Confirm summer itinerary

You will have a fast three week trip but it looks well thought out without a lot of one night stops. The only thing I struggle with as I look at your itinerary is where to best fit in Mostar. It looks like a lot of backtracking as you have it. But I understand why you want the detour and assume from your itinerary that you are planning to rent a car and want to get rid of it when you arrive in Split and use ferries for the rest of your transportation needs. So I don’t have a good solution for you. Including Mostar may just require the extra driving hours. However if you plan to keep your car while you are in Split and on Korćula (this would not be my choice), then you may want to reconsider your timing.

I know some people would advise another night for Zagreb and that would also not be a wrong choice. I haven’t been there yet and would probably opt myself for what you have if you can’t find an extra night.

Thanks for you feedback TM! You are 100% correct in the car rental plan, dropping it off when we arrive in Split. Many people do the day trip from Split, so, I assume the backtracking I’ll be doing won’t be too crazy. Agreed on wanting an extra night in Zagreb, but I am not inclined to take any nights away from another location to make this happen. We will have our arrival day to do a walking tour and then the following morning to have a bit of a wander before moving onto Lake Bled. We had also considered splitting our stay in Slovenia w/1 night Ljubljana, 1 night Lake Bled, & 2 nights in Kobaird, but I was thinking it would be nicer to have two 2 night bases. When this same friend and I planned a 9 night trip to Ireland, we had 5 single night stays and it was a bit much, so I think this trip while seeing A LOT, will be a decent pace, especially as we slow down near the end.

Yes, I am not especially a city person myself so probably wouldn’t take a day from elsewhere for Zagreb. And I like 2 locations in Slovenia better than 1. :) The only other thing I wonder is if you think you will never be back this direction. If the possibility exists you might, then I might steal your day trip to Montenegro (and the night in Dubrovnik required for it). I had not thought I would either, till I saw this area - and now I hope to spend an extended time in both Bosnia and Montenegro on a future trip. I had 5 nights in Slovenia on my trip and would really like to come back for more.

I’d love to see your itinerary from your trip, specifically how you spent your time in Slovenia and which parts of Croatia you visited. It’s funny, cause if I had an extra day, I’d probably want to add it to Solvania or Istria, or even Split maybe, not Zagreb, but I have already extended the trip by 2 extra nights (1 extra night for Mostar and 1 extra night in Slovenia), though so I guess, what’s one more! Just to be clear, you would recommend 3 nights in Dubrovnik (skip the day trip to Montenegro) so that we could add one extra night in Zagreb? I am not sure about a return to the area anytime soon, as I only travel abroad one time/year, and have so many other destinations on my list!! Also, my friend and I are def more outdoor activities and visiting small villages over city visits, but I do understand Zagreb is not a large city and has lots of charm.

Here you go!
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/croatia-it-s-been-nice
and https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/5-september-nights-in-slovenia

Edit: also I spent no days in Zagreb out of 30, so you can tell what I prioritized - lol!

We just came home from a Ljubliana, Bled, Piran, Rovin trip. For us an afternoon at Lake Bled was all we needed. We did not wish to stay over there but it was a beautiful few hours. I would have liked to drive through the Alps but we felt that would be hard for the driver to not get to see as much so we did not do it. We loved Piran and we loved Rovinj. From Rovinj we saw many Istrian sea and hill towns. We had 3 nights in Ljubliana and that was plenty.

Loved loved loved your trip report TM, thank you for sharing your amazing trip and providing so many details!

And, thank you Sutton, for your input on your recent travels.

I am reconsidering our trip a bit, and wondering if we should do 2 nights Zagreb, 2 nights Ljubljana (with a day visit to Bled), drive through the Julian Alps, 2 nights in Kobaird, then onto Rovinj. With this updated plan, we’d take away one night from Dubrovnik.

Or, alternatively, with taking a night from Dubrovnik, we could keep the 1 night Zagreb, and then split up 5 nights in Slovenia.

I am feeling like the 5 nights in Slovenia will be a much nicer pace and allow us to soak up the mountains and give us a chance to dig in a little bit.

I am envisioning an afternoon arrival to Zagreb, try to organize a walking tour upon arrival & do our best to combat the jet leg, get to bed early with an early rise to explore the city a bit more (visit the city center, stop at the farmers market to pick up snacks/lunch for our road trip) depart in the afternoon to Ljubljana. Explore the city a bit, overnight in the city, & do a walking tour the following morning. (Not sure what to do w/our rental car as we will need to check out of our accommodation before we join a walking tour - but I’m sure details around this could be sorted out). Afternoon or early evening departure to bled, two nights in bled gives us a full day to do a bit of hiking, maybe early early hike to Ojstrica viewpoint, then visit the church and/or castle, or explore Bohinj for the day if it is feeling too crowded in Bled, o/n in bled, early morning hike to Vintgar Gorge, then spend the rest of day 5 driving and stopping a lot along the way to Kobaird. In Kobaird, I’d love to spend some time on the river, maybe do a whitewater rafting trip & the hike to Kozjak waterfall, o/n for a second night, then head to Rovinj with a stop at the caves & a visit Predjama castle.

In Rovinj, I was planning to spend 1 day exploring the hill towns, and the other full day soaking up the sun (although, I did find a boat tour that departs from Rovinj and does a full day trip with swimming stops and docks for couple hours to visit Pula (which I would love to visit, but do not wish to spend another day driving - finding parking, etc).

I love trip planning but wonder if I overthink things too much sometimes!! Haha!

There are buses running from Rovinj to Pula and Porec. I don't know how frequently, but the info must be available online. The car will be helpful for the inland villages for sure, but you might be able to leave it parked and still see Pula. Between Rovinj and Porec is the smaller coastal town of Vrsar with its historic center on top of a hill. It makes a nice stop, workable by bus for me in 2015, but the flexibility of doing it by car (if you have extra time on your hill-village day) would be nice.

I'm a Zagreb cheer leader. The bi-level historic center is quite large. There are lots of good museums. Two most unusual are the Museum of Broken Relationships and the very small, but choice, Museum of Naive Art. Taking a walking tour is a good idea.

Thank for your feedback! As always, the challenge of planning travel is trying to get to see all of the sights you dream about, but also getting a chance to ENJOY those sights, which to me, translates to slooowwwing down!! Very difficult task for sure (especially, I imagine, as an American). Lol! So, the following is my new proposed itinerary:

Night 1: Zagreb (pick up car hire)
Night 2: Ljubljana
Night 3 & 4: Lake Bled
Night 5 & 6: Kobaird
Night 7-9: Rovinj (1 day explore hilltowns)
Night 10: Plitvice Lake NP (pm visit to park)
Night 11: Sibenik (am visit to Plitvice)
Night 12-13: Mostar (am visit to Krka)
Night 14-16: split - day visit Trogir, full day boat trip
Night 17-19: Korcula
Night 20-23: Dubrovnik (working on convincing my travel partner to one more night!!)
Day 23 home to nyc (fingers crossed day 24!)

The website in this report for parking was really great once I found it. I found parking pretty easy in Pula, sat in the car and paid my parking. Could have added time while eating lunch if I had mis-estimated. I also used it in Motovun.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/croatia-parking-ticket-solution