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Lonely Planet Crete

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Lonely The world's leading travel guide publisher

Lonely Planet Crete is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Rub shoulders with the Minoan ghosts, enrich your understanding of Knossos, or discover a charming boutique hotel in the winding streets of Hania Old Town -all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Crete and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet Crete Travel

Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - including customs, history, art, literature, cinema, music, dance, politics, wildlife, and cuisine Over 29 maps Covers Hania, Iraklio, Rethymno, Lasithi, Knossos, Vai, Elounda, Agia Nikolaos, Agia Marina, Hersonisos, Platanias, Vamos, Almyrida, Ierapetra, and more The Perfect Lonely Planet Crete, our most comprehensive guide to Crete, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less travelled

Looking for more coverage? Check out Lonely Planet Greek Islands guide or Greece guide for a comprehensive look at all the region has to offer, or Lonely Planet Discover Greece, a photo-rich guide to the country's most popular attractions. Written and researched by Lonely Planet.

About Lonely Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

eBook (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones)

Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing Important The digital edition of

725 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

214 people are currently reading
84 people want to read

About the author

Lonely Planet

3,672 books891 followers
OUR STORY
A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies and Lonely Planet was born. One hundred million guidebooks later, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading travel guide publisher with content to almost every destination on the planet.

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5 stars
49 (27%)
4 stars
81 (46%)
3 stars
42 (23%)
2 stars
1 (<1%)
1 star
3 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
Profile Image for Theresa.
38 reviews6 followers
October 10, 2016
We consistently find the Lonely Planet series useful. This edition was updated only this year and saved us at least one wild goose chase. However thanks to the internet travellers are much better informed and the recommendations are widely known whereas it used to be that these guides would get you to some out of the way places.
Profile Image for Erman Celik.
105 reviews2 followers
August 5, 2021
Girit kocaman bir yer bu guide'ın birazını gitmeden birazını da oradayken okudum ve faydalandım, teşekkür ederim.

Bir vegan için "şurda şöyle ölü hayvan eti var bu köyde şöyle ölü salyangoz var gibi tanımlamalar can sıkıcı olabiliyor"

veganlar için öneriler içerebilse ve de mesela hayvan ölüleri üzerine olan edebi tanımlamaları hayvan ölüsü yemeyen insanlar için filtrelenebilir olsa çok güzel olurdu.

var bir hayalimiz
Profile Image for Marc Sebastian Head.
356 reviews
July 4, 2022
Honeymoon reading!

For smaller city breaks I do tend to prefer the DK Eyewitness Travel guides, as they are more accessible and pictorial when deciding what is worth seeing. But for covering everything I might need at a glance, from travel to accommodation to sightseeing, Lonely Planet is my go-to.

This edition doesn't disappoint, although outside of the standard Minoan-related Knossos guides etc, there's only so many variations they can come up with of 'sleepy village' or 'overdeveloped sea front'. I'm not sure there's really enough to talk about in Crete to really stretch them! But it serves its purpose well.

I like that this one is quite slim line too, ACTUALLY pocket sized!
Profile Image for Helen.
4 reviews5 followers
August 19, 2017
Good intro guid

Solid introductory guide to the island. Compared to Rick Steves' guides, it is lacking interestingly educational background material, but Rick is the gold standard and unfortunately doesn't have a guide to the island.
1 review
February 27, 2020
Not just a guide.

Excellent guide for exploring this beautiful island with lots of tips and advice.
This book also give you a concise history lesson and an insight to Cretan culture
.Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Luana.
124 reviews
May 7, 2023
Great guide with a lot of practical information as well as great tours. I will keep using this throughout my stay in Crete. I really enjoy the lonely planet guides
Profile Image for CraftyBirdies.
938 reviews21 followers
July 30, 2024
This was a great book to get us started on planning a trip. Without it we would have been overwhelmed with searching online.
Profile Image for Kenneth Meyer.
110 reviews1 follower
October 5, 2025
Strong recommendations, both to Crete as a destination, and for this travel guide. As everyone knows, there are tons of guidebooks out there, some of them including high-value photography, some with chapters by topic, as in "ten best of ----," and so on. They all vary both in terms of focus and in competence, the latter largely because some travel authors are better than others.
For the more literary-minded, Ian Fleming's "Thrilling Cities," all Lawrence Durrell works on Greece, and other works by authors with a special connection with certain cities and countries have a special appeal, but down one notch, the Lonely Planet series presents a rough and "ground-level" pile of tomes that are very useful, and this is one example.
I lived and worked in Greece in an earlier period, but even given that I might approach these guides with a skeptical attitude, this volume on Crete (2016) is excellent. I had visited Crete a couple of times before, including some hiking expeditions, but even so, when we toured western Crete and Heraklion a recently, this guide brought to our group's attention several locations we had never heard of, and all were well worth visiting.
Alexis Averbuck, Kate Armstrong, Karina Miller, and Richard Waters: my complements.
Travel safely.
Profile Image for Jackie.
10 reviews
May 12, 2010
I just recently came back from visiting Crete -- after buying several Greece travel guides over the years, on a whim the night before my trip, I bought this book because (a) it was the most recent book on Crete I could find, (b) it was specific to Crete so had loads of details, and (c) it was quite small and thin, so easy to tote around. And let me say, I was extremely happy that I bought this book. Victoria Kyriakopoulos provides not only useful tidbits about hotels, places to eat, and places to visit, but also gives insight into the Cretan culture. I found this book particularly useful in finding out of the way places, that many of the other Greece travel guides don't cover (mainly because those other guides cover so many islands that they simply can't cover that much about Crete). There is so much to do on Crete -- and often times, things aren't particularly easy to find -- this guide however provides very detailed information on how to find what you are looking for. For any foodies out there, I loved the suggestions that this guide gave for places to eat. Some of the towns are filled with restaurants, so it would be difficult to identify the "best" ones to go to without this guide.
Profile Image for Relaxandexplore.
3 reviews
November 13, 2012
This book is typical of the Lonely Planet-series, more directed to the active explorer than the beach bunny. It contains detailed information about hotels, restaurants, sights and much more, in addition to separate chapters on the largest cities on the island. I would especially recommend the section covering the main attractions, where you find practical information on i.e. Knossos. For me the book was close to the fift star, but I kept it at a strong four. My main reason for doing so is that the book does not emphasise the main reason why people travel to Crete, the mediterranean sea and it's vast beaches.
Profile Image for Rob Woodard.
Author 3 books1 follower
May 14, 2010
I read this in prep for a trip to Greece I will be taking next summer. Like most Lonely Planet guides it could use some more maps, but other than that it seems really solid. I of course won't be able to confirm this until i go on my trip.
Profile Image for Theut.
1,886 reviews36 followers
June 27, 2016
Questa volta anche la parte più propriamente storica-culturale è stata curata e la guida è davvero fruibile a 360 gradi.
Profile Image for Mélodie Herbas.
191 reviews
December 22, 2016
Good travel book to visit Crete. A lot of advice and places where to eat. Sometimes the prices mentioned in the book are wrong but overall it is a very useful book to travel with.
9 reviews5 followers
July 26, 2019
I ‘ve been to Crete many times but this book really opened my eyes to many other beautiful places of Crete.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews

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