Santorini, Greece is expensive no matter which way you slice it. The hotels, the food, the drinks, you name it. It is a place where people go to splurge on the view and embrace their YOLO alter ego to the fullest.

While that sounds like a huge roadblock, Santorini’s flashy price tags did not turn us away from visiting this breathtaking island, and it absolutely should not scare you. With a little creativity and a lot of research, we discovered different ways to make this an affordable destination for us. Below we have listed the top money saving tricks we did while in Santorini.

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Top things we did in Santorini to Save Money

1. Forgo the View for Dinner

We know what you’re thinking, why go to Santorini if you cannot marvel at the scenic beauty? The truth is, you can find insanely cheaper food places if you forgo eating with the Santorini views as your backdrop. We’re talking saving 15-30 euros a meal for cuisine that is just as good, if not richer and more authentic. You’ll still have plenty of opportunities to take in the island, it just might not be while eating your dinner or your lunch.

Instead, we suggest eating cheaply somewhere off the beaten path. After, grab some to-go wine or ice cream from one of the nearby restaurants to check out the view on foot.

Not only will this save you so much money, but it will also allow you to walk around and see much more of the view. Win, win.

2. Take a City Bus into Oia

You cannot go to Santorini without spending a day in Oia—the town with the bluetop, white buildings that you see in all of the pictures. Oia sits on the most northern point of the island, so the views–you guessed it– are killer.  However, its location also makes it expensive to get there.

If you are like us and don’t want to deal with the hassle of renting a car, your options are taxi, ATV, or bus. We quickly ruled out the 40 plus euro taxi ride, and did not trust ourselves on ATV’s up the steep mountain. Taking a city coach bus into Oia was the absolute best option, because it’s 3 euros round trip and picks you up at a bus terminal in the heart of Fira. It took about 25 minutes to get there, with buses picking up and dropping off every 30 minutes. The flexible schedule allowed us to spend as much time as we needed in Oia without the worry of transportation logistics cutting it short.

Not staying in Fira? Make sure you check out the bus schedule because it picks up from a few other towns along the way.

3. Stayed in Fira

Another thrifty decision we made was to stay in the town of Fira, instead of the highly touristy but fabulous Oia. As we said before, everyone wants to visit Oia. However, it is crazy expensive to stay there (and we’re not just saying that because we’re cheap).

So we suggest booking your hotel or Airbnb in Fira knowing you can easily travel to Oia for little cost. The town of Fira is just as special and has a great city center with lots of cute restaurants and bars.