Crete or Croatia?

[magentastardust]

Haven't been to either and looking at either for an option for July 25. Any recommendations of areas etc. We would be planning to Airbnb/villa and hire a car. Teens with us who are to be fair pretty easy to please.

We loved Croatia (Dubrovnik and sailing) with early teens. I went to Crete when I was 10 but that’s a hundred years ago. I remember it being wonderful. Agios nikolaios, elunda, spinalunga, Knossos. God knows how I remember the names!

Dsis lives on Crete, fantastic island, loads to see and do, I go twice a year.
I'd be torn because I loved Croatia too.
Not much help sorry 😉

If you choose Crete fly into Chania, best side IMO

Croatia. Beautiful country, lovely people. We did Split; Trojir; Sorta; national park and waterfalls.

I love them both! It might help if you said what amount of time you have.

For Crete: you can easily fly in/out of Heraklion and Chania; if you have less than a week this is a nice intro to Crete; you can fly into one and out of the other and Rethymnion is a logical stop. You could even do that I five days, if needed although I would give it more time. If you have a car, though, it's very worthwhile to get into the interior of Crete and along the south coast, so make sure your time covers that if you want more.

For Croatia: I'd look at a combo of cities and coast. Split and Dubrovnik are the typical places to fly in and out in summer, with all of the islands in between, but make sure you have time to do the full circuit, or make plan to see the most that you can in the time that you have.

Think probably around 12 nights , thanks this is really helpful. Will go and enjoy the research!

I love Crete. We fly into Chania and stay in a beautiful village in the hills. Then we spend our days visiting beaches where you hardly hear English being spoken.

A few years ago we flew in to Dubrovnik and spent 2 weeks island hopping. The scenery was beautiful but I was so disappointed with the food. It was the same menu in most restaurants and quite uninspiring. Dubrovnik was full to bursting with American tourists doing the Game of Thrones thing and it was just so busy.

The islands attract the yachting set which just drove the prices of everything up.

So yes, I'd choose Crete but my location would be Chania region and away from the resorts.