Best Places to Visit in Crete by Car — 2026 Guide

Balos Lagoon Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

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 — to Kissamos. From there the only road to the lagoon is an 8 km unpaved track, and damage on it is not covered by any rental insurance, ours included. So leave the car in Kissamos and take the boat: boats run from Kissamos port to Balos and Gramvousa throughout the season.

Leave Heraklion early and take the first boat of the morning from Kissamos — the lagoon is at its quietest before the crowds arrive, and the boat also calls at Gramvousa and its Venetian fortress.

2h 50min from Heraklion 170 km May – October

Rent a car for this trip →

Elafonisi Beach Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

Elafonisi — the pink sand beach of Crete

Elafonisi is a protected Natura 2000 reserve on the south-west corner of Crete, where a sandbar links the mainland to a small island you can wade across to in ankle-deep water. The famous pink tint comes from crushed coral mixed into the sand — strongest along the island's western shore, softer where the crowds walk. Because the lagoon is so shallow and sheltered it warms up early in the season and stays calm when the north coast is windy, which makes it the most family-friendly beach on the island.

Getting there: There are two routes and they are not equal. The fast one goes west on the E75 to Chania, then south through Tavronitis and Kissamos on well-surfaced road — longer in kilometres but calm. The short one cuts inland through the Topolia gorge and the village of Elos: spectacular, but a succession of tight hairpins with sheer drops and almost no barrier, and it will take you longer than the map suggests. Both arrive at a large paid car park a few minutes' walk from the sand. If anyone in the car gets travel sick, take the coastal route.

It is a protected reserve, so taking the pink sand home is illegal and genuinely damaging — the colour is a thin surface layer that does not replace itself. Bring shade too: there are only a handful of natural tamarisk trees and the umbrellas run out by mid-morning in August.

2h 45min from Heraklion 200 km May – October

Rent a car for this trip →

Knossos Palace Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

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.

15 min from Heraklion 10 km All year

Rent a car for this trip →

Samaria Gorge Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

Samaria Gorge — the longest gorge in Europe

Samaria is a 16 km one-way walk down through the White Mountains from the Omalos plateau at 1,230 m to the Libyan Sea at Agia Roumeli. It takes five to seven hours, passes the abandoned village of Samaria and squeezes through the Iron Gates, where the walls close to three metres apart and rise 300 m above you. It is a serious hike rather than a stroll — but it is walkable by anyone reasonably fit, and it is the single most memorable day Crete offers.

Getting there: The logistics matter more than the driving here, because the gorge does not loop back: you finish 60 km from where you parked. Drive to the Xyloskalo entrance on the Omalos plateau (about 2h 30 from Heraklion via Chania), walk down, then take the boat from Agia Roumeli to Sougia or Chora Sfakion and a bus back up to your car. Plan the return leg before you set off — the last boat leaves in the late afternoon and missing it means an unplanned night on the south coast. Some people instead leave the car in Chania and take the early bus both ways.

Start at first light, around 6–7 am. The descent is on loose stone the whole way, so bring proper shoes rather than sandals, and 2 litres of water per person — there are springs along the route but no shops. Check the official opening status before driving up: the gorge closes for rain and after storms.

2h 30min from Heraklion 140 km May – October

Rent a car for this trip →

Chania Old Town Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

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.

1h 50min from Heraklion 140 km All year

Rent a car for this trip →

Rethymno Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

Rethymno — Venetian charm halfway along the coast

Rethymno has the best-preserved Renaissance old town in Crete and, at an hour from Heraklion, it is the easiest of the big towns to reach. The Fortezza — a huge Venetian fortress on the headland — looks over a maze of streets where wooden Turkish balconies overhang Venetian doorways, and the long sandy beach starts where the old town ends, which is unusual. It is smaller and quieter than Chania and much easier to take in over a single afternoon.

Getting there: The simplest drive on this list: one hour due west on the E75, well surfaced and fast the whole way. Take the second Rethymno exit for the old town rather than the first, which leads into the newer suburbs. Parking is easiest along the seafront road east of the Fortezza or in the paid lot beside the marina; as in Chania, the historic centre itself is a maze of one-way lanes that you do not want to attempt. The town is compact enough that anywhere near the water leaves you a short walk from everything.

This is the natural halfway stop between Heraklion and Chania — an hour to Rethymno, another fifty minutes on to Chania. If you only have one day for the west of the island, do Rethymno in the morning and Chania for the evening rather than trying to do either properly on its own.

1h from Heraklion 80 km All year

Rent a car for this trip →

Vai Palm Beach Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

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.

1h 45min from Heraklion 125 km April – November

Rent a car for this trip →

Matala Crete — visit by rental car from Heraklion

Matala — the hippie caves and the sunsets of the south

Matala is a small bay on the south coast where a sandstone cliff is honeycombed with man-made caves — Roman tombs originally, then famously home to a community of travellers in the late 1960s. You can walk up into the caves for a small fee, and the beach below faces due west, which gives Matala the best sunset on this side of the island. The village behind it is tiny and unpolished in a way most of the north coast no longer is.

Getting there: South-west from Heraklion through the Messara plain — about 70 km and just over an hour, on good road the whole way. It is the easiest of the south-coast destinations to reach and the only one on this list you can comfortably do as a half day. Park in the paid lot at the entrance to the village; the streets beyond it are barely wide enough for one car and there is nowhere to turn round. Red Beach is a 20-minute walk over the headland from the far end of the bay.

Go in the late afternoon rather than the morning. The caves are hot and airless at midday, the sun is behind you for photographs, and you would be leaving just as the bay does the one thing it is famous for. Stay for dinner in the village afterwards — it is an hour back and the road is easy in the dark.

1h 10min from Heraklion 65 km April – November

Rent a car for this trip →

Crete is an island made for driving — beaches like Elafonisi, the Samaria Gorge, Knossos Palace and the old towns of Chania and Rethymno are all easiest (or only) reachable by car. paulcar.gr offers cheap car rental in Heraklion with free airport delivery, no deposit, no credit card and unlimited kilometers, so you can explore every corner of Crete.
See available cars

Photos: Wikimedia Commons contributors (CC BY / CC BY-SA / FAL)