12 day croatia - what to do

I like to pick one island and stay several days. You have ample time to visit Dubrovnik, an island or two, Split, and then finish with a night or two in Zagreb.
Really you can pick any island that strikes your fancy—they all have something to recommend them.
See catamaran schedules on Krilo and Jadrolinija websites.

If castles are a really high priority, the I would add time to Zagreb and do a tour or rent a car, as they are concentrated in the north: https://croatia.hr/en-gb/culture-and-heritage/castles-of-croatia-set-foot-into-fairy-tale-dreamscapes

We enjoyed walking around Zagreb. It's very different from Split and Dubrovnik. There are several small museums; we visited the Museum of Naive Art. Visited the central market.

I think a wonderful itinerary would be to visit Plitvice Lakes NP after Zagreb. Spend a night there. Then continue on to Split, which is a lovely city located on the water with beautiful architecture, Diocletian's palace, an interesting ethnography museum. We visited Hvar Island but there is also Korcula Island, too, and several others. Spend 3 nights in Dubrovnik. Be sure to walk the walls. Visit the War Photo Limited museum to learn about the war in the 1990's.

You should read some guidebooks, if you haven't already: Rick Steves, Rough Guides, and Fodors.

You should build a rough itinerary. Here's the highlights: Dubrovnik, Split, Plitvice lakes, Zagreb, Rovinj. I'd do them in that order. 3 nights Dubrovnik 3 Split, 1 PL, 2 Zagreb, 2 Rovinj. I'd add Ljubljana in Slovenia. Juggle those around a bit.

js4jw: "seeing islands, beach days and castles"

• I guess the mention of beach means you are going in May, June, July or August?
• valadelphia got you covered on the castles.
• What are you expecting out of the islands? Wonderful old towns or semi-barren Mediterranean climate park land?
• Do you like to hike? Long walks through the wilderness …. With many, many other tourists?
• Do you like Roman history? Do you like Venetian history?
• Do you like exceptionally good food?
• The beaches, those I get. Here is the best: https://www.beachatlas.com/sveti-stefan.
• Do you want to be around local folks a lot?
• Swimming a good thing?
• Boat rides?
• Rafting, hang gliding, paragliding, scuba diving Deep Sea Fishing?.
• How about wine, olives, oysters? I mean visit where they come from and try them.
• You like 4 stars, 5 stars or AirBnb?
• Ride the bus or a driver from time to time … or a lot?
• Do you like to hunker down for a several nights or is moving ever other night okay? Or preferable to see more?

Your trip and interests sound similar to ours, so my trip report might be helpful to you:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/croatia-and-ireland-may-2022-castles-and-forts-and-water-oh-my

we are two adults arriving in Zagreb and departing Dubrovnik. We can't change this as this is already booked. We have 3 nights in Zagreb and then off to Zadar for 3nights (hotel is booked). We are not interested in AirBnB, however, our hotel budget is flexible for the other areas. Would vising slovania be feasible with only 3 nights in Zagreb?
We aren't really interested in long hikes, but more of walks on the beach.
Is it better to travel via train or bus from zagreb to zadar? we want the scenic route, does the train do stops for getting out?
if we do do Slovania, is it by train and what should we see there? Where should we do shopping? Is zagreb the best place to do souvenir shopping?

This is give and take—respond to some of the question put to you for a more robust conversation. Do you have a guide book?

If all the time you spend in Zagreb is one full day and the rest of the time is trips out of town then you have spent enough time in Zagreb. Ljubljana is 3 hours away and Bled is 4.5 hours away so it’s a tough day trip or overnight trip but I bet there are tours on Viator that do both. If the hotel is flexible, that is, if you can change the reservation, I might take a night off it. If not then say so and I bet this group can come up with some creative ideas for the time. Do look up that list of castles, I suspect you can find transfers or tour to one or more of them. Again, check out Viator. Sites like Viator are also good just to get an idea of what people go to a region to see. You don’t have to buy one of their tours but just look at the options.

I have only gone to Zadar by plane. I looked at Rome to Rio the best source to begin researching transportation issues and if I were you I would ride the bus or hire a driver so I could do some sight seeing along the way. A place to begin researching that is Daytrip.com. They want a lot for a private transfer but this is Croatia and Croatia isn’t cheap. But they do show the most popular stops along the way. I vote for Rastoke. Or Plitvice I guess.

If the hotel in Zadar is flexible, that is, if you can change the reservation, I would cut a night out of it. Not a bad place but better stuff further south. If not, then say so and I bet this group can come up with some creative ideas for the time.

As you aren’t interested in long hikes, think about how you want to do Pltivice. I am a minority here having done Plitvice just fine with a morning arrival, midweek in July, and a 3 hour hike before moving on. I wouldn’t ever spend the night but that’s about my interests as much as anything else. Not right or wrong.

Also, for islands Korčula, yes; Lokrum Island maybe not if you aren’t into lots of nature hiking. But look into it and decide.

Differing a little from Paul because of what you have already said, and in hopes you can modify hotel reservations, if it were me:

• Zagreb 2N
• Zadar 2N
• Split 3N
• Dubrovnik 3N

That leave you two nights and there are some options.

• Between Split and Dubrovnik you could spend a night or two in Korcula.
• Between
• Split and Dubrovnik you could spend two nights in Mostar (there is enough to see in and around and on the way to Mostar to make 2 nights a good thing.
• You could split your time in Dubrovnik and run down to Kotor for two nights and there is plenty for two nights.

I am not crazy about spending the time in Slovenia because of travel time. But you could. But remember that Slovenia works well with your future trip to Austria or Italy. Things to the south you will never be close to again.

In Croatia, train travel is limited. Flixbus and other buses are much more flexible. I would go to Zadar from Zagreb - we did that on Flixbus ourselves - quite comfortable, maybe 4 hours. Incredibly cheap too. No potty on the bus, but there is a stop every 2.5 hours or so for the driver to smoke. There is a direct train from Zagreb to Ljubljana, so if you want to do that, it's about 3 hours, and not expensive.

We've been to Zagreb now 4 times. We love just walking around. If you want Austro-Hungarian food (Croatia was part of the Empire), we went to Restaurant Purger and had a fine meal. Stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbage - I thought I was at a family picnic (we have ethnic roots in the area).

The Museum of Naive Art (not native) is great. If it is not open, there are stores that sell the painting from this tradition - sort of grandma Moses on glass plates. We really enjoyed the "Ghost Hunting tour of Zagreb" where the escort had a phone app which detected ghosts - completely real. The cemetery is very famous. There is an OK art museum and several other wacky museums. Look for wine tastings, stuff going on in Jelesic Square (main center of town square) - when we were there, it was "Slovenian Accordian day" and lots of accordian bands were playing. If you are there during World Cup, OH MAN - if you could catch a Croatian national team game in Jelesic Square, that would be super great - we've seen 2 games there, and it's a great party.

what area of Zagreb is best to stay to enjoy the town, walk around, do shopping etc. Do we book train and bus tickets ahead of time and what is the best site to use? the reason we are staying in zagreb for 3 nights is because the first night is our arrival night and we will arrive around 10pm at night, so that really doesn't count, the 2nd and 3rd nights are when we can explore the city.

what does everyone think of Esplanade Zagreb?

We stayed at Hotel Jagerhorn, which is very centrally located. It's just a short walk to Governor Jelacic Square (the main square). We walked everywhere. Our room rate included a wonderful breakfast buffet, and there is a nice courtyard where you can dine outside, weather permitting.

We are not able to alter our hotel stays or number of nights, zagreb and zadar are set. now on to split/hvar - what is there to do and how long should we stay? I believe that leaves us with 7 full days to spend in dubrovnik and split/hvar and other places. what would be the best plan and what islands are recomended?