South Coast & Matala

What you gain

• ↑Matala's Roman-era cave tombs carved into the cliff face above the beach — occupied by hippies in the late 1960s and early 1970s — create a genuinely unusual beach setting: the caves are now a museum and the beach below has calm, warm Libyan Sea water with the cave cliff as a backdrop unlike any other Greek beach
• ↑The south coast receives significantly less tourism than the north: Agia Galini, Triopetra, and Sougia are fishing village beaches with none of the resort infrastructure of the north coast and a genuinely different, quieter experience of Crete
• ↑Preveli Palm Beach — where a freshwater river flanked by palm trees (Phoenix theophrasti, the Cretan endemic date palm) meets the Libyan Sea — is the most unusual and arguably most beautiful beach in Greece, accessible by boat from Plakias or by a 45-minute walk down the gorge

What you sacrifice

• ↓The south coast requires a car and a commitment to the mountain roads across the White Mountains or Ida: the drive from Heraklion or Chania takes 1.5–2 hours of winding mountain road before you reach the coast
• ↓Accommodation on the south coast is limited and often basic: the villages have guesthouses and small hotels but nothing approaching the resort quality of the north coast