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I did not have a smartphone in 2007, so made voice calls at public pay phones, which used some sort of calling card for payment. For internet access, I used internet cafes, which typically cost 2€/hour for use of a computer connected to internet.
I hiked the E4 trail northbound from Githeo to Dhiakopfto in April 2007. Weather was mild, other than heavy rain in Taygettos mountains. Only other hikers I saw were a young Greek couple from Athens in the Taygettos mountains. This surprised me, since Orthodox Easter fell in early April this year and I would have expected to find young people taking advantage of the spring break to so some hiking. (Spring break is normally two weeks long in Greece, including the week before and the week after Easter Sunday.) Streams and springs were mostly dry due to a terrible drought, which culminated in terrible fires in the summer which burned much of the Peleponesus. Snow banks obscured trail in Mount Helmos so I had to take a short-cut to nearest forest road and descend via that. As it was, I ended up walking an hour through snow banks.
Waymarking was very bad and trails were often overgrown. For navigation, I used a non-mapping GPS (only showed UTM coordinates) together with paper maps: Anavasi 1:250,000 for entire Peleponusus, and Anavasi 1:50,000 for Taygettos, Menalo and Helmos. For areas not covered by 1:50,000 maps, trail mostly ran on dirt roads. Where there were more roads than shown on 1:250,000 map, it was tricky to make correct choice at forks without waymarks available, so several times I had to turn back when it became evident I had taken the wrong road.
My 3.5 liters water carrying capacity was adequate to allow for hiking an entire day, then dry camping, then hiking a few more hours before reaching next town.
Some hotels/campgrounds where I stayed:
I hiked the Crete E4 trail from west to east (Kastelli of Kissamos to Kato Zakros), with some variants on the official trail, in May 2007. There was still snowpack in the higher passes of Levka Ori in May, so I had to take the coastal variant.
Waymarking was very bad and trails were often overgrown, sometimes with thorns. For navigation, I used a non-mapping GPS (only showed UTM coordinates) together with various paper maps: Anavasi 1:100,000 for Crete-Chania and Crete-Iraklio/Rethimno (both 2006 edition); Harms 1:100,000 for Eastern Crete (2004 edition); Rough Guide 1:140,000 for all of Crete (2003 edition). I would have preferred to use the Anavasi 1:100,000 map for Crete-Lasithi rather than the Harms and Rough Guide maps, but this Anavasi map was not yet available at the time I started my walk (it was being printed). None of the maps completely and/or correctly show the network of rural dirt roads. However, the Anavasi maps are vastly superior to the Harms and Rough Guide maps with respect to showing dirt roads correctly. Topography for all of the maps was accurate, but of limited value, because contour lines are either 50m for the Harms map or 100m for the 1:100,000 Anavasi and Rough Guide maps, which is far too coarse to show the complex topography of Crete.
I also used the German language guide book Griechenland: Trans Kreta - E4 by Sven Deutschmann, 2005 edition. Deutschmann had walked the E4 west to east using a combination of a previous edition of that book (by other authors) and Harms maps for both West and East Crete, since Anavasi maps were not yet available then.
My normal water capacity was 3.5 liters, which was enough that I usually had water to spare upon arriving at the next water source. For Psiloritis section, I carried 5 liters. For Levka Ori, I would also recommend 5 liters.
Some hotels/campgrounds where I stayed: