The One Thing to Get Right Before You Book Anything
The first time we planned a trip to Crete, we spent more time than we’d like to admit staring at a map, trying to figure out where to base ourselves.
We had a rough list of what we wanted to see, and the more we looked at it, the more obvious the answer became. Chania, west Crete, no question.
What made it click was a conversation with friends who had done the opposite. They stayed near Heraklion, and the beaches they had come for, Balos, Elafonisi, and Falassarna, turned out to be 3 to 3.5 hours away each way.
Not doable as a day trip. They had simply based themselves on the wrong side of the island for what they wanted to do.
That story has stayed with us, because it captures the single most important thing to understand before you book anything in Crete: this island is big.
At roughly 250 kilometres (155 miles) from end to end, it is closer in scale to a small country than to a typical Greek island.
Even from Chania, which is already the closest major town to the west coast beaches, the drive to Elafonisi beach takes around 1.5 to 2 hours.
Choose the right base, and the highlights you came for are within reach. Choose the wrong one, and they simply aren’t.
In this guide, we cover every main base on the island, what each one is actually good for, and when it makes sense to split your stay across two locations.
Jump right in:
We will start, as always, with the practical things that shape every other decision.
Two Things to Know Before You Choose
Neither is complicated, but getting them wrong adds hours to your trip before it has even started.
Which Airport to Fly Into
Greece’s largest island has two main international airports: Heraklion Airport (HER) in the centre-east of the island, and Chania Airport (CHQ) about 15 kilometres (9 miles) east of Chania city.
For us, flying from Europe, Heraklion (the island’s capital) tends to have more direct connections and often comes in cheaper.
We fly into Heraklion and then drive straight across the island on the north coast to Chania, which takes around 2 to 2.5 hours along the northern coastal highway.
It adds a bit of time on arrival day, but we have never regretted it.
If you are coming from the US and connecting through Athens or another European hub, it is worth checking whether a direct onward flight to Chania is available.
That connection alone could save you a 2-hour drive on day one.
The honest rule: fly into whichever airport is closest to where you plan to base yourself.
If you are staying on the northwest coast, Chania Airport is the smarter choice when the flights work out.
If you are planning a cultural trip centred around Knossos, the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, and the sites of Central and East Crete, fly into Heraklion and stay there.
Driving 2.5 hours on arrival just to be near beaches you are not planning to visit makes no sense.
Tip: Chania Airport has grown significantly in recent years and now receives direct budget flights from across Europe, including the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. It is always worth checking both airports before you book.
Do You Need a Car in Crete?
Yes. Genuinely, yes.
We are not resort people. Every time we visit the largest Greek island, we are out exploring, and the only way to do that properly is with a rental car.
The bus network exists and covers the main towns along the northern coast, but schedules are infrequent, journey times are long, and the moment you want to reach somewhere like Elafonisi, Balos, or Preveli Beach, public transport stops being a realistic option.
If you plan to stay in Chania Old Town or Heraklion city centre and spend your days walking around, eating well, and taking the occasional organised tour, you can manage without one.
But if the beaches, gorges, mountain villages, and southern coast are on your list, a car is not a luxury. It is the thing that makes the trip work.
Tip: Book your rental car early, especially for July and August. Supply gets tight, and prices rise quickly. We always use a comparison site to check across multiple local and international agencies before booking.
Chania: Our Favourite Base in Crete (And the Best for First-Timers)
We love Chania.
It is, for us, the most beautiful city on the island, and every time we arrive in Chania, we do the same thing without really planning to: find a table somewhere near the Venetian harbour, order a Greek salad, and just sit with it for a while.
The Old Town starts working on you quickly. The narrow cobbled streets, the bougainvillea spilling over the walls, and the Venetian lighthouse at the end of the harbour arm.
It is exactly the version of Greece that people picture when they are planning a trip, and the reality holds up.
But beyond how it looks, Chania earns its place as the best base in West Crete on pure practicality.
The surrounding region gives you access to the best beaches in Crete, all reachable as day trips.
Elafonisi is around 1.5 to 2 hours by car, Balos roughly the same, Falassarna about 50 minutes.
Preveli and the south coast are just under 2 hours through the mountains.
None of these are short drives, but they are all doable as day trips without the day feeling like a commute.
Where to stay within Chania is worth thinking about carefully.
From our own stay and research, these are the best hotels in Chania for the kind of trip we are describing.
- Luxury: Domes Noruz
- Mid-Range: Elia Sea Suites
- Mid-Range: Hotel Amphora
- Budget: Cocoon City Hostel
The Old Town puts you right in the atmosphere, walkable to the harbour, the restaurants, and the market street.
The tradeoff is parking, which in the Old Town itself is genuinely difficult, and noise on summer evenings if you are a light sleeper.
We tend to stay just outside the Old Town centre, around 10 to 15 minutes on foot, which keeps the character without the friction.
Prices also tend to be a little lower the moment you step back from the harbour-facing streets.
One honest caveat: Chania in July and August is busy.
The Old Town fills up in the evenings, the harbour restaurants get crowded, and accommodation prices peak.
It is still worth it, but go in with realistic expectations.
Late June or September is a noticeably different experience, quieter and often cheaper, with the sea still warm enough for everything on your list.
Rethymno: The Underrated Middle Ground
We have spent time in Rethymno on day trips from Chania, and it is genuinely pretty.
The Venetian Old Town is well-preserved, the harbour is charming, the Cretan cuisine is excellent, and the evenings there have a slightly more relaxed feel than Chania at peak season.
We enjoyed it every time. But if you are asking us directly, we still prefer Chania.
Rethymno is lovely, the historic buildings alone are worth an evening, but it has never made us want to move our base.
Part of that is personal taste. Chania has a little more life to it, a little more edge to the old town, and for us, that energy is part of what makes the trip.
Rethymno feels quieter and more orderly, which for some travellers is exactly the point.
Where Rethymno does make genuine sense as a base is for travellers who want an Old Town atmosphere without Chania’s crowds.
In high season, Chania draws more visitors, and if that is a concern, Rethymno is a reasonable alternative that still gives you cobbled streets, good restaurants, and a harbour to sit by in the evening.
The practical consideration is distance. From Rethymno, the drive west to Elafonisi is around 2 to 2.5 hours, and Balos is similar.
That is pushing the limit of a comfortable day trip, especially in the summer heat.
If the West Coast beaches are high on your list, Rethymno makes those days longer than they need to be.
Where it does work well is as a central point for exploring both directions: Chania is about an hour west, and Heraklion is around an hour east.
Here are some of the best Hotels in Rethymno:
- Luxury: Nautilux Rethymno by Mage Hotels
- Mid-Range: Neratze Hammam Suites
- Budget: Othonas Concept Suites
Please note: Rethymno has a long sandy beach running right alongside the town, which is convenient but not the wild, dramatic coastline most people associate with Crete. If that is what you are after, you will still need the car.
Heraklion: For History First, Beach Second
If you have read any of our other Crete posts, you probably already know that our version of a perfect day in Crete involves a long drive to a remote beach, a Greek salad somewhere with a view, and as little urban noise as possible.
Heraklion is not really built for that kind of trip, and we want to be honest about it.
That is not a criticism.
Heraklion is Crete’s capital city, and it does what a capital city does: it is busy, functional, and urban in a way that Chania and Rethymno are not.
The streets are wider, the traffic is heavier, and the Instagram version of Greece is harder to find here.
What it does have is genuinely world-class: the Heraklion Archaeological Museum is one of the best in Europe for Minoan civilisation, and the Palace of Knossos, just 5 kilometres (3 miles) outside the city.
It is the remains of an ancient city that dates back over 3,500 years and is the kind of site that stays with you.
For travellers whose priority is history, Heraklion makes complete sense as a base.
You could spend two or three days between the museum, Knossos, and the other Minoan sites in the region and not feel like you were missing anything.
For beach lovers, our honest recommendation is to visit Heraklion as a day trip from Chania or Rethymno rather than basing yourself there for the whole stay.
It is also worth knowing that Heraklion Airport is the island’s main hub, handling significantly more international and domestic flights than Chania.
If your itinerary starts with a night in Heraklion before moving west, that is a perfectly sensible approach and one that lets you tick off Knossos on day one before settling into your actual base.
Our recommendations for hotels in Heraklion are:
- Luxury: RoccaMare Heraklion – Handwritten Collection
- Mid-Range: Ibis Styles Heraklion Central
- Budget: CITY NEST Living
Did you know: The Heraklion Archaeological Museum holds the largest collection of Minoan artefacts in the world, including the famous Phaistos Disc, whose writing system has still never been deciphered.
East Crete: Agios Nikolaos, Elounda and Beyond
West Crete gets most of the attention, and we understand why.
We have been guilty of it ourselves, coming back to Chania trip after trip before finally making time for the other side of the island.
A few days based in Agios Nikolaos was enough to see why East Crete has its own loyal following.
East Crete feels like a different island.
The landscape shifts as you head east, drier and more rugged, the crowds thin out, and the pace drops noticeably.
Agios Nikolaos sits on a north coast bay around Voulismeni Lake, a small saltwater lake connected directly to the sea by a short channel.
The waterfront around it is genuinely lovely for an evening walk and dinner.
What stayed with us most were not the big sites but the smaller places we stumbled into.
Plaka, a tiny village on the edge of the bay just north of Agios Nikolaos, and Neapoli, a proper local town inland that sees almost no tourists.
Both are the kind of places you remember for no single reason, just a general feeling of having found somewhere that was not performing for visitors.
Beyond the town itself, the nearby attractions are worth building time around, from the bay villages to the inland roads that most visitors never find.
Elounda, just north of Agios Nikolaos, is where the island’s best luxury hotels are concentrated.
If a high-end beach holiday with a private pool is what you are after and the famous west coast beaches are not your priority, this stretch of coastline is worth serious consideration.
Here are a few of our hotel recommendations in the area:
- Luxury: Enorme Infinity Elounda – Adults Only
- Luxury: Minos Palace Resort – Adults Only
- Mid-Range: Hotel Port 7- Boutique Collection
- Budget: Victoria Hotel
One important caveat: East Crete is a long way from Elafonisi and Balos.
From Agios Nikolaos, those beaches are around 4 hours by car. If they are on your list, base yourself in the west first.
East Crete rewards travellers who treat it as its own destination rather than a hub for covering the whole island.
Tip: The Vai Palm Beach near Sitia in the far east is one of the few natural palm forests in Europe and is worth a detour if you are already in the area. It gets busy in summer, so an early start makes a real difference.
South Crete: For Slow Travel and the Road Less Taken
South Crete is firmly on our list for the next trip. We have had a taste of it, and that taste was enough to know we want more.
We visited Loutro as a day trip from Chania during our week in western Crete, and it ended up being one of the most memorable days of the entire trip.
Loutro is a tiny whitewashed fishing village on the southwest coast, and the thing that sets it apart before you even arrive is simple: you cannot get there by car.
The white mountains behind it rise so steeply that a road was never built.
The only way in is by ferry from Chora Sfakion, about 90 minutes by car from Chania, and then a short boat trip into the bay.
We would genuinely consider staying overnight next time.
Waking up there, with the village to yourself before the day visitors arrive, sounds like exactly the kind of slow morning Crete does so well.
You can read everything you need to know about how to get there, what to do, and where to eat in our full Loutro travel guide.
Accommodation runs to a handful of boutique hotels and guesthouses, all of them simple, all of them right on the water. Check availability here before they fill up:
Beyond Loutro, the south coast has a handful of small bases worth knowing about.
Plakias is a relaxed beach town about 1.5 hours from Chania with a long sandy beach, good tavernas, and a fraction of the tourist traffic you find in the north.
Paleochora on the southwest tip is similar in spirit, a little town with a local beach on each side and a loyal following of travellers who come back year after year.
Neither has the infrastructure of Chania or Rethymno, which is largely the point.
But: it is not a day-trip hub. The mountain roads connecting north and south Crete are spectacular, winding through gorges and high passes that are genuinely worth the drive, but they are slow.
South Crete rewards travellers who treat it as a destination in itself rather than a base for covering the island.
If you are considering it, we would suggest building at least two or three nights into your itinerary rather than squeezing it into a single day.
Please note: Most villages on the south coast have limited ATMs and smaller shops. Come prepared with enough cash, especially if you are heading somewhere as small as Loutro, where there are no ATMs at all.
Should You Use Two Bases?
It is something we have started doing ourselves, and the more time we spend on the island, the more it makes sense.
The honest answer is: it depends on how long you are staying.
For a 7-day trip, one well-chosen base is almost always the smarter move.
Settling into a place takes a day, and with only a week, you want to spend that energy on the island rather than on packing and moving.
Chania covers western Crete comprehensively enough that you will not feel like you are missing much.
For 10 days or more, a two-base approach starts to make real sense.
The island has too much variety to experience fully from a single point, and some of the best parts, the quieter south coast, the different character of East Crete, are not reachable as comfortable day trips from Chania.
A natural split that has worked well for us: West Crete based in Chania for the first part, then moving to a smaller base on the south coast or across to East Crete for the second.
You get two genuinely different experiences of the island without spending your holiday behind a steering wheel.
We are comfortable with long drives, and even for us, there are places in Crete where the distance from Chania makes a second base the more honest choice.
The scenery on the mountain roads south is extraordinary, and we would never call it wasted time.
But arriving somewhere already tired from a 2-hour drive is a different thing from waking up there.
If you are planning your trip, our One-Week Crete itinerary covers the western half in detail and gives you a solid framework for this part of the island.
Quick Reference: Where to Stay in Crete by Traveller Type
Everyone’s version of a good trip in Crete looks slightly different, so here is an honest breakdown of which base suits which kind of traveller.
First-timers should start in Chania, with no hesitation.
It gives you the best of the island’s character, the most accessible west coast beaches, and enough variety to fill a week without ever feeling like you have run out of things to do.
Couples and honeymooners will find Chania Old Town hard to beat for atmosphere, particularly in the shoulder season when the crowds thin out.
If budget is not a constraint, the Elounda area in East Crete is where the island’s most luxurious accommodations are concentrated, a stretch of coastline that trades Old Town charm for privacy, space, and a level of service that is hard to find elsewhere on the island.
Families tend to do well based slightly outside Chania city centre, where parking is easier, accommodation is more spacious, and hotels with an outdoor swimming pool are much easier to find.
Rethymno is also a strong option, with its long sandy town beach and a slightly more relaxed pace than Chania at peak season.
History-focused travellers should put Heraklion first.
You could spend two or three days between Knossos Palace, the Archaeological Museum, and the other historic sites in the region and not feel like you were missing anything.
Travellers who have already done West Crete and are coming back for a second or third visit, the east coast around Agios Nikolaos and Elounda offers a genuinely different side of the island worth exploring on its own terms.
Slow travellers looking to disconnect and find the quieter Crete should look at the south coast.
Plakias and Paleochora are the most practical bases. Loutro, if you are happy without a car for a few days, is the most rewarding.
One tip we always follow ourselves: Stay within walking distance of the centre rather than right in the middle of it
You still get everything you came for, the evening walks, the harbour, the restaurants, but at a noticeably lower price point and with a little more peace when you want it.
One Last Thing Before You Book
Crete rewards the people who think before they book.
Not obsessively, not with a spreadsheet, just with a clear sense of what they actually want from the trip. Get that right, and the base almost chooses itself.
For us, that answer has almost always been Chania.
It is where we feel most at home on the island, where we start every morning with a coffee somewhere near the harbour and end every evening wandering streets we have walked before but never quite the same way twice.
If it is your first time in Crete, we would give you the same advice we give every friend who asks: start there. You can always add a second base once you know the island better.
And when you do start thinking about that second base, or about the south coast, or about finally making it to East Crete, most of what you need is already on the blog.
Our One-Week Crete itinerary covers western Crete in detail.
The Loutro guide will tell you everything about the south coast village we keep talking about.
And if the beautiful beaches are what brought you here in the first place, the guides to Elafonisi, Balos, and Preveli will take care of the rest.
If you have questions about any of the bases we covered, or you are trying to figure out the right split for your specific trip, drop them in the comments. We read everything.
