Crete: What Is Open Now, Where to Stay, and Who It Suits

As of early October 2026, storms have closed two of Crete’s best-known sites: one for an afternoon, the other until further notice.

Severe storms and floods have hit the island since 1 October: an 80-year-old farmer died, the sea came over the old harbour of Chania, and part of the road to Sitia was washed away.

The Samaria Gorge has been closed at both entrances since 1 October, “until further notice”. NECCA, the agency that runs the national park, says it “will reopen following the completion of the required inspections”, and its legal season ends on 31 October. The Ephorate of Antiquities of Heraklion also closed Knossos from 14:00 on Saturday 3 October because of the weather.

No tour on this site sells the Samaria hike; for the gorge, check NECCA’s ticket site. For everything else, each tour’s calendar shows the dates actually on sale.

Four bases, and the days out each one makes easy

Crete (Kriti in Greek) is the largest island in Greece and the fifth-largest in the Mediterranean: about 8,336 km² (3,200 square miles), some 260 km from east to west and 12 to 60 km wide. Its four regional units are Chania, Rethymno, Heraklion and Lasithi, and Heraklion is the capital.

Day tours collect guests by region, so where you sleep decides which days are easy:

• Chania, in the west, has the old town, the Venetian harbour with its Egyptian lighthouse, and the Minoan palace of Kydonia, part of the UNESCO listing since 2025. Balos boats leave from Kissamos, further west, and Elafonisi is in the south-west corner.
• Rethymno, between Chania and Heraklion, also works for the west; the GNTO puts it 1 h 19 by car from Chania airport.
• Heraklion (Iraklio) has Knossos a few kilometres from the centre, reached by city bus No. 2, and the ferries to Santorini and Piraeus.
• Agios Nikolaos, in Lasithi, wraps around its lake on Mirabello Bay, close to Elounda, where the boats to Spinalonga leave.

The Spinalonga day on this page collects only around Heraklion and along the north coast as far as Sisi, while the Elafonisi bus collects around Chania. A hotel in Malia makes Spinalonga an easy day and Balos a long one; a hotel in Chania does the reverse. bestofcretegreece.com goes further into the four regions and sets Chania against Heraklion as a base.

What the sites cost now, and when they open

Knossos joined UNESCO’s World Heritage List on 12 July 2025 as one of six “Minoan Palatial Centres”, with Phaistos, Malia, Zakros, Zominthos and Kydonia. A full ticket costs €20 (€10 reduced), up from €15 before the price reform of 1 April 2025. Closing time moves earlier through the autumn, and winter hours from 1 November are 08:30 to 17:00. Phaistos costs €15.

Spinalonga, the fortified islet at the entrance to Elounda bay, costs €20, up from €8 before 2025. It opens daily from 1 April to 31 October, 08:00 to 20:00, and visits depend on the weather and the boats. The Venetians built the fortress to guard the bay. From 1903 to 1957 it was a colony where people with leprosy were isolated, a history that Victoria Hislop’s novel The Island made known around the world.

When it reopens, the Samaria Gorge costs €10 (€5 until 2025), and under-18s and over-65s go free. Walkers doing the crossing must enter between 07:00 and 13:00 and be out by 18:00, and since no road reaches the southern exit at Agia Roumeli, they leave by boat to Sougia or Chora Sfakion.

In the west, Balos and Elafonisi have no visitor cap or booking system as of October 2026; a cap was only proposed in August. Balos has a €1 municipal fee, reported in 2025, taken at the end of the road or at Kissamos port for boat passengers. Elafonisi is free, but cars have been kept off the beach since 2023, so you pay to park and walk about 650 m, and umbrellas are not allowed on the islet.

Who Crete suits, and who should pick another island

Crete suits a week or more and a traveller who wants range: a Minoan palace one day, a mountain plateau the next, a long beach day in the west. No authority sets a right length of stay, so this is our advice: a week covers one half of the island well, and the whole island needs ten days or more.

It suits a short trip less well, because a good part of three or four days goes on the road. If you want the caldera and a few days in one place, look at Santorini; Crete or Santorini sets the two side by side. For a walled medieval town, Rhodes has one on UNESCO’s list since 1988. To hop between smaller islands, Naxos and Paros are each a 45-minute flight from Athens, and the island-hopping guide covers the ferries.

Flying in, or the overnight ferry

Most visitors fly: the GNTO gives 55 minutes from Athens to Chania. Heraklion’s airport, Nikos Kazantzakis, is state-run rather than one of Fraport Greece’s, and a new airport at Kastelli is due to replace it in 2028; Chania’s is run by Fraport.

From Piraeus the ferries are long and overnight. In October 2026 Minoan Lines leaves for Heraklion at 21:00 and arrives at 06:30, 9 h 30 in all, and ANEK gives 9 h 25 to Souda, Chania’s port, by way of Milos. For a short trip, fly. From Santorini, Heraklion is about 1 h 35 to 1 h 40 on a SeaJets high-speed boat or 3 h 15 to 3 h 50 on Blue Star, whose conventional line carries on from Heraklion and Sitia to Kasos, Karpathos, Chalki and Rhodes.

What 2025 and 2026 changed on Crete

Besides the new ticket prices, two fees arrived. Since 21 July 2025, cruise passengers who come ashore in Crete pay €5 a port from June to September, €3 in April, May and October and €1 in winter, whatever their age; visitors arriving by air or ferry do not pay it. Hotels and rentals charge a climate resilience fee per room per night, not per person: €2 to €15 by the hotel’s stars from April to October, or €8 for a short-term rental, and less from November to March.

A wildfire near Ierapetra on 2 July 2025 led to the evacuation of about 5,000 people, mostly tourists. On 29 July 2026 a fire in the Rethymno region forced about 8,000 people out overnight; they were later allowed home, and two firefighters died near Krya Vrysi. Then came the October storms.

The Spinalonga day, and five more

The day on this page is Altino Travel’s trip to Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga, from $43 as of October 2026 and rated 4.7 from 5,970 reviews. It spends about an hour and a half each in Agios Nikolaos and on Spinalonga, with time in Elounda and a swim stop on the way back, and the boat ticket and the guide are included. The €20 Spinalonga entry is not, and neither are food and drinks; the listing says EU citizens under 25 and non-EU visitors under 18 enter free with ID. It is not suitable for people with mobility impairments or wheelchair users, and cancellation is free up to 24 hours before.

With a car you can go on your own, since boats to Spinalonga leave from Elounda and Plaka; the tour adds the pickup, the guide and the boat. If you are staying around Heraklion or Malia and want a day in the east without driving, this is the day to book.

See dates for the Spinalonga day →

Travel Crete - WeGuide travelers’ Knossos guided tour (from $100, 4.9 from 1,556 reviews) includes the €20 ticket and a licensed guide for about an hour and a half. You meet by the ticket booth, and the listing says late arrivals cannot be admitted. Cretan Sailing Cruises’ Dia sail (from $68, 4.8 from 3,115 reviews) leaves Heraklion’s old Venetian port with a meal and drinks on board; Dia is a protected area, so you swim from the boat and nobody goes ashore.

Safari Experts Crete’s 4x4 day (from $100, 4.8 from 1,322 reviews) collects from Heraklion, the north coast and Agios Nikolaos for the Lasithi Plateau and the Cave of Zeus, whose €15 ticket is extra; the operator says the cave is closed on Tuesdays until 31 December 2026. In the west, Coast Development P.C.’s Balos and Gramvousa catamaran (from $175, 4.8 from 1,133 reviews) sails from Kissamos Port with brunch and lunch, and Quality Travel’s Elafonisi bus (from $29, 4.7 from 2,754 reviews) collects around Chania for four hours at the beach and a winery stop on the way back.