Crete is roughly 260 kilometres from end to end, and that single fact should shape how you plan a trip here. The island packs the White Mountains, the Lasithi Plateau, olive terraces older than most European capitals and two different seas into one landmass — and none of it is reachable from a sunbed. That's why rides in Crete have become the way people actually see the place: quad tours in Crete climbing the dirt tracks above Chania, buggy tours through the gorges behind Rethymno, jeep safaris in Crete that spend half a day on roads no rental agreement will let you drive.

The terrain does most of the work. An ATV tour in Crete out of Heraklion or Agios Nikolaos will have you switching between hard-packed riverbeds, goat tracks and short stretches of tarmac within the same hour, usually finishing at a viewpoint over the Libyan Sea that nobody photographs from the coast road. Off-road tours in Crete head inland toward Psiloritis — at 2,456 metres the island's highest peak, and, if you believe the locals, the mountain Zeus was raised on. The Lasithi Plateau still has its old windmills scattered across the fields, and reaching them by 4x4 across the mountain pass is a genuinely different experience from arriving on a coach. For a slower pace, horse riding in Crete along the beaches near Georgioupoli at either end of the day is about as good as the island gets.

Most Crete tours and rides run from April through late October, with the shoulder months — May, early June, September — offering the best combination of dry trails and bearable heat. Operators typically include helmets, briefing and a guide who knows which tracks are washed out after winter, and many routes stop at a village taverna where lunch costs less than the coffee did in Chania old town. Book a ride for your first days on the island rather than the last: almost everyone who does one ends up rearranging the rest of the week around the places they spotted from the trail.