Day walks in West Crete

Going for day walks is the option that the majority of people choose on Crete. Most walks can be done as day walks, giving you the opportunity to return to your base in the evening. There are however several disadvantages to day walks when compared to walking tours:

• Travel time to the beginning of the walk and back from it can be very long, depending on where you need to return to. For example if you stay on the north coast and want to walk in the region of Sfakia you will need a total of almost 4 hours of travel time (and that's if you use your own car!).
• Using public transport may severely limit your options because there are only very few buses per day going to most small villages.
• Using a car to get to the beginning of a walk will limit you to the few circular walks available or force you to return by the same route in order to get back to your car.
• If you want to use a organized day walk your options are very limited: at the time of writing the only organized day walks from the north coast of Crete are to the gorge of Samaria (plenty of those!), the gorge of Imbros and occasionally the gorge of Agia Irini. Nothing else.

But if you get one of the walking guides recommended in the books section of this site you will find some walks that are still feasible in a day and within reach of where you are staying.

In my opinion, if you are keen on walking in Crete it is worth choosing where you will stay carefully so that it makes it easy to use as a starting (and finishing) point for day walks. I think that the best places are on the south coast:: Sougia, Agia Roumeli, Finix and Loutro, Hora Sfakion. Each of these villages offers several beautiful day walks in its vicinity.
If you are staying on the north coast consider walks in the northern part of the island as well as walks starting from the plateau of Omalos which is not too long a drive from the coastal areas of North Crete.

Please go the section Walks descriptions to find some detailed day walks descriptions.