Local buses - Public transport

Greece has a national bus service called KTEL. This runs on Crete as well and it is cheap, safe and reasonably punctual. KTEL in West Crete has its own web site with the local routes and timetables. The site is simple but effective. It is still better to check if the time-table is up-to-date. The phone numbers are 2831022212 for Rethymnon and 2821093052 for Chania. Don't assume that they will speak English well or at all. They will also reply to emails enquiries and will do so in English. For the rest of Crete you will have to go through the main KTEL web site and search through their database (which is far more fancy and far more tedious than for the Chania - Rethymnon site).

As a rule, there are a number of buses per day between the main cities and at least two a day to even the smallest villages, if only to take children to and from school.
The buses between Heraklion and Rethymnon - Chania run hourly from 5.30 am (first departure from Chania and Heraklion) to 8.30 pm (last departure from Chania and Heraklion). This can pose a problem for night arrivals at the airports. The travel between Chania and Heraklion takes about two and a half hours - do enquire though, there are some express buses as well as a few that are particularly slow.

The buses are in good mechanical condition. They are not as old as the one in the picture but not necessarily very recent models! Only a few buses on the main routes have air-conditioning. The drivers are safe and competent and accidents are very very rare. In my opinion it is far safer to take the bus than drive a car.