About the Guide
What this guide is
This is my independent guide to Crete, the Greek island my wife calls home. I write about it two ways: as a culture, and as a real place you have to plan a trip to. That means the landscapes, the pace of daily life, the travel decisions you'll actually have to make, and the places that have stayed good year after year.
I'd rather be useful than complete, and I'd rather tell you what lasts than what's new. Some pages are essays; others are practical planning guides. Both have to pass the same test: when you finish reading, you should understand Crete a little better than when you started.
I write it under the pen name Leo Novak. I’m o xénos, the foreigner, married into a Cretan family, and I also wrote the cookbook Out of Office.
What this guide is not
This is not a directory. It's not a review platform or a booking site, and it doesn't run on crowdsourced star ratings or influencer picks.
Some pages include clearly disclosed commercial links where they're useful to you as a traveler. Those links don't decide what appears here, how I describe a place, or whether I recommend it. What I cover comes down to my judgment, not to what someone is selling.
How entries are written
I use two kinds of evidence and keep them apart: what I've seen myself, where I have a record of the visit, and published sources for places and practical subjects that anyone can check. I check current details against official or primary sources wherever they exist.
The list is short on purpose. I may drop a place without explanation if my standards change or if it stops meeting the criteria that got it in.
If a place isn't here, that isn't a verdict. If it is here, that's an endorsement only in the context the entry describes.
Time and editions
I keep two kinds of list. The annual recommendations belong to a given year, and I review them every year. The long-term record doesn't belong to any one edition.
Annual recommendations can change: a place I endorse one year may not appear the next. The long-term record changes rarely; it holds the places I think have proven they will last.
Independence
No place pays to be included, and nothing I write is sponsored. Commercial links, when there are any, are disclosed and come second to the recommendation. Referral revenue never influences what appears here or how I describe it. My own books are the one thing I promote, and I always say they're mine.
For the full set of rules I hold myself to, see the Editorial Manifesto and Independence & Ethics.
Authorship
There's one voice here, mine, and I keep what I've seen apart from what I've researched. I give a firsthand verdict only where I have a record of the visit; the public-place and planning guides are built on sources you can trace.
I'm a foreigner who learned this island at my in-laws' table, not an authority with a title. The guide should stand on its own: where my story helps, I'll tell it, and where it doesn't, I'll get out of the way.