Moderate-to-challenging walking on more rugged terrain with significant ascents / descents on most days. Compass skills may be required (check the individual holiday).
The season for this holiday is:
28 April 2020 - 30 June 2020
01 September 2020 - 12 October 2020
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| °C | 12 | 13 | 14 | 18 | 22 | 26 | 28 | 28 | 25 | 21 | 18 | 14 |
| mm | 148 | 111 | 85 | 37 | 17 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 19 | 84 | 84 | 119 |
We can only accept payment in GBP, but you can use this converter to find out how much the holiday equates to in your own currency.
7 nights: 28 April 2020 - 30 June 2020 & 01 September 2020 - 12 October 2020
Start any day | End by latest date(s) shown above
| Starting | Price | Single room |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Apr - 15 May 2020 | £815 | £330 |
| 16 May - 23 Jun 2020 | £855 | £345 |
| 1 - 30 Sep 2020 | £880 | £395 |
| 1 - 5 Oct 2020 | £785 | £320 |
| 3rd & 4th person discount | -£45 | |
| Single traveller supplement | £45 |
Includes accommodation, meals and services integral to the holiday as described, plus walking notes and maps, but no travel from the UK, nor any connecting travel from the airport unless stated below.
Pay locally for bus/taxi transfers on optional walks (approx. €25pp in a party of 2)
Book your flights through us and we'll find the best route and times to suit you. Please contact us to find out more about our flight booking service. We can also book connecting travel - see below.
Travelling from the UK
| Outward route | Airline |
|---|---|
| Nottingham East Midlands - Chania | Ryanair |
| Outward route | Airline |
|---|---|
| Heathrow - Chania | British Airways |
| Heathrow - Chania (via Athens) | Aegean Airlines |
This list of flight options should be used as a guide only, and you should check each airline’s website for current routes, frequency and schedules. Not all flights operate daily, and may not run for the entire season. You should also heed the latest flight arrival time and earliest flight departure time stated in the connecting travel section, as it may not be possible to arrange connecting travel outside these times. Please do not book your flights until we have confirmed your accommodation to you. Alternatively, our expert reservations team will be happy to offer advice and to make flight bookings for you. We charge £35 per person for our flight booking service (£60 for India and Nepal). Your flights are then covered by our package-booking conditions, which give you greater protection in the event of delay or cancellation, as well as providing ATOL cover.
Connecting travel options - flying via Chania
| Outward route | Price per person |
Latest flight arrival time |
|---|---|---|
| direct taxi airport to first hotel (1h30) | £36 | flexible |
| Homeward route | Price per person |
Earliest flight departure time |
|---|---|---|
| direct taxi last hotel to airport (2h) | £24 | flexible |
If you've experienced this holiday first hand, why not write a review?
We are keen for as many customers as possible to review their holiday. To make it easier to do so, we include a specific review section on our post-holiday questionnaire, and this is what we publish here, unedited. Read our full review policy >
We were amazed that, despite the excellent weather and dramatic views of coastline, mountains and breathtaking gorges, we spent each walking day almost completely alone. Once away from the coastal villages, we usually met no-one for hours on end until arriving at the next settlement. The area is almost totally unspoilt - even the preponderance of tomato poly-tunnels around Elafonisi were mostly hidden in dead ground. The transit from Paleochora to Sougia is a long stretch along a very dramatic and rugged coastline, where our companions were only large numbers of goats. The dramatic vista of the White Mountains in the distance was a view that will long stay in our memories.
Having clambered through several gorges before arriving at Sougia, we elected to visit Samaria gorge by boat from the south. This was a very pleaseant and crowdless way of seeing this outstanding feature. It avoided coachloads of visitors, although we did meet increasing numbers coming south after a few hours, some of whom were far less polite than we had become used to. As with most ventures, the tip here is to go early to beat the guided tours.
If you have not been before, the short dicersion to Athens on the way home is well worth the time.
Option A for day 1 is not a particularly pleasant walk through the greenhouses so it is worth pointing out that most of the day can be spent at Elafonisi lagoon, which has a beautiful beach or take in The White Lake (which we didn't visit) on the return leg by turning off the main road and ignoring the side roads. Personal highlights were Elafonisi and the walk from Elafonisi to Paleochora. In particular swimming at the beautiful Bay of Vienna and seeing kingfishers skimming the water close by.
The beaches are very pebbly and had we known we would have taken beach shoes, which would have made the swimming and beach stops much more pleasant.
The best walking holiday taken so far with Inntravel. Crete a walkers paradise.
We were amazed that, despite the excellent weather and dramatic views of coastline, mountains and breathtaking gorges, we spent each walking day almost completely alone. Once away from the coastal villages, we usually met no-one for hours on end until arriving at the next settlement. The area is almost totally unspoilt - even the preponderance of tomato poly-tunnels around Elafonisi were mostly hidden in dead ground. The transit from Paleochora to Sougia is a long stretch along a very dramatic and rugged coastline, where our companions were only large numbers of goats. The dramatic vista of the White Mountains in the distance was a view that will long stay in our memories.
Having clambered through several gorges before arriving at Sougia, we elected to visit Samaria gorge by boat from the south. This was a very pleaseant and crowdless way of seeing this outstanding feature. It avoided coachloads of visitors, although we did meet increasing numbers coming south after a few hours, some of whom were far less polite than we had become used to. As with most ventures, the tip here is to go early to beat the guided tours.
If you have not been before, the short dicersion to Athens on the way home is well worth the time.
Option A for day 1 is not a particularly pleasant walk through the greenhouses so it is worth pointing out that most of the day can be spent at Elafonisi lagoon, which has a beautiful beach or take in The White Lake (which we didn't visit) on the return leg by turning off the main road and ignoring the side roads. Personal highlights were Elafonisi and the walk from Elafonisi to Paleochora. In particular swimming at the beautiful Bay of Vienna and seeing kingfishers skimming the water close by.
The beaches are very pebbly and had we known we would have taken beach shoes, which would have made the swimming and beach stops much more pleasant.
The best walking holiday taken so far with Inntravel. Crete a walkers paradise.
Highlights: Some of the fantastic birds we spotted at the tip of Elafonisi Island and elsewhere on our walks plus an amazing variety of wild flowers. Particularly enjoyed Lissos, where the remnants of Roman houses were in surprisingly good condition.
Absolutely fanstatic walks. Personal highlights for us were either Kadros to Paleochora or Paleochora to Sougia.
Walking in Crete was delightful with the gorge walks in the Irini and Samaria Gorges being the highlights. We should have carried more water on the walk to Paleochora which was much hotter than we expected. Athens was interesting but two days would have been enough. Apart from the ancient sites it is a very scruffy city covered with graffiti and has many beggars.
We had a wonderful holiday walking the coast of South West Crete. It was very hot in the middle of June, therefore if we were to do this trip again we may book late May instead. The Samaria Gorge was a personal highlight but the owner of the Syia Hotel suggested, as we were going to go by taxi to the start, that we could leave at 9am and forgo our 2-3hrs on the beach at the end of the walk. We took his advice and it was perfect to enable us to have plenty time for a swim after the walk and still be in time for the ferry. We also had a longer night's sleep prior to the walk which was a bonus.
We thought the Kadros to Paleochora walk to be exceptionally beautiful in May. It was great to learn from the notes about the Carob trees which had previously mystified us. The trek was punctuated by a couple of picturesque villages where refreshments and delicious lunch were gladly taken to ease a hot day's undertaking. We were the only wanderers in the long verdant valley as we transversed at high level on the way to Anidri village. Here, we were captivated by the lemony orange butterflies darting around the pom-pom shaped scrub in varying tones of burgeoning leaf colour, the shifting shadows on the cliff faces, and took deep breaths of the alluring drifting fragrances of sage, mint and broom.
Some of the walking transfers between hotels were challenging on unusually hot days for the time of year but around the next corner would be an uplifting feature to give us a buzz and new energies - the sandy plod through the protected Juniper, the stands of bright pink wild Oleander contributing their own special aroma, the magic of the ancient marble column sections lying casually discarded in the Bay of Vienna, and the swimming off Lissos beach over large rounded stones in hues of rust and beige. The Cretans were very welcoming, the food wonderful especially Fennel (Máratho) pie, the local white wine surprisingly delicate and delicious, the yogurt and honey to die for - we loved it all.
Over all the holiday experience was very good. On arrival at Hotel Glykeris on the 1st day Nikos was very welcoming and nothing was too much trouble. The walking was ok, however it allowed us to acclimatise to the warm weather.
Paleochora was much livelier with a good choice of restuarants and found restuarant Finecka to be excellent.
The boat option from Lissos beach to Sougia was very much welcomed after the fairly tough walk over from Paleochora as it was a very hot day.
On arrival in Sougia and the Syia Hotel, Markos was also very welcoming and suggested some good itinenaries and arranged taxis etc. for us to complete them.
We all enjoyed our trip and thought the balance between walking and relaxing was about right.
Brilliant holiday. Well planned with stunning scenery, exceptional walking routes with good options for "rest days".
Quite a challenging coastal walk in a relatively unspoilt part of Crete. The wild flowers and shrubs were excellent in late May. If you want simple acommodation and very reasonable food, try this one, but be prepared for a few steep sections and a lot of clambering over rocks. The gorge walks were the nicest, particularly the Irini gorge, with the pink oleanders in full flower and mostly undertaken in the shade!
Having previously enjoyed several Inntravel holidays we thought this was one of the best. Arriving at the end of April the daytime temperatures were very pleasant but not too hot for walking.
The easy routes at Chrysoskalitissa although not very inspiring did allow us plenty of time for birdwatching and we saw 32 different species in the first two days. The other walks in the itinerary, although challenging at times, were stunning.
Highlights for us were the walk from Elafonisi to Paleochora, beautiful isolated beaches and coastal scenery; option 1 from Paleochora up into the hills and back, where the profusion of flowers was a delight and the Irini Gorge which was a tranquil haven filled with plants and birdsong.
For our "rest" day in Sougia we chose to take the daily boat service to Agia Roumeli, a fantastic trip along the dramatic cliffs dropping down to the sea. We thought it was a shame that this option was not mentioned in the Inntravel notes. The boat leaves Sougia at 9.10am and leaves Agia Roumeli at 5.30pm for the return. Currently the cost for the round trip is 16 euros per person and the journey takes approx 1 hour 20 minutes each way. On arrival at Agia Roumeli we entered the Samaria Gorge, which opens on 1 May (entrance fee 5 euros). We walked up through spectacular scenery for about one and a half hours before we encountered the tide of walkers coming the other way! We then returned to the village for a leisurely lunch at one of the many tavernas before catching the boat back to Sougia. Highly recommended.