My recent trip with an old travel friend to Crete, Greece was an amazing adventure! We spent 8 nights indulging in great food, hikes, beaches, ruins, and lots of history.

I anticipated that costs would be high for this trip right on the cusp of peak season and with inflation going up. But I managed to keep costs down while spoiling myself with a few luxuries.

The trip ended up costing me less than $1200 including all expenses (flights, car rental, accommodation, food, activities, and more). In this post I describe how much I spent so you can best estimate the costs of travel to Crete, Greece.

Peak(ish) Season

Most sources say July and August are the busiest (and most expensive) months to travel in Europe. But Greek locals told me June is not nearly as bad as July. Regardless, I would imagine a visit on shoulder months (April-May or September-October) would lower costs for any traveler looking to enjoy Crete on a tighter budget than mine.

The bottom line is, I was not trying hard to save on this trip. Why? I haven’t traveled in 2.5 years. I was also traveling with a friend and trying to be more agreeable about spending money.

Together, we splurged on good food, drank alcohol (which I rarely do as a solo traveler), and enjoyed some small luxuries like a massage after a long hike. These extras were worth it to me after 2.5 years staying domestic.

The good thing was that we split most things. What a revelation as a solo traveler—haha! Splitting expenses (like car rental, gas, and accommodation) really helps!

In the end, my individual cost for the trip was $1,144.91. That’s only about $350 more than my 9 nights in Curacao, which included 2 free days covered by insurance!

While I know I could have cut costs even more, I am happy with how much I saved on this trip, especially given all that I experienced.

Points For Flights

Flights are always one of the most expensive parts of travel. That’s why I use credit cards that earn frequent flier miles and points to pay for flights.

I paid 30,000 points and $27.80 in fees for a one-way ticket to Athens. I also paid $55 for a one-way flight on Sky Express from Athens to Chania, Crete.

So I spent $82.79 total on flights.

This trip is a little interesting for calculating flight costs because I didn’t go there and straight back home. I traveled to another Greek island and then to another country in Europe after that.

Had I traveled home from Chania, the points look the same as I spent traveling home from Norway (30,000). And the fees look to be about $50 through American Airlines award travel for one-way tickets from Athens to NYC. I paid twice that in fees flying out of Oslo—but obviously I gained a whole other experience in another country by planning my trip in this way.

The costs of the other destinations on this journey will come later! For now, let’s discuss the rest of my expenses on Crete…

Car Rental For 8 Days

We didn’t want to just stay in the city for our entire stay. Crete is a huge island and it boasts beautiful beaches, hikes, and ruins. We knew we would need a car to see it all—and that a car would be the most economical approach to take.

Luckily, Carolina is able to drive manual transmission. This saved us some money because automatic transmission always costs more (due to higher demand and less availability). In Crete, it would have doubled the cost or more to drive an automatic!

We got charged some extra fees upon arrival, otherwise it would have been $33 a day for the rental! But I didn’t have to pay insurance because my Chase United Mileageplus awards card covers car rental insurance. So we saved there.

In the end, we got a cute little manual transmission Suzuki for $391.69. My share was $196.

We called our car Tighty Whitey. We drove Tighty Whitey a lot! And yet, we only had to fill him with gas once on the way back to the airport. Gas is expensive in Europe. It was about $6 per gallon to fill up. Luckily, Tighty Whitey’s gas mileage was really good.

We only paid $56.22 total for a fill up. My share was $28.

Airbnb Stay For 8 Nights

Part of the motivation to pick Crete as a destination was the low cost of paid accommodation. I saw decent places to stay for as low as $25 per night plus a cleaning fee and service fee. So I do believe for 8 nights, $250 is a reasonable expectation for what you’ll pay in total for your stay.

Going with Carolina meant I could pay almost the same amount splitting the cost of something a little nicer. This allowed me to choose an area that I was really excited about staying in—Old Town.

Old Town, Chania is completely worth every penny to stay in if you see availability on Airbnb. The atmosphere there and walkability was the best part of my experience in Chania. I believe our accommodation was the reason I enjoyed Chania so much—making it the best part of my whole trip abroad this summer!

In total, we paid $548.68. My share was $274.34.

Food & Drinks For 9 Days

Starting with our attempt to save on food, we went grocery shopping so that we would have snacks in the room and breakfast in the mornings.

Overall, buying groceries does lower the food costs compared to eating out for every meal. Plus, we still got to eat traditional Greek breakfasts by choosing traditional foods at the store. Our Greek breakfast smorgasbord was actually one of my favorite eating experiences of our whole trip!

Our total for groceries was about $115 so my share was $57.

For comparison, back home it’s not unusual for me to run up a $100 per week grocery bill just for myself!

Starting with food that I bought in the airport to our last meal in Chania, I calculated all food we purchased eating and drinking out at restaurants. This included a night in which we split a huge seafood platter and we had wine and beer almost every day of the trip.

Restaurant costs added up to under $400. My share was $194.

In total, I spent $252 total on food, drinks, and groceries. Pretty damn good for a vacation abroad, as I could easily spend that in a week at home including a couple nights out with friends.

Activities & Experiences

A huge reason I go to another country is to explore it. There is much to see in a country without spending money on tours and other activities. But sometimes, there’s a few experiences that are worth the expense.

The main activity I spend money on when I travel is diving. I went with Chania Diving company to explore 3 dive sites across 2 separate dives. The 2 tank dives and gear rental cost came to $127.

I also love to hike when I travel. Hiking doesn’t usually cost money. But Samaria Gorge is a protected national park that you can only access by tour bus. The ticket price for the bus tour to the hike and back to Chania was $37.66. There was also an approximate $10 ferry which took us to the bus at the end of the hike for the 2 hour ride back. Park fees are also typical and so we paid that, too—about $5 per person to enter.

This time around, I even splurged on some luxury items. For one, we purchased lounge chairs at the beach one day—about $10 each.

On another day, we both got massages! I rarely get a massage when I travel. But after our hike in Samaria, it felt needed. A 1.5 hour massage only cost $57 but I gave the masseuse a tip (which is not expected in Greece) so it came to $63.

Just like in Curacao I had my own snorkel gear along and so did Carolina. So we were both able to snorkel in various locations for free.

My share of the total expenses for activities was $252.78

Miscellaneous Extra Expenses

I also spent money on some extras while traveling Crete.

This included a SIM card which cost $36.91. This got me 15GB of data to use for 30 days across Europe. I could also had 200 minutes of local calling while in Greece and 120 minutes to call internationally.