Santorini

Is Santorini safe?

Santorini is safe from crime, and the risks that matter here come from the island itself. Police recorded 1 homicide and 7 robberies in the whole Cyclades in 2024, according to Eurostat. What does hurt visitors is the cliffs, the roads and the heat, and in early 2025 the ground under the island moved in a way that sent most of its residents away for weeks.

We score Santorini 72, below Rhodes (74) and Heraklion (76) but above Athens (71). The gap comes from natural hazards and roads, not crime.

This page covers the whole island: Fira, the capital, and the cliff-top villages of Firostefani, Imerovigli and Oia on the caldera rim; the beach resorts of Kamari and Perissa on the east coast; and the ports at Athinios and below Fira. The crime figures are for the Cyclades as a whole, because Greece publishes none for Santorini alone.

The 2025 earthquake swarm

Santorini sits on the rim of a flooded caldera left by one of the largest eruptions of the past 10,000 years, around 1600 BC. A study by Isken and colleagues published in Nature in September 2025 found that the ground in the caldera began to rise in July 2024, as magma flowed into a reservoir about 4 km down. Small quakes under the caldera increased from September.

On 27 January 2025 an intense swarm began north-east of the island. Over more than 30 days it moved towards Anydros and Amorgos, with quakes above magnitude 5; the study's catalogue holds more than 30,000 events between October 2024 and late February 2025. Schools closed, thousands of residents and seasonal workers left by ferry and plane, and Greece declared a state of emergency on Santorini and nearby islands from 6 February to 3 March 2025. Municipal crews fenced off parts of the cliff-top towns at risk of rockfalls, AP reported.

Seismologists said at the time the swarm was not a sign of an eruption, and none came. The Nature study later showed that a 13 km sheet of magma, fed from under Kolumbo, an undersea volcano just north-east of Santorini, had pushed into the crust and stopped 3 to 5 km below the seabed. The swarm faded in March and the island reopened for the 2025 season.

For a visitor, this means two things. The risk on any given day is low, but it is not zero, and the island's geography makes evacuation slow: almost everyone leaves by ferry from Athinios or by plane. Keep emergency alerts on your phone, as the FCDOFCDO travel adviceThe UK government's travel advice for each country, which can advise against all travel or all but essential travel to specific areas.More in the glossary advises, and look up the nearest assembly point on mysafetyplan.gov.gr.

Cliffs, rockfalls and the caldera path

The caldera walls are made of loose volcanic layers, and rocks fall. In 2011 a boulder killed an American tourist riding a mule on the path from Oia down to the sea and injured four women, according to police. A 2026 modelling study warned that a collapse of part of Nea Kameni, the volcanic islet in the caldera, could send waves more than 2 m high into the ports below the cliffs; seafloor surveys in the same study found little sign that the slope had moved, despite the 2025 unrest.

The walk from Fira to Oia along the rim is one of the best things to do on the island, but parts are unfenced, rough underfoot and fully exposed to the sun. Do it in the morning, carry water and stay back from the edge. Do not climb walls or step beyond barriers for a photo, and take extra care at night in Fira and Oia, where steps are uneven and drops are long.

Roads, quads and buggies

ELSTAT counted 36 road deaths in the South Aegean in 2024, 11.0 per 100,000 people, the second-highest rate of Greece's 13 regions. On Santorini the main road along the island is narrow and shared by coaches, delivery vans, hire cars and quads. In 2019 a British man and woman died when their buggy fell about 200 m into a ravine on Profitis Ilias, the island's highest mountain.

The FCDOFCDO travel adviceThe UK government's travel advice for each country, which can advise against all travel or all but essential travel to specific areas.More in the glossary warns that quad bikes injure and kill people in Greece every year, that many insurance policies exclude them, and that hire firms usually sell only third-party cover and may charge for any damage. If you rent anything with wheels, wear a helmet, avoid the roads at night and leave room for buses on the bends.

Crowds, theft and heat

Thefts are uncommon. Police recorded 455 in all the Cyclades in 2024, and pickpocketing is concentrated where crowds gather: Oia's lanes at sunset, the cable car and the steps between Fira and the Old Port when cruise passengers come ashore. Keep your phone and wallet in a closed bag in front of you.

Summer is hot and there is little shade on the rim, so heat exhaustion is a real risk on the paths and the long climb up from the port. The FCDOFCDO travel adviceThe UK government's travel advice for each country, which can advise against all travel or all but essential travel to specific areas.More in the glossary notes that care on the islands may be limited and ambulances are scarce on some. Bring travel insurance that covers evacuation, and drink bottled water.

How we scored it

Violent crime (90) is Santorini's strongest factor. Walking at night (77) uses Heraklion's answer to the EU's 2023 survey, which we use for every European city, because Santorini was not surveyed. Natural hazards (54) and traffic safety (46) are the weakest factors: the 2025 earthquake swarm and the active volcano, and the South Aegean's high road death rate.