First Trip Advice

No, you don't need a car to go to Dubrovnik. There is a ferry which goes from S to D and is not expensive.

What to see?

Plitvice Lakes Park
Zadar
SIbenik
Trogir (day trip from Split)
Dubrovnik
Hvar
Salona Roman ruins near Split

I'd spend 4 days in Split, 2 in Zadar or Sibenik, 4 in Dubrovnik.

As to renting the car, if you are 2 persons, you can do all the traveling on bus (Flixbus is great) or the ferry. A car is a pain, and must be parked for most of the trip.

Most Americans are car-oriented, but this is not the optimal thought in Europe. Split, for instance, is a complete nightmare for driving. Dubrovnik is hopeless unless you are a native - all the roads are 1 way and they are tiny.

The Croatian inter-city buses are fine. Just be aware that there may be a charge (about the equivalent of US $1 or so, I'd guess) for stowing a suitcase under the bus.

If you decide to go to Plitvice (which is really beautiful), do not do it as a day trip from Split, Zadar, Zagreb, etc. If you do, you'll wonder why so many people recommend it. It gets absolutely blasted with day trippers every day. You need to spend the night in or near the park so you can see it late in the afternoon on the day you arrive and/or when the park opens the next day. There is bus service to the park from both Split and Zagreb; I don't know about Zadar. There are two (I think) hotels in the park that are overpriced for their quality, but you're paying for the location.

Truthfully Croatia is a sizable country and you can’t see it all in 10 days, so don’t think about “must see’s” - anything you choose will be great. And nothing at all wrong with Paul’s itinerary, but mine would be different, because I love the islands - but only if you are going at the appropriate time of year (for example not January).
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/croatia-it-s-been-nice

Thanks for the information. We arrive in Split at 5:20pm. Would you start the first 4 days in Split? Do you need reservations for the ferry? Do you recommend some island day trips from Split?

Because you arrive in Split in the late afternoon, it might make sense to start off in Split for your 4 days. Are they days or nights? Because you are flying in and out of Split, some people might suggest going to your furthest destination first and ending in Split. But because you arrive late in the day, I don't think this will work.

BTW, is it possible to change your airline reservations without paying a huge fee? What would work better is if you fly multi-city, or open jaw. Fly into Split and fly home from Dubrovnik, or vice versa, but it might be too late for you.

From Split, you can easily visit Hvar as a day trip by taking the catamaran. We purchased our tickets the morning we left for Hvar Town. You can also visit Trogir as a day trip. While in Split, I highly recommend hiring Maja Benzon, recommended by Rick, for a private 2-hour guided tour of Diocletian's Palace. Well worth it!

You can take the ferry all the way to Dubrovnik if you want. Or you can rent a car and stop in Ston for delicious fresh seafood on your way from Split to Dubrovnik. Driving is very easy in Croatia. You don't want a car in Dubrovnik.

If you drive, you can then easily drive from Split to Plitvice Lakes NP. Stay overnight so you can visit the Upper Lakes in the late afternoon and the Lower Lakes the next morning. This way you avoid the majority of the tour groups.

I also strongly recommend purchasing a couple guidebooks so you can discover what you want to see, what you think is a must-see. Our must-sees might not be your must-sees. I used Rick's guidebook, Rough Guides, and Fodors. I also like Michelin Green Guides and Lonely Planet.

Whether or not your rent a car depends on your personal preference. We don't like to rely on public transportation. Renting a car gives us more flexibility and we can make stops along the way. But you can certainly travel without a rental car by using buses and ferries.

We started our trip in Dubrovnik and stayed there for 3 nights. We picked up our rental car the morning we left Dubrovnik. As I said previously, you don't want or need a car in Dubrovnik. Then we drove to Split, stopping along the way in Ston where we had one of the best meals of our trip. We parked our car in Split in a parking garage where our hotel reserved some spaces. We used the car to drive to Trogir (you can also take a bus or ferry to Trogir), but otherwise it did stay in the garage for a couple days which was fine with us. When we left Split, we drove to Plitvice Lakes and stayed overnight, and then from there drove to Zagreb where we returned the car. I thought describing to you what we did might help you decide if you want to rent a car or not.

You can check out ferry schedules and times at Croatianferries.com. There are a few different companies. We usually take Krilo, smaller, faster, newer - no cars. We always pre-purchase our tickets cause it then is one less thing to think about. You just show up 10-15 minutes before it leaves. You cannot buy tickets on board.
Read up about the different cities. All of them have their highlights and are enjoyable. Hvar has better beaches, Split a better waterfront called the Riva, Dubrovnik has the wall and Stradun as well as Lokrum Island, Zadar the sea organ, etc.
you definitely do not need a car, it is more of a headache and will just sit in the garage most days.
if you come back with your destinations, we can help with more specific details.

For ones that stayed over night in Plitvice Lakes Park did you carry your luggage with you on the bus there and back? Is there a recommended place to stay. It sounds like overnight is the best way to view the park though I see many day trips from Split. What is your recommendation? Thanks

I've never stayed near the park--which worked just fine back in the 1980s but was a disaster--as previously mentioned--by the time I returned in 2015. No one seems to love the hotel(s) inside the park; you're paying for the location and the fact that (reportedly--no personal experience) the park hotels will stamp your first-day ticket so you can return to the park on the second day without having to buy a second ticket or the more expensive two-day ticket.

There are some places outside the park, at least some of which will show up on booking.com. The trick is finding out whether any of them are within walking distance and/or provide some sort of shuttle service. Don't trust anything you read about a shuttle without communicating directly with the lodging. Going from memory, I think the road into the park is a fairly narrow country road with no sidewalks; I'd be concerned about safety if I had to walk very far at all along that road.

I drove, stayed near but outside the official park in a great little apartment I found on booking.com, and didn’t need 2 days (6 hrs was sufficient for Route C) - just started early in the morning having stayed very close the previous night. Whether or not you are driving makes a big difference in your strategy.

We stayed at Plitvice Miric Inn just outside the park. It’s lovely and includes one of the best breakfast buffets we’ve ever had. I think the rate was about 120 euros in 2019. For an extra 20 euros or so, you can have a delicious supper, too. You just need to let them know when you arrive that you want dinner that night.

We drove to Plitvice from Split. We started hiking the upper lakes about 4pm the day we arrived. And then were on the trail to the Lower lakes the next morning by 9am.

If it's important to you, verify that the Miric Inn is still serving dinner. I don't see it mentioned as an amenity of booking.com, and I think I may have read somewhere that they no longer do that. However, I could be misremembering, or they may have just suspended dinner service during the height of the pandemic.

There's no mention of any sort of shuttle service, so you'd need to either have your own car or investigate whether it would be safe to walk to the park; it's not particularly close.

Cindy, there are all kinds of possibilities here. Plitvice is unfortunately kind of a detour, but if you want to do it (I've been twice - it is amazing), yes a night is recommended. The park hotels are fine - they are inside the park. I stayed at one once. You can easily walk from the bus stop to the hotels. There are two park entrances and the bus stops at each one. I did have a car, though. Depending on when you go, it's important to book the park hotel far in advance (in season). I would recommend one of the park hotels even though they are overpriced for what you get, if you take the bus.

But you don't HAVE to go to Plitvice at all. You could spend your entire trip on the Dalmatian Coast between Split and Dubrovnik and islands in between. What's interesting to YOU? It burns some time to have to double back to Split vs. flying into Dubrovnik out of Split or vice versa, but it's still doable. Since you arrive so late in Split the first day, I'd probably work my way south to Dubrovnik if you want to do a coast + island itinerary. If you leave late enough the final day out of Split, you could take an early bus from Dubrovnik up to Split. Otherwise, you could start in Split, work your way south, take the bus back north to Split the final day...and maybe end in Trogir, a pretty old town close to the Split airport, for your final night vs. spending a final night in Split again.

You wouldn't need a car at all if you do a Dalmatian coast itinerary. Just take ferries and/or buses all the way. In high season you might have to reserve ferries further in advance. I was in Split in early October 2022 past the end of the season, when things weren't busy, and I id a lot of island hopping via ferry rides booked at the last minute. In July I might not have been able to do that.

I so much appreciate everyone’s input. I am sure this won’t be my last question:) we would like to visit Plitvice if possible, would you rent a car in Split for just the trip there, stay the night and have the car for the return trip.

Yes, that makes some sense, to rent the car for two days and spend the night at Plitvice. You could potentially rent the car in Split, drive up to Split, then drive the car back to Dubrovnik and drop it there and work your way north again by catamaran to Split before departing. If you wanted to stop somewhere else on the way like Mostar that would make even more sense.

Yes, I think renting the car to go to Plitvice makes sense because it gives you more flexibility, such as when you arrive at at the park, when you leave the park, and where you stay. This way you don’t have to stay inside the park. You will have more hotel choices.

I could be wrong but I remember reading that Plitvice MIric Inn stopped serving their dinners during the pandemic but they are now serving dinners. You can always email them if that is important to you. I believe there aren’t too many restaurants in the area. And I remember when i was planning my trip in 2019 that many people complained about the food at the park hotels.

I can’t believe the amazing advice I have gotten so far! Once I come up with what I think my itinerary will be I am going to post and ask for your input! I can’t wait for this trip! We were originally planning to go right when Covid hit and have postponed every year since then, for Covid mostly. I assume I better be prepared for a lot of walking.

People aren't going to Plitvice for the food. Yes, you can certainly stay somewhere outside the park. Once I stayed at a park hotel. Next time I stayed outside the park. The park hotel was just easier - but on that visit, I visited the park over part of two days and got my ticket stamped the next day; the extra cost of the hotel was partly offset by not having to pay a second entrance fee...or having to pay to park in the lot across the street twice. It was super easy to walk right out of the hotel down to the park entrance.

One thing I enjoyed about the hotel (must have been the Hotel Plitvice, the middle one, not the most expensive and not the cheapest one) was that it was kind of kitschy, like a throwback to the days of Yugoslavia.

My second visit was a single day visit where I arrived late the night before my visit and just needed a quick place to stay, so the park hotel didn't make sense. The cheap soba where I stayed that time didn't serve food at all - and I didn't need it. I had pizza the evening I arrived at the pizza place south of the park.

Here I am again with another question-
Now that we have a car (or think we will)
When we leave Zadar, we would like to drive to Medjugorje then to Dubrovnik. Has anyone done this drive? Do you see any problem with this? Do we need some special “green card” from rental agency to drive there. We don’t want to stay the night. Plan to leave to make it back to Dubrovnik before dark. As I think that is wise. Once again, looking for advice.

I have NOT done this drive so can’t advise on routes. But it will sure be a long day. Still, it is probably doable. I had to ask my rental company about driving my car in BiH and they had the green card ready. At the border, the green card was checked. However I was driving Dubrovnik to Mostar, so no idea if your experience will be the same.