Malia has two quite different faces, and it pays to know which one you are booking. There is the famous nightlife strip that gives the town its reputation — but there is also a lovely old town of narrow lanes, a Minoan palace and one of the longest, softest sandy beaches on Crete, which is where our hotels sit. It is a genuine value base for families and couples who stay near the shore, on the north coast just east of Heraklion, with the airport only around 35 minutes away and quieter Hersonissos a few minutes back along the coast. Book the beach-and-old-town side and Malia is an easygoing, sunny week for a sensible price.
Every Malia package we sell carries full ATOL financial protection under licence #11211, and your ATOL Certificate lands the moment you book — you can read exactly how your ATOL financial protection works before you part with a penny. Both hotels on this page have been hand-picked and inspected in person against our 22-point criteria, not lifted from a brochure, so you are booking a stay someone from our team has genuinely walked through.
"People hear Malia and think of one thing, and I always tell them to look again," says Eleni Trachalakis, our Greece Operations Manager, who spent years as a Thomas Cook resort representative across the island before joining GoToBeach. "The beach end and the old town are a completely different holiday to the bar strip — families have been coming here quietly for years. You just need to book the right part of it." Eleni checks these hotels in person each season, walking the distance to the sand and noting which ones sit far enough from the nightlife to stay peaceful — the detail that makes or breaks a Malia week and the sort of thing a brochure won't tell you.
