The whitewashed cliffs of Oia look unforgettable in a photograph and exhausting in real life. These fifteen Greek and Mediterranean islands offer the same blue-and-white spell without the queue for sunset.
Santorini takes about two million visitors a year onto an island that measures roughly 76 square kilometres. The math stopped working a while ago. The cliffside paths in Oia funnel down into single-file traffic by 6 p.m., the donkeys have become a quiet ethical scandal, and a sunset photograph now costs you the better part of an afternoon spent jostling for an angle.
What people actually want from Santorini, when you ask them honestly, is a small Cycladic village with white cube houses, a deep blue sea, a good plate of fava and the feeling that they have arrived somewhere distinct. All of that exists. It's just spread across the rest of the Aegean, often within a single ferry hop.
Cyclades alternatives that keep the aesthetic
1. Milos
Milos is the obvious swap and the strongest one. The lunar coastline at Sarakiniko looks like nothing else in Greece, Kleftiko's sea caves are reachable only by boat, and the fishing village of Klima has the painted-door boathouses (called syrmata) that show up on half the Greek travel posters in the world. Plaka, the capital, gives you exactly the kind of sunset terrace Oia advertises, with about a fifth of the people.
2. Folegandros
If you liked the idea of Santorini's caldera but wanted it quieter, Folegandros is the answer almost no one knows about. Chora sits 200 metres above the sea on a cliff edge, the main square is shaded by bougainvillea and old pepper trees, and the walking path down to Agali beach takes a good hour because you keep stopping to look.
3. Sifnos
Sifnos earns its place on this list through food alone. The island is the home of revithada, the slow-baked chickpea stew, and of the chef Nikolaos Tselementes who effectively wrote Greek cuisine into modern form. Apollonia and Kastro are textbook Cycladic, but the real reason to come is dinner.
4. Amorgos
Amorgos is the easternmost of the Cyclades and the most dramatic. The 11th-century Hozoviotissa monastery is built into a sheer cliff face, all eight storeys of it, and the hiking is the best in the chain. If you saw The Big Blue, this is the island you remember.
5. Kimolos
A 20-minute ferry from Milos and almost no one bothers. Chorio, the main village, has about 700 residents, three tavernas worth your time and beaches you can have to yourself in September.
Beyond the Cyclades
6. Symi
Tucked against the Turkish coast in the Dodecanese, Symi is the prettiest harbour entrance in the country. The neoclassical houses climbing the hill above Yialos were built when the island ran the sponge trade and the families had money. Few cruise ships stop.
7. Tilos
Tilos became the first energy-self-sufficient island in the Mediterranean a few years ago and the local mood reflects it. Hikers love it for the abandoned village of Mikro Chorio and the Charkadio cave, which still holds dwarf elephant bones.
8. Kastellorizo
Three kilometres off the Turkish coast and about as far as you can get from Athens without leaving Greek waters. The Blue Grotto here is bigger than Capri's and almost always empty.
9. Astypalea
The butterfly-shaped island in the south Aegean has a Venetian castle topping its Chora and a co-operative agreement with Volkswagen to run on electric vehicles. Strange and excellent.
10. Anafi
The closest island to Santorini geographically and the furthest from it in spirit. Mount Kalamos is the second-largest monolith in the Mediterranean after Gibraltar. The beaches are nudist by tradition and empty by habit.
When you want the look but not the country
11. Ostuni, Puglia
Italy's white city, perched above the olive plains near Brindisi. The old town is a maze of limewashed lanes, and the beaches at Torre Guaceto are protected reserve.
12. Lindos, Rhodes
Rhodes has the volume Santorini does but Lindos itself, with its acropolis above whitewashed houses and a single bay below, holds the same composition.
13. Procida, Italy
Italy's Capital of Culture in 2022 and still the smallest, calmest of the three main Naples bay islands. Marina Corricella is the pastel harbour that turns up in every Mediterranean dream.
14. Vis, Croatia
The furthest of the Croatian islands from the mainland and, until 1989, closed to foreign visitors as a military base. The wine is local, the coves are reachable only by small boat, and Komiža is the kind of fishing village Santorini stopped being in 1985.
15. Comino, Malta
Three permanent residents. One hotel. The Blue Lagoon is busy by midday in July but absolutely yours at 7 a.m. or in October.
When to actually go
If you genuinely cannot avoid summer, aim for the last two weeks of June or the first half of September. May and October are the better months on almost every island in this list. Greek ferries thin out in winter but Milos, Sifnos and Symi keep year-round connections, and a January walk on Folegandros, with the rosemary in flower and the tavernas open for residents only, is one of the loveliest things you can do in Europe.
The crowds always arrive. The trick is to be on the next island over when they do.
