Santorini beaches: black, red or white sand, and the bus from Fira

The beaches of Santorini offer a unique lunar landscape that consists of volcanic rock, black, white, and red sand.

Visit Greece, the Greek National Tourism Organisation, on Santorini

Most people book Santorini for the view. From the caldera rim in Fira or Oia you look straight down at the sea, and there is no beach to be seen. Below Oia there is only the small harbour of Ammoudi, where you climb into the water off the rocks. The beaches are on the other side of the island, in the east and the south, where the land slopes gently down to the sea. What you find there is not golden sand but black, red and white.

That colour tells you in advance what kind of day you are getting, and even how you get there. Black sand has a bus stop, a sunbed and a beach bar. Red and white have a cliff face and a small boat. And whichever you pick, you count from Fira, where every bus on the island starts.

Which are the best beaches in Santorini, and what colour is their sand?

Santorini has black, red and white beaches, all of volcanic origin. Five of the eight places below have black sand and are long and well equipped; the red and the white beach lie near Akrotiri between the cliffs, and Ammoudi is rock below Oia.

How do you get to the Santorini beaches by bus from Fira?

By KTEL bus from Fira, where every line on the island starts. In summer 27 buses a day run to Kamari and 16 to Perissa, but only five to Monolithos and three to Vlychada. What counts is how long you can stay: from the first bus out to the last bus back.

At Kamari and Perissa you can stay until after sunset. At Monolithos the last bus back leaves at 5:10 pm and at Vlychada already at 2:30 pm, so anyone who wants the afternoon there has to find their own way back. In winter fewer buses run and the last one back leaves by 7:30 pm everywhere. Timetables change with the season, so check KTEL again just before you travel.

Can you visit Red Beach and White Beach?

White Beach yes, by taxi boat from Akrotiri. Red Beach no: it is closed, so you only see it from the water.

The small boats leave from the harbour at the village of Akrotiri and take ten to fifteen minutes to White Beach, writes Day Trips from Santorini in its 2026 guide. There is no fixed timetable: they run in the season from May to September, when the sea allows, and you pay the skipper. When you board, agree what time the last boat comes back. Going ashore at Red Beach is out of the question: since the earthquakes of February 2025 the path to it has been closed too, reported Protothema.

So on a red or white day you swim from the boat or from the white rocks. You jump into deep, open water and climb back aboard. From June to October that water is 22 °C or warmer.

For that jump, what you wear matters. Ewout Kuypers, an ambassador for Sanwin Beachwear, wore the Miami Deep Pink on Santorini. Pull the drawcord tight before you jump off the boat and the shorts stay where they belong when you surface. The peach-skin polyester dries quickly, so on the bench back to Akrotiri you are not sitting in a wet pair. Why polyester dries faster than cotton is in our piece on quick-dry swim trunks. And against black sand, white rock and dark blue water, that deep pink stands out from the boat at once.

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1. Miami Deep Pinkdeep pink, quick-dry peach-skin polyester, elastic waistband with drawcord

Santorini, 11 May 2018. Ewout Kuypers in the Miami Deep Pink in front of a lava stone wall, with the sea behind him and the white drawcord at the front of the waistband.

The Miami runs small. Size M has a waistband of 79 centimetres relaxed and 98 stretched, size L 81 and 100. If you are between sizes, take the larger one and pull it in with the drawcord; if it still does not fit, you can exchange it within 100 days. The same fit in other colours is in the Miami swim shorts collection, and the other models are with all our swim shorts for men. If you are still sizing up, our swim trunks size chart lists every model in centimetres.

Santorini beach questions