Crete is 160 miles long. Pick your coast first.
Which Balos boat leaves from where. What Samaria costs once the ferry out is added in. Whether Knossos needs a guide. Reviews of every tour and ticket you can book on Crete.
Spinalonga, Samaria, Knossos, Elafonisi: the four days a first week on Crete is built round.
What each one costs, where the minibus actually leaves from, and what the travellers who went say afterwards.
01The island dayDay Trip to Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga IslandAgios Nikolaos, then the crossing to the fortress island in Elounda bay, with a swim stop on the way back.
02The long walkSamaria Gorge Full-Day Trek, Pickup & GuideSixteen kilometres down the gorge to Agia Roumeli, then the ferry out. There is no road at the bottom.
03The palaceKnossos Palace Skip-the-Line Guided Walking TourKnossos with somebody who can tell restored concrete from Minoan stone. Take the earliest slot you can get.
04The pink sandDay Trip to Elafonisi Island Pink Sand BeachElafonisi at the far south-west corner, three hours each way from Chania, and still worth the drive.
Heraklion, Chania, Rethymno or Agios Nikolaos: the drive decides the week.
Nothing on this island is close to everything. Pick the town your best three days leave from and let the coast road handle the rest.
The best Cretan days start at a jetty, not a bus stop.
Four kinds of boat day, and they leave from four different towns. What it costs to board each one, and which coast it belongs to.
Heraklion: the palace before eleven, the harbour after.
Everything in Heraklion →
The biggest town on Crete is a base rather than a sight, but the three things it owns are the three most people came for. Knossos twenty minutes south, the Minoan collection in the museum on Xanthoudidou, and a sailboat out to Dia in the afternoon.
Guide, audio guide, or just the ticket
Sir Arthur Evans rebuilt large parts of Knossos in painted concrete in the 1920s, and without somebody to point out which walls are his the site reads as a building site. The plain e-ticket is fine if you have read up; otherwise pay for the guide.
The Minoan collection, done properly
Everything portable that came out of Knossos is here: the bull-leaping fresco, the snake goddesses, the Phaistos disc nobody can read. Twenty minutes from the palace, and the one room worth doing after the site rather than before.
A sailboat out to Dia
Dia is the long uninhabited island you can see from the Heraklion waterfront. Boats cross in about an hour, anchor in one of the three bays on the south side and stay put for the swimming. Shade on deck is not guaranteed — ask.
What a day out on Crete actually costs.
Every tour on the site, in three price bands. A good share of the island’s best days come in under the cost of dinner on the Chania harbour front.
Gorge walks, site entries, olive-mill tastings and the boat tickets out of Kissamos and Elounda.
Full days: the Balos cruise with transfers, Lasithi and the Zeus cave, quad safaris that stop for lunch.
Private drivers, chartered sailing afternoons and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
The days out more travellers take than anything else on Crete.
Every Crete tour we have reviewed →Boats west, gorges south, a palace inland. These are the ones with no seats left by the second week of July.
1
Boat Cruise to Balos Lagoon & Gramvousa
Review of the Kissamos boat cruise to Balos Lagoon and Gramvousa, with castle views, swimming, practical tips, food, crowds, and value.
From · $47
Read our review →
2
Day Trip to Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga Island
from $44
3
Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & Guide
from $41
4
Boat Trip to Spinalonga with Swim Stop
from $29
5
Dia Island Sailboat Cruise with Swimming and Meal
from $95
6
Knossos Palace Entry Ticket with Optional Audio Guide
from $30
7
CRETAquarium Admission Ticket
from $9
8
Day Trip to Elafonisi Island Pink Sand Beach
from $38
Behind the beach road: gorges, plateaus and a mountain lunch.
Crete goes up fast. Twenty minutes off the coast there are dry riverbeds, abandoned villages, a plateau ringed with windmills and a cave Cretans will tell you Zeus was born in.
Three things this island has that the rest of Greece does not.
Canyons and beach clubs exist all round the Mediterranean. A sixteen-kilometre gorge that ends at a ferry, sand the colour of watermelon flesh, and a fortress island nobody left willingly do not.
The Samaria Gorge
The gorge drops from the Omalos plateau at 1,200 metres down to the Libyan Sea, and at the Iron Gates the walls close to three metres apart with three hundred metres of rock above. There is no road at the bottom: everyone walks out to Agia Roumeli and leaves by boat. It opens around the start of May and shuts the day the wardens decide the riverbed is unsafe.
- 1Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,191 reviews
- 2Samaria Gorge Full-Day Trek, Pickup & Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,610 reviews
- 3Samaria Gorge with Professional Hiking Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 720 reviews
The Pink Beaches
Elafonisi in the far south-west and Balos in the north-west both run pink, and it is not a filter. The colour is broken shell from a red foraminifer, washed up and ground into the white sand. Both shelve so gently you can wade a long way out. Both are also three hours from anywhere, which is why almost everybody arrives by boat or minibus.
- 1Day Trip to Elafonisi Island Pink Sand Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,014 reviews
- 2Elafonissi Pink Sand Beach Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 989 reviews
- 3Elafonisi Island Pink Sand Beach Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 799 reviews
Spinalonga
The Venetians fortified the rock at the mouth of Elounda bay in 1579. Greece made it a leper colony in 1903 and the last resident left in 1962. You go in through the tunnel the patients called Dante’s Gate, past the disinfection room and up the main street. Boats run from Elounda, Plaka and Agios Nikolaos, and the crossing takes minutes.
- 1Day Trip to Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga Island★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 4,416 reviews
- 2Boat Trip to Spinalonga with Swim Stop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,031 reviews
- 3Spinalonga and Agios Nikolaos Cruise with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 432 reviews
Four Cretan bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on ferry timetables, a gorge that closes without notice and an islet that caps its own numbers.
- 01Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & GuideThe gorge runs roughly May to October and shuts the day the wardens call the riverbed unsafe. The walk out ends on a ferry with a fixed departure.
- 02Boat Cruise to Balos Lagoon & GramvousaOne boat a day leaves Kissamos for Gramvousa and Balos, and it does not sail when the north wind gets up. In August the seats go days ahead.
- 03Day Trip to Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga IslandThe island closes at a set hour and the last boat back is the last boat. Nobody stays over.
- 04Cruise to Chrissi Island with SwimmingChrissi is a protected reserve with no shade, no shop and one crossing from Ierapetra. It shuts to visitors whenever the sea is up.
The meltemi cancels the boats. Here is the rest of the island.
From July the north wind can shut Kissamos and Elounda for a day at a time, and by noon any open archaeological site is too hot to stand on. Both have the same answer: go south, or go under a roof. A mountain village, a working olive mill, a cool museum, a cellar cut into the rock.
Raki at eleven, a mill at noon, dakos with everything.
Cretan cooking is its own argument: wild greens, barley rusks, sheep cheese, oil pressed within sight of the tree it came off. Book the mill visit before the heat and the class that finishes as lunch.
By place — the four regions and the islets
By kind of day — deck, gorge, palace or table
Chania to Agios Nikolaos: the run most first weeks end up doing.
SamariaThe newest Crete tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
4 Hour Fishing and Swimming Boat Experience in Schisma Eloundas
Read our review →
Heraklion Center, Local Market and Creta Aquarium
Read our review →
Matala Beach, Hippie Caves & Odigitria Monastery
Read our review →
Knossos Palace and Arch. Museum of Heraklion Tour
Read our review →
Full Day Hiking at Samaria Gorge&Agia Rumeli Beach from Heraklion
Read our review →
E-Ticket to Heraklion Archaeological Museum with Audio Guide
Read our review →
Full-Day Bus Trip to Chania city , Kournas lake & Rethymno city
Read our review →
Private Jet Ski Activity on the Beach at Rethymno
Read our review →
Eleftherna E-Bike and MTB Tour – Experience The Authentic Crete
Read our review →
