Best Places to Visit in Crete by Car

Balos Lagoon — the most famous beach in Crete

Balos is the postcard every visitor comes to Crete for: a shallow turquoise lagoon between the Gramvousa peninsula and the mainland, with sand that shifts from white to pale pink where crushed shells wash ashore. The water stays warm and knee-deep for a hundred metres, which makes it unusually good for small children, and the view over the Venetian fortress on Imeri Gramvousa is the one photograph everyone takes home. It sits at the far north-western tip of the island, which is exactly why having your own car matters here.

Getting there: From Heraklion Airport take the E75 national road west past Rethymno and Chania — about two hours of easy, fast dual carriageway — then follow signs to Kissamos and Kaliviani. The last 8 km are an unpaved mountain track: it is rough, narrow and slow, and you should count on 30–40 minutes for that stretch alone. A normal car handles it if you take it gently, but drive at walking pace over the loose stones and pull into the passing bays rather than meeting oncoming traffic on a bend. From the car park a stone footpath descends to the lagoon in about 20 minutes.

Leave Heraklion by 7 am. The tour boats from Kissamos arrive around 11 and the lagoon goes from empty to crowded within half an hour. Going by car is the only way to have Balos to yourself — and the only way to leave when you want to, rather than when the boat does.

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Knossos Palace — Europe's oldest city, 15 minutes from Heraklion

Knossos was the ceremonial and political heart of Minoan Crete and is the oldest city in Europe — occupied from around 7000 BC and built into the vast palace complex you walk through today by about 1900 BC. This is the labyrinth of the Minotaur myth, and even stripped of legend the scale is startling: multi-storey buildings, running water and drainage, light wells and the famous red tapered columns. Sir Arthur Evans's controversial concrete reconstructions make it far easier to picture than most ruins.

Getting there: It is barely outside Heraklion — 6 km south on a signposted urban road, about 15 minutes from the airport and 10 from the port. This is the one destination where the drive is trivial and the parking is the problem: the official car park fills by mid-morning and the roadside spaces along the approach are tight and heavily policed. Arrive before 9 am or after 4 pm and you will park within a minute's walk of the gate. Pair it with the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in town, where all the original frescoes and artefacts from the site actually live.

Buy the combined Knossos + Archaeological Museum ticket — it costs barely more than the palace alone and the two only make sense together. There is almost no shade on site, so summer visits are much better first thing in the morning.

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Chania — the most beautiful old town in Crete

Chania's Venetian harbour is the image most people picture when they think of Crete: a curved quay of ochre and faded-pink facades, the Egyptian lighthouse at the end of the breakwater, and a warren of lanes behind it where Venetian arches run into Ottoman doorways and minarets. It is a living town rather than a museum — the covered market, the leather workshops on Skridlof street and the tavernas in the Splantzia quarter are all still working — and it stays worth visiting in winter when much of the island closes.

Getting there: An easy 1h 50 west from Heraklion on the E75, almost all of it dual carriageway with the sea on your right. The complication is the old town itself: it is pedestrianised and the surrounding streets are narrow, one-way and genuinely hard to navigate. Do not try to drive to the harbour. Use the paid car parks on the ring road around the old town — the ones near the Municipal Market or by the port entrance — and walk in from there, five minutes at most. Street parking inside the old quarter is residents-only and enforced.

Stay for sunset. The harbour turns gold about an hour before dark and the day-trip buses leave around five, so the quay is at its best exactly when most visitors have gone. It is a comfortable drive back to Heraklion afterwards.

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Vai — the largest palm forest in Europe

Vai is a genuine oddity: roughly five thousand Cretan date palms growing in a natural grove behind a curve of pale sand at the far eastern end of the island. The trees are native, not planted, and the grove is fenced and protected — you walk a marked path through it rather than among the trunks. The beach itself is sheltered, the water clear and deep quickly, and because it takes real effort to reach it stays calmer than anything comparable in the west.

Getting there: Head east from Heraklion on the E75 past Agios Nikolaos to Sitia, then north-east through Palekastro. The first half is fast dual carriageway; after Agios Nikolaos it becomes a good but winding coastal road with some genuinely spectacular sea views around the Gulf of Mirabello. Allow 2h 40 and treat it as part of the day rather than a transfer. There is a large paid car park right behind the beach, and unlike the west-coast beaches it rarely fills.

Combine it with Itanos or Kouremenos in the same trip — both are minutes away and empty by comparison. Climbing the viewpoint on the headland at the south end of the beach takes ten minutes and gives you the photograph of the whole palm grove from above.

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