First, what we rent - and what we don't
Fast Motor Rental Naxos rents cars only. We used to run scooters, ATVs and buggies and we made a deliberate decision to stop, for a reason worth stating plainly: on an island this windy, with mountain roads this long and unlit, the injury rate on two and four-wheel open vehicles was not something we wanted our name attached to. That does mean this page recommends the product we happen to sell, so read it with that in mind - and read the case against a car below, which is genuine. If you finish this and decide a scooter is right for your trip, rent one from a specialist operator who maintains them properly, and wear the helmet.
What the licence rules actually require
This is where most of the misinformation online sits. In Greece a 50cc scooter requires at least an AM category entitlement; a full car licence issued in an EU country from 2013 onwards normally carries AM automatically, but older licences and many non-EU licences do not. Anything above 50cc - which includes every 125cc scooter you will actually want on Naxos hills - requires category A1 or higher. A quad or ATV registered as a road vehicle needs B1 or B; a buggy is usually B. Renting on the wrong category is not a technicality: it voids the insurance completely, so a single-vehicle slide on gravel becomes a bill you pay in full. Non-EU licence holders should also carry an International Driving Permit alongside the home licence - see our IDP guide for the exact rules by country.
The meltemi problem nobody warns you about
Naxos sits in the windiest corridor of the Cyclades. Between mid-July and late August the meltemi routinely blows 6–7 Beaufort for days at a time, and the exposed west-coast road from Agios Prokopios south to Pyrgaki is the worst of it - the same wind that makes Mikri Vigla a world-class kitesurf spot. On a 125cc scooter carrying two people and a beach bag, a sustained crosswind of that strength is genuinely frightening and objectively dangerous, particularly on the open stretches where gusts arrive without warning from between the dunes. A car simply does not care. If your trip falls in that window and your itinerary includes the west coast, this single factor should probably decide it for you.
The honest case against renting a car
Three of them, and they are fair. Parking in Chora in August is genuinely difficult - the old town is car-free and the surrounding streets fill by mid-morning, whereas a scooter always finds a gap. A car costs more per day than a 125cc scooter, roughly double in peak season. And if your entire plan is Agios Georgios in the morning and a taverna in the evening, a car spends most of the week parked while you pay for it. If all three of those describe your trip, the honest answer is that you may not need any vehicle at all: rent for the two or three days you actually want to explore the interior, and use the KTEL bus and taxis for the rest. We would rather tell you that than sell you seven days you will not use.
Where none of them can legally go
The soft-sand tracks around Alyko, the coastal path south of Mikri Vigla and the unpaved approaches to the small chapels are excluded from every standard rental agreement on Naxos, including ATV and buggy contracts from the operators who rent them. Marketing photographs suggest otherwise; the contracts do not. Drive to the signed parking area on the paved road, leave the vehicle there and walk the last stretch - it is five to fifteen minutes in every case, the walk through the Alyko cedar forest is one of the nicest on the island, and it is the difference between a good day and an uninsured recovery bill. If you want a genuine 4×4 for the unpaved-but-legal mountain tracks around Apeiranthos, our Suzuki Jimny and Dacia Duster are built for exactly that.