I visited Santorini. It was Totally Awesome. And it Completely Sucked.

How Social Media Has Transformed This Stunning Greek Isle

The village of Oia, with its whitewashed homes and blue-domed churches, sits atop the western edge of Santorini and provides visitors with stunning, nearly 360-degree views of the Aegean. (Photo by Craig K. Collins ©2022)

Some places in this world are too beautiful for their own good.

Chief among them is the Greek Isle of Santorini, which I had the pleasure and woe of visiting this past August.

The island is simply stunning. Its 1,000-foot-high, red-cinder cliffs are crowned by labyrinthine, snow-white villages dotted with blue-domed churches. From there, visitors are treated to near-360-degree vertiginous views of the Aegean, which stretch to every horizon in all their cerulean splendor. And then there is the caldera, an expansive pool of deep blue encircled by the island’s sheer walls.

I say “woe” because social media has set Santorini afire. This jewel of the Aegean has been besieged by an Instagram-crazed mob interested primarily in monetizing the island’s stunning beauty as a backdrop to boost their own social media currency.

For the influencer set, it is not about going to Santorini.

It is about about going to Santorini.

Nowhere was this more evident than at the approach of sunset at Oia, the west-facing village that clings to the crest of Santorini just before the land plunges 1,000 feet…