Can anyone recommend a centrally located hotel in Crete? We are getting into Heraklion and flying out of Chania and will have a car. We are not sure which is the best location for driving to all of the sites (east and west). Our budget is 100 euros/night at most. Thanks!

Crete is a large island. It might be an idea to narrow down where you're planning to travel to within the island to get a better response.

Also, if you're travelling outside the high season you could try winging it with your accommodation.

Try doing a search for Crete on this board and see what tourist sites come up that interest you. Then if you suggest specific towns or areas more people on the board can help.

Crete is a huge island, the distance from West to east is about 350 km.
For that reason it is not possible to stay in one location, and do daytrips.

It is important to know how many days you will have at your disposal and when you will be there.

Thanks! We have 4 days in Crete in mid-June. We would like to see:

Knossos (probably will do this on the first day since we're getting into Heraklion)
Gorge of Samaria
Rethymnon
Chania
Phaistos (if time)

We are also planning to do a scenic drive in Western Crete.

Ideally, we would like to stay somewhere on the water with a nice beach. We saw a couple of affordable places on the south shore, but it seems that staying there would mean 2 hour drives almost everywhere!

You can stay ona beach near Chania, a short distance west.

The drive over the mountains to the south shore is lovely. We prefer staying there to the north coast, but you will feel more secluded so it depends upon what you want to do. If you want to tour around the west, stay in Chania. Lots of nice beaches in driving distance. You are right - go see Knossos right away and head west.

4 days are a very short time for a huge island like Crete.
Chania and Rethymno are very nice cities, in Rethymno there is the longest sandy beach of Crete, and in Chania apart from a beach located in the city there are nice beaches towards West, with many hotels located on the water.

Southern Crete and especially Plakias is my favourite spot, but would not be a good location for day trips.

Phaistos would be totally out of your way, and doing the Samaria Gorge will take a whole day of your time.

I preferred Chania to Rethymno - it just seemed more authentic to me. This is what we did when we stayed there (and it might fit your itinerary) - we stayed one night in Chania, then we took the early morning bus to Omalos where the Gorge starts. We stashed our luggage in the Chania bus station lockers, and brought a backpack each with enough stuff for a couple of days. We walked the Gorge to Aiya Roumeli, had a swim there, and took the boat from Aiya Roumeli to Loutro - a tiny village only accessible by boat or on foot - just heavenly.

We stayed in Loutro (www.loutro.gr) for two days and then took the boat to Paleochora - a livelier resort but still laid-back and had a gorgeous beach. We stayed in Paleochora two nights (you could do just one day, or one night in Loutro and two in Paleochora) and took the bus back to Chania, picked up our luggage and headed off.

You could combine this with a trip to Knossos on your first day. It's pretty doable, and not too energetic. The Samaria Gorge walk is all downhill to we found it quite easy to do - bring decent shoes though (we saw some attempting the walk in flip flops - eek!).