Who writes this, and why

I'm Fotis. I was born and raised on Crete and live in Heraklion, a few minutes from Knossos. My day job is with a Cretan hospitality group — over twenty food and beverage locations across the island — which means I spend my working life inside the industry this site writes about: the supply costs, the staffing, the seasonality, the difference between a place that's run well and a place that's coasting on its location.

I don't write this alone. Half the guides here carry Neratzia's byline — every guide is signed by exactly one of us, and everything on this page applies to both names equally.

Why I started Honest Crete

Because most of what you'll read about Crete online is written by nobody, from nowhere. Stale prices copied from other posts, "hidden gems" with tour buses outside, and no mention of the through-road under your balcony. The economics of travel content reward volume, not accuracy — so accuracy is the entire pitch here.

This site publishes fewer guides and maintains them. Every guide shows the date it was last checked. When a fare changes, a place closes, or I simply got something wrong, the guide gets corrected and the date moves. If you spot something that's out of date, telling me is genuinely useful — that's the whole system working.

The disclosure policy

Three rules, and they don't bend. Nobody pays to be featured. There are no sponsored posts and no accepting free stays in exchange for coverage; advertising, where it appears, is clearly labelled and buys no say in what we write. Personal connections are declared. Crete is a small island and I know people — when a featured place involves someone I know personally, the guide says so in plain sight. Recommendations are things I'd tell a friend. If I wouldn't send my own people somewhere, it doesn't appear here, whatever the relationship.

Separately from the writing, I help small accommodation owners with their websites and their online presence. That work is a service, it's labelled as such, and it has no route into editorial coverage — the policy above applies to clients exactly as it applies to everyone else. Details on the owners page.

One more, added in August 2026. The buying section works with a licensed estate agent: Honest Crete writes about what buying a home here actually involves, and enquiries sent from that section go to the agent, not to us. Nobody here is an estate agent, no developer or property is ever named or recommended, and those articles are checked against the rules in force and list their sources. It is stated on every page of that section. If you ever think the writing leans towards selling, say so — that counts as a correction.

What I'm qualified to say — and what I'm not

This matters more since the buying section went up, because those articles deal with tax, planning law, permits and inheritance, and getting them wrong costs a reader real money. So, plainly: I am not a lawyer, a notary, a civil engineer, an accountant, a tax adviser or an estate agent. I hold no licence in any of those professions and I am not regulated by any of them. Nothing on this site is legal, tax or financial advice, and no article is a substitute for the professionals it tells you to hire.

What I do have is this: I was born on Crete, I live in Heraklion, I work inside the industry this site writes about, and I read Greek — which means I can read a law, a gazette notice or a tax-authority circular in the language it was written in, rather than a translation of a summary of it. That is the whole of my qualification, and it is why the buying articles are written the way they are.

How those articles are put together. Every factual claim goes back to a source I can name — the law itself, the gazette, a ministry circular, the tax authority, the Bank of Greece, the Cadastre — and those sources are listed at the foot of each article with working links, so you can check the claim rather than take my word for it. Where the profession disagrees or the rule is contested, the article says so instead of picking a side. Where a rule has an expiry date in it, the article names the date.

Two different dates, and they don't mean the same thing. A travel guide carries the date I last stood in the place. A buying article carries the month its rules and figures were last verified against the sources — no standing anywhere involved. I've kept the wording different on purpose. The buying articles are re-checked every January, and the handful with expiry dates inside them are looked at again each December, because a suspension that lapses or a bill that becomes law changes the answer.

And the obvious one: read those articles, then pay a lawyer. Every one of them says so, and it isn't a formality — Greek property law turns on the specific plot, the specific title and the specific family, and no article can see any of those.

What's next here

The first guides cover the coast east of Heraklion — Hersonissos, Stalis, Malia — because it's the stretch I can check most often. Next come the logistics guides people actually search for at 11pm before flying (car hire honesty, Knossos without the crowds, where locals eat in Heraklion), and then a steady move west and south. Slowly, on purpose.