly recommend this private customized sightseeing tour! Our guide, Billy, was incredibly knowledgeable and fun. My kids absolutely loved him, asking countless questions, and he patiently answered each and every one. This tour is a must-do for a memorable Santorini experience!

Billy got in touch with us as soon as we docked from the cruise ship and suggested various options for our day. We were happy to leave the itinerary up to him and enjoyed some beach time, visited the monastery at the highest point of the island and spent time wandering through Oia. Billy shared so much information about the history of the island and made sure to include our 2 teenage daughters. It was an absolute highlight for us to have this day.

Greece Holiday Tours, the tour company in Santorini, was wonderful. They were professional, easy to work with and fulfilled all their promises. Their representatives were excellent and responsive. A special thanks to Billy, our driver in Santorini. He was knowledgeable, personable, and enjoyable to work with. He was one of the best drivers/guides we’ve had in many years of touring. Be sure to request Billy, he will not disappoint.

The driver Billy is a very nice person that showed us around special places of Santorini island. He is a great learner, so he knows history of Santorini deeply and widely. Thanks to Billy, we successfully had a great trip!

John was an excellent tour guide and made a great effort to be accommodating. He kept the experience personal and interesting. Would highly recommend.

This tour is perfect for first time visitors of Santorini. It highlights all the must see spots in the island. Our guide Panos, is very friendly and knowledgeable with Santorini’s spots, history, and facts. He is a fun person to be around! I truly recommend him as a guide. The driver also drove smooth. Thanks to the team of Nikolaos! Would definitely have this service again.

John was an amazing guide, very knowledgeable. Made sure all comforts were met, very friendly. Would highly recommend doing this.

The trip was amazing! John guided us throughout the island of santorini and we covered every part of the island. He had planned a detailed itinerary for the family and was even on time. Would surely recommend this tour with john and his super luxurious and comfortable volvo car if you plan to explore santorini.

There was a excellent tour during our family trip to Santorini. John response and support was overwhelmed is. Entire tour we enjoyed lot. All details was shared by John. Thanks John for your hospitality and Thanks to GHT. Santorini

Great experience. I would recommend to everyone who visits Santorini. The guide was very experienced and explained us everything. Very professional and friendly people.

If you don't have enough time but want to SEE and experience everything, you must hire Billy. We will get you around, take the best photos, give you space to swim and eat with your plus+, thanks to him our short visit to Santorini waa worthed. Nidia&Adrian from Mexico!

We did the local Santorini private taxi tour with Greece Holiday Tours (GHT). Jon, our driver, was excellent. He was very punctual, polite, friendly, flexible with our requirements and gave us a nice experience. He told us the history and info about all the tourist points. He knew all the good photo spots, which was very helpful. Thanks Jon and GHT for a nice and pleasant experience. I’ll definitely recommend using services of Jon from GHT.

Aris and Paro were amazing! We did a tour today and getting off our cruise then the line to the cable car was long they were flexible to adjust the time to a later time to make sure we made it to the meeting location ( I sent a WhatsApp message super responsive ) We saw so much he took our photos we felt comfortable leaving our book bags in the car while touring spaces. We did all the main attactions and finalized at a wine tour that was amazing. I recommend 100 percent hope to be back to another amazing tour of these two. Thanks again for showing us your beautiful island. Definitely worth it

In my opinion one of the better ways to see the island. Amazing views, beautiful sunset and a very attentive driver and guide.

Had a nice experience with John our guide. John's expertise and passion for guiding really shone through during the tour. His in-depth knowledge of the sights and destinations, coupled with his friendly demeanor, created a fantastic atmosphere. He went above and beyond to ensure everyone had a memorable experience, offering insightful commentary and interesting anecdotes along the way. It truly made the tour both informative and enjoyable. John's warmth and patience in interacting with children, added an extra layer of enjoyment to the tour. He took the time to engage with her, answering her curious questions and even tailoring parts of the tour to capture her interest. Parents traveling with kids can rest assured that John will not only provide an informative and entertaining experience for adults but will also make sure that the little ones feel welcomed and included every step of the way.

We had an amazing tour with Bill (our guide & driver). He’s very knowledgeable and super nice. We learnt lots of history and got good pictures. We were able to cover every places that we want to go during the 6-hr private tour. Highly recommended this tour! The owner (Nick) is also super nice. He drove us to the airport the next day, and allowed us to change the timing as the plan changed due to the bad weather.

Absolutely fabulous!!! Worth every penny of what we spent on this tour. The tour was catered to what my family and I wanted, we were provided with a guide, Athena, who was brilliant, I can not faulted her for anything. She was knowledgable for every aspect, she spoke to us at the start of where we wanted to go, she recommended some very good sites to visit. The bonus was, she also knew the best spots to shop, which was useful to a group of women on tour. My initial contact Nick, was fantastic. His communication skills were phenomenal. He responded quickly questions, told me which port to be, even looked at some extra that I needed for example the best place for water taxis etc. he was brilliant!! I couldn’t have asked for a better operator. He made this completely bespoke to what was originally the plan. I must have messaged him 1000 times and each reply was patiently answered. Down from the very first communication , months before I travelled, to sending me pictures of my transport to the very end on the day of the tour. Highly recommended!!!

Nicola is a great guide! Knowledgeable and friendly always at your disposal to help and guide us! Highly recommended!

We booked this through our hotel who recommended it and we thought it would be more than it actually was, given the price. This is not a proper guided tour as advertised but is rather a private car hire where the driver just takes you to all the hotspots and then leaves you to roam around in each of them yourself. The car was a nice Mercedes which is basically what they are charging you for. Honestly, you can just go to all of these places yourself on the bus for much cheaper. Other organised coach tours take you to the same places, yes it wont be private but it will be exactly the same places with other people present and it will be an actual guided tour. Our driver did not do much guiding at all, when he arrived he asked us what we want to see and we were confused as he should have had an itinerary to follow. Also, there aren't even any entrance fees to pay in these locations, so the high price is not justified. I would not recommend.

This was a really great private tour of Santorini. We were on a cruise, and one of our ports of call was Santorini. We decided to hire a private driver/tour guide to take us to see the entire island at our convenience. My husband and I were able to easily arrange the driver with Nick, who was super helpful and accommodating to our special wishes for the day. Our driver Nikolas was awesome. He was easy-going and knowledgeable about the island. He took us to all the spots we wanted to see, even waited for us as we took a swim and had a drink at Perissa Beach. He even booked a beautiful restaurant for a sunset dinner at Oia. Nikolas went above and beyond. We highly recommend Greece Holiday Tours! It was a memorable and special day for us. Thank you, Nick and Nikolas!

110% recommend this activity and especially with Nick (our driver/guide). Nick arrived early and waited for us to finish our breakfast before heading out to visit Santorini. He even asked what we’ve seen and adjusted our tour accordingly. We were able to learn about Santorini and took a lot of photos. Nick even offered to take photos for us! Nick even took us to a lunch spot on Black Beach and the view from our table was spectacular. The venue he chose (we asked him to select for us) had amazing seafood and for a good price. So if you have young children or an elderly parent traveling - do not hesitate to book this tour. You’ll thank yourself later. Oh! And one more thing about Nick: we asked for a last minute sunset cruise for our party and he made it happen. It was great and he made sure we were picked up and dropped off. So please ask for Nick!

This is definitely the right choice - Nicola is so friendly and knowledgeable. HE KNOWS EVERYTHING. The tour is customised depending on your needs. The car is brand new and comfortable. He also gives me advice on what I should do in Santorini I booked a traditional boat for the next day and it was cancelled. Within a min, Nicola helped to sort it out with another provider which is cheaper and better (I have to say, he is well connected. He even gives me advice on where I should stay in Athens!) He took me to various places with detailed explanation/ background introduction.

We had the 5 hours tour and everything was fantastic.It is the second time we visit Santorini and we enjoyed our holidays.Special thanks to Nikos the driver.