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Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
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Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP

One of the most enduring images of Greece's summer travel brand is the world-famous sunset on Santorini Island, framed by sea-blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.
This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters, and souvenirs -- and now the queue to reach the viewing spot in the clifftop village of Oia can take more than 20 minutes, said AFP.
Santorini is a key stopover of the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.
Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 residents.
"We need to set limits if we don't want to sink under overtourism," Santorini mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.
"There must not be a single extra bed... whether in the large hotels or Airbnb rentals."
As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.
For canny entrepreneurs, the Cycladic island's famous sunset can be a cash cow.
One company advertised more than 50 "flying dresses", which have long flowing trains, for up to 370 euros ($401), on posters around Oia for anyone who wishes to "feel like a Greek goddess" or spruce up selfies.
'Respect Oia'
But elsewhere in Oia's narrow streets, residents have put up signs urging visitors to respect their home.
"RESPECT... It's your holiday... but it's our home," read a purple sign from the Save Oia group.
Shaped by a volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago, Santorini's landscape is "unique", the mayor said, and "should not be harmed by new infrastructure".
Around a fifth of the island is currently occupied by buildings.
At the edge of the cliff, a myriad of swimming pools and jacuzzis highlight Santorini is also a pricey destination.
In 2023, 800 cruise ships brought some 1.3 million passengers, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
Cruise ships "do a lot of harm to the island", said Chantal Metakides, a Belgian resident of Santorini for 26 years.
"When there are eight or nine ships pumping out smoke, you can see the layer of pollution in the caldera," she said.
Cruise ship limits
In June, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis floated the possibility of capping cruise ship arrivals to Greece's most popular islands.
"I think we'll do it next year," he told Bloomberg, noting that Santorini and tourist magnet Mykonos "are clearly suffering".
"There are people spending a lot of money to be on Santorini and they don’t want the island to be swamped," said the pro-business conservative leader, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
In an AFP interview, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni echoed this sentiment and said: "We must set quotas because it's impossible for an island such as Santorini... to have five cruise ships arriving at the same time."
Local officials have set a limit of 8,000 cruise boat passengers per day from next year.
But not all local operators agree.
Antonis Pagonis, head of Santorini's hoteliers association, believes better visitor flow management is part of the solution.
"It is not possible to have (on) a Monday, for example, 20 to 25,000 guests from the cruise ships, and the next day zero," he said.
Pagonis also argued that most of the congestion only affects parts of the island like the capital, Fira.
In the south of the island, the volcanic sand beaches are less crowded, even though it is high season in July.
'I'm in Türkiye
The modern tourism industry has also changed visitor behavior.
"I listened (to) people making a FaceTime call with the family, saying 'I'm in Türkiye," smiled tourist guide Kostas Sakavaras.
"They think that the church over there is a mosque because yesterday they were in Türkiye."
The veteran guide said the average tourist coming to the island has changed.
"Instagram has defined the way people choose the places to visit," he said, explaining everybody wants the perfect Instagram photo to confirm their expectations.

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Varieties

Pilot, 2 Children Survive Night on Airplane’s Wing After It Crashes into Icy Alaska Lake 

This photo provided by the Alaska National Guard shows an airplane partially submerged into the ice of Tustumena Lake at the toe of a glacier on Monday, March 24, 2025, near Soldotna, Alaska. (Alaska National Guard via AP) 
This photo provided by the Alaska National Guard shows an airplane partially submerged into the ice of Tustumena Lake at the toe of a glacier on Monday, March 24, 2025, near Soldotna, Alaska. (Alaska National Guard via AP) 
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Pilot, 2 Children Survive Night on Airplane’s Wing After It Crashes into Icy Alaska Lake 

This photo provided by the Alaska National Guard shows an airplane partially submerged into the ice of Tustumena Lake at the toe of a glacier on Monday, March 24, 2025, near Soldotna, Alaska. (Alaska National Guard via AP) 
This photo provided by the Alaska National Guard shows an airplane partially submerged into the ice of Tustumena Lake at the toe of a glacier on Monday, March 24, 2025, near Soldotna, Alaska. (Alaska National Guard via AP) 

A pilot and two children survived on the wing of a plane for about 12 hours after it crashed and was partially submerged in an icy Alaska lake, then were rescued after being spotted by a good Samaritan.

Terry Godes said he saw a Facebook post Sunday night calling for people to help search for the missing plane, which did not have a locator beacon. On Monday morning, about a dozen pilots — including Godes in his own airplane — headed out to scour the rugged terrain for the missing plane. Godes headed toward Tustumena Lake near the toe of a glacier and spotted what he thought was wreckage.

"It kind of broke my heart to see that, but as I got closer down and lower, I could see that there's three people on top of the wing," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

After saying a little prayer, he continued to get closer and saw a miracle.

"They were alive and responsive and moving around," he said, adding they waved at him as he approached.

The missing Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, piloted by a man with two immediate juvenile family members aboard, flew Sunday on a recreational sightseeing tour from Soldotna to Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula.

The three were rescued on the eastern edge of Tustumena Lake on Monday by the Alaska Army National Guard after Godes alerted other pilots searching for the plane that he had found it. Another pilot, Dale Eicher, heard Godes' radio call and alerted troopers since he was closer to Skilak Lake and figured he had better cell reception. He was also able to provide the plane's coordinates to authorities.

"I wasn’t sure if we would find them, especially because there was a cloud layer over quite a bit of the mountains so they could have very easily been in those clouds that we couldn’t get to," Eicher said. But he said that finding the family within an hour of starting the search and finding them alive "was very good news."

The three survivors were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, Alaska State Troopers said.

"They spent a long, cold, dark, wet night out on top of a wing of an airplane that they weren’t planning on," Godes said.

He said there were many miracles at play, from the plane not sinking, to the survivors being able to stay perched atop the wing, to the three surviving the night in temperatures dipping into the 20s (subzero Celsius).

"It's a cold dark place out there at night," he said.

The plane was mostly submerged in the lake with only the wing and the top of the rudder exposed above the ice and water, Godes noted.

Alaska is a state with few roads, leaving many communities to rely on small airplanes as the preferred mode of transportation.

Last month, in western Alaska, 10 people died when a small commuter plane that was overweight by half a ton crashed into sea ice in the Norton Sound, near Nome on the state’s western coast.

Five years ago, a deadly midair collision near the Soldotna airport claimed the lives of seven people, including an Alaska state lawmaker.

The Alaska Army National Guard dispatched a helicopter from its base in Anchorage to rescue the three people on Monday morning.

The initial plan was to use a hoist to pull the three up and off the wing, but it proved to be too dangerous as the smallest girl was being buffeted and blown around by the wind created by the helicopter, said Lt. Col. Brendon Holbrook, commander of the guard’s 207th Aviation Regiment. So, instead the helicopter hovered to the side of the plane's wing and pulled the three people on board.

He said his personnel reported the two girls were surprisingly dry but the adult male had been in the water at some point. "We don't know to what extent, but he was hypothermic," Holbrook said.

Holbrook said he was told the three people had basic clothing one would wear in Alaska on small planes without very good heating systems, but nothing sufficient to keep a person warm outside in winter-like temperatures with cold winds blowing on the lake.

"It was literally the best possible scenario and outcome," Holbrook said. "Ultimately, the crew of that airplane were lucky because from what my guys told me, that plane was in the ice with the tail refrozen and if that tail hadn’t refrozen, it would have sunk."

There is no indication why the plane crashed. The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that it is investigating with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The 60,000-acre (24,200-hectare) Tustumena Lake is situated about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage and has been described by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as "notorious for its sudden, dangerous winds."

Conditions around the lake — with nearby mountains, a glacier and gusty winds — can cause havoc for both boats and planes. The body of water is the largest freshwater lake on the Kenai Peninsula.

"Even under what would be considered a benign or relatively weak pressure gradient, the terrain helps turn the winds around, and occasionally they get a little squirrelly," said Michael Kutz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Anchorage.

Godes agreed that the area is always windy, and fresh water can kick up with the wind and turn into waves.

"Then just the way it’s placed right there at the heel of that, or at the toe of that glacier where you’ve got mountains on both sides, you know, just a few miles to the west, you’ve got Cook Inlet running back and forth with huge temperature and tidal swings every day. It’s just a recipe for chaos and for turbulence," he said.