July 27, 2026
Some places tell you they aren’t made for you before you’ve even arrived. Not always in words. Sometimes it’s in the steps. The silence. The unanswered questions. The beautiful image that makes you pause because you can already see everything that might not work.
Santorini has always had that effect. The whitewashed villages. The domes. The caldera views. The sunsets that make everyone go slightly quiet.
But for disabled travellers, and those with access considerations, Santorini often arrives with an unspoken caveat. Beautiful, yes. Easy, not always. Possible, maybe. That “maybe” is where so much of the emotional labour of travel begins.
At Santorini Sky, high above the island, I found a private luxury villa that changed what accessible travel in Santorini looks like.
Luiz Faye, The Inclusive Edit
Arrival without uncertainty
Arriving at an airport knowing there’s a driver waiting is always a reassurance. Arriving as a wheelchair user and knowing the vehicle has already been discussed, chosen and understood before you land is something else entirely.
Before my trip, the Santorini Sky team had spoken to me about transfers. Their partners provide everything from standard cars to wheelchair accessible vans.
Daniel (the driver) welcomed me to the island, helped me into the car, made sure I was comfortable and we were on our way.
The road to Santorini Sky
Every drive in Santorini comes with views. That’s one of the island’s great talents. You turn a corner and suddenly the Aegean appears as though it has been waiting for its cue.
Leaving the airport behind, we travelled towards Pyrgos and began the climb up Mount Profitis Ilias, the highest point on the island. Santorini Sky sits more than 2,000 feet above the Aegean Sea, with a perspective that makes the island feel both vast and intimate.
By the time we reached the resort, the busier Santorini of cruise crowds, blue domes and tightly packed viewpoints felt far away. This was quieter. Calmer. Still unmistakably Santorini, but with more space to breathe.
Check-in that didn’t feel admin
The arrival area was my first clue that this was not going to feel like an ordinary check-in. Sebastian, the Resort Manager, was waiting to greet me in the villa. There was no long desk process. No repeated explanation of things I’d already explained by email. No awkward “let’s work this out now you’re here” energy.
Many of the questions usually asked on arrival had already been answered during the booking process. The team knew about the transfer, my dietary requirements and the practical details that can so easily turn the beginning of a stay into admin.
Instead, Sebastian could show me around properly, talk me through the villa and begin shaping the itinerary around how I wanted the stay to feel. Not busy. Not overfilled. Not a forced checklist of Santorini highlights.
The Junior Residence
The Junior Residence was reached by an easy ramp from the parking area, with a handrail, thoughtfully placed lighting for the evening and aromatic herbs planted along the route. The dry-stone walls gave everything that grounded, earthy Santorini feeling.
Inside, the accessible villa boasts step-free sliding door access, extra-wide door frames, an oversized bedroom, kitchenette and an adapted bathroom with a large marble roll-in shower, seat and grab rails. But the important thing isn’t just that the access features were there. It’s how they felt.
The practical details sat within the design language of the villa. The grab rails, shower space and wider access didn’t feel like they had been reluctantly added to something beautiful. They felt part of the original thought process.
The terrace and The Residence next door
Inside, the villa felt calm, spacious and quietly luxurious. Then there was the terrace, which is also the incredible view you wake up to from your bed. Through the sliding doors, the Junior Residence opens onto a generous private outdoor space with a covered dining area, sun loungers, room to move and a floor-level hot tub with a grab rail.
Next door, The Residence gave the stay another dimension. It offers a larger living, dining and outdoor space, with a kitchen, lounge, bedroom, marble outdoor dining area, infinity pool, day bed and hot tub. The main indoor and outdoor spaces worked beautifully for me, and because it sits directly beside the Junior Residence, it can be booked and used alongside it.
For me, it meant I could float between both spaces: dinner in the Residence as the sun went down, wellness treatments on the terrace and quiet moments looking out across the island from a slightly different angle.
Breakfast in paradise
There is a Sky Lounge serving breakfast, brunch and refreshments throughout the day, with the kind of views that make you wonder whether the island is showing off slightly.
The lounge itself is accessed by steps, which the team had already made me aware of before I arrived. So rather than breakfast becoming something I had to miss, negotiate or work around each morning, it was brought to my villa instead.
The night before, I received the menu, with everything from local pastries and fruit to eggs, traditional breakfast dishes and fresh juices. In the morning, the homemade items arrived in a basket, which felt like a little picnic on top of the world.
The island beyond
One of the questions people often ask about a remote or private stay is whether it begins to feel isolating. For disabled travellers, that question carries another layer.
If you’re away from the centre, will you still be able to get out? Will drivers understand access? Will restaurants be checked properly? Will someone know what to do if the plan changes?
At Santorini Sky, the answer was not to leave me to work it all out. The team helped build an itinerary around the kind of stay I wanted, with transfers arranged and restaurants contacted in advance.
That doesn’t mean every part of Santorini suddenly becomes accessible. It means the guest isn’t left alone with all the uncertainty. There is a difference.
Lunch at Lava Tavern
Lunch at Lava Tavern in Perivolos was the kind of afternoon I could repeat daily. I’d heard about home-cooked food by the beach, and it was exactly that. Authentic Santorini on a plate. Waves just feet away. Volcanic sand. No formal menu, just what had been caught, cooked and brought in that day.
An hour of lunch turned into two, then stretched a little longer with an espresso because leaving felt rude to the view.
On a practical note, the restaurant and terrace were accessible, and there were no steps to navigate to the toilets. They were just a little small, which would mean leaving my wheelchair at the door.
Vassaltis Vineyards
The grounds of Vassaltis were beautiful, with rows of vines, fruit trees and botanicals set against the Aegean Sea in the distance. It had that modern luxury farmhouse feeling I’m always drawn to: calm, spacious, warm and elegant without trying too hard.
The tasting included white, red and dessert wines, paired with small plates including my favourite, the sweetest halvas. Margaret, my sommelier, was knowledgeable, easy to follow and generous with the kind of detail that makes wine feel interesting rather than intimidating.
From an access perspective, the main winery space worked really well. There was level access inside, spacious seating and accessible toilet facilities, which meant the practicalities didn’t pull me out of the experience.
There were cobbles on arrival, which could have been a barrier, although thankfully they were on their best behaviour that day and I managed to get across them upright. Which, as you may know by now, is always the dream for me. What I appreciated most came later.
Margaret had noticed the cobbles without me needing to make a thing of it. At the end of the tasting, she showed me a smoother alternative route out and went down herself to make sure my driver knew where to collect me.
Other moments
There were other moments across the stay that reminded me why Santorini keeps pulling me back.
Returning to Santo Wines, where I got married, always feels special in a completely different way. Seeing familiar faces at Savvas Popeye brought the warmth that only happens when a destination starts to feel known.
Many of the restaurants on the island now deliver, making my villa the best table in town!
Alchemia is a great choice in Pyrgos, but without a ramp and accessible toilet, dinner came to me instead, which was even better! Stuffed vine leaves, fresh cheese pie, a selection of local dishes on my private patio as the sun dropped behind the island.
Wellness on the mountain
One of the things I talk about often in luxury hotels is access to wellness. The idea of restoration. Spas, treatments, movement, quiet, privacy, feeling looked after.
Disabled guests are so often offered the practical version of access but not always the indulgent one. We might get the room that works, but not the spa experience, the rooftop pool, the beach set-up or the slow, soft parts of travel that make a trip feel restorative rather than merely manageable.
At Santorini Sky, wellness came to me. One evening, Marina, the Santorini Sky’s long-time therapist arrived for a private adapted yoga session and massage on the terrace of the Residence.
The sun was beginning to soften over the island. The water was still. The Aegean stretched out in front of us. And Marina adapted everything with such calm confidence that it never once felt awkward or over-explained.
The session was beautiful. The massage was exactly what my body needed. But the emotional part came at the end, during sun salutations, looking out across Santorini from the mountain. What made me emotional wasn’t just that the experience worked. It was realising it had been designed to work again.
The team behind the view
It would be easy to write about Santorini Sky as though the whole story is the view. And to be fair, the view is doing a lot of work. But what mattered just as much was the attitude behind the experience.
The access had clearly been considered from the beginning, but the team were not defensive or fixed in their thinking. They were curious, open and genuinely interested in how the experience and practicalities could continue to improve.
When a recognised luxury property in Santorini starts taking access seriously, it creates a different kind of conversation for the island. Not charity. Not compliance. Not “good enough”. A conversation about guest experience, design, service, confidence and who gets to enjoy the places luxury travel has always promised.
A ramp can get you into a building. A team decides whether you feel welcome once you are there.
What Santorini Sky changes
I’ve experienced Santorini from lots of beautiful perspectives. From the sea. From wineries. From restaurants. From beaches. From the terrace where I celebrated my wedding.
But this perspective felt different. Not because the other experiences mattered less. They’re part of the many reasons I love Santorini so much. This felt different because I was staying somewhere where access, privacy, beauty and service had been considered from the ground up.
A hot tub with a view. Breakfast on the terrace. Wine in the afternoon. A massage at sunset. The luxury of not having to turn every moment into logistics.
Santorini Sky has created something quietly powerful on an island where disabled travellers are so often told, directly or indirectly, to lower their expectations. It doesn’t offer a different version of luxury. It offers luxury with more people in mind. And that is the benchmark.Luiz Faye, The Inclusive Edit
