Oia, Santorini - Greece Travel | Balling On A College Student Budget

Ah, finally the long overdue Santorini blog post. If you've been keeping up with me on Instagram and Snapchat you've already seen a few pictures and videos but now I'm happy to be sharing this moment here with you guys.

People often have perceptions of places and when they visit, things aren't exactly how they imagined them to be. For example Disneyland and the long rides, the Mona Lisa and the crowd of people wanting to take a photo etc. etc. For me, Santorini was everything I imagined it to be and more. I don't want to keep boring you guys with the cheesiness so I'm just going to jump right into how my trip went down.

After a lot of saving to travel and study abroad, a group of friends and I with a common wish of visiting Santorini decided to make the trip happen. Before we knew it, the airbnb was reserved, flights booked, and we were off to the land of white and blue! We stayed in the most amazing Villa with the traditional cave-like aesthetic. We had pebble-floored showers, 2 jacuzzi's and a rooftop dining area.

You guys are probably wondering how in the world we afforded such a place. Well it was a rented home that we found on airbnb and we split it amongst 12 people which made it way cheaper than getting multiple hotel rooms. #BallingOnABudget! This was a great perk of traveling in a large group and yes everyone got their own beds to sleep in. In a way, it felt like an episode of Jersey Shore, especially when we all got into the jacuzzi's and blasted music at 1am LOL.

Santorini is a fairly small island but if you aren't specifically in the Oia or Fira towns and you want to travel around the island you might want to consider renting an ATV (4 wheel motorcycle) which was what we did! Yes you can rent cars or take the bus, but chasing the sunset on an ATV is more enjoyable anyway. #IslandVibes! We got 6 in total and rode in pairs.  After splitting the costs it all came down to about $35 per person for the entire week. Not bad at all!

When we weren't relaxing in our villa, roaming around the island on our 4 wheelers, or finding new places to eat, we headed down to the black sanded beach of Perissa. My favortie part of the beach is that the "sand" is actually really small black pebbles so you don't get that annoying feeling of sand sticking to your feet. Another highlight of the trip was exploring Oia which is pronounced (E-Ah). This is the picturesque village shown in literally every single postcard with the blue dome churches and all.

They say the best sunsets in the world are seen here and I can definitely see why after experiencing it for myself. Such an incredible moment having the opportunity to be there and witness it with my very own eyes. Like many people, Santorini has been on my bucket list for the longest time. I vividly remember being a small kid looking at travel magazines and pictures of Greece dreaming that one day I'd get to go. Eventually, I did get to visit Greece on a family vacation while in middle school, but the cruise ship we were on stopped everywhere EXCEPT Santorini. Please let me know how you miss the main place. Oh well..... That was a bummer, but I couldn't complain because the rest of the country was extremely beautiful and I knew I'd be back one day to fulfill my Oia-Santorini goal.

Fast forward to now that I am in college and boom that dream came true! I'm getting chills writing this because I'm remembering the feeling I felt while I was there. Santorini was the most spectacular place I've ever had the opportunity to visit. Being there was so surreal. With that being said, I just wanted to mention that everything in life is obtainable. You too can make your dreams come true and I hope that this serves as motivation for many of you to just get up and go do whatever it is that you've been wanting to for so long. Don't let money stop you because as you can see, there are ways to make it work!

Thank you so much for reading!

If you have any questions regarding the trip and my experience or anything in general feel free to drop them down below. P.S. This trip was in no way sponsored and be sure to stay on the look out for a video coming soon on my youtube channel. :)