I'm considering a 10 day trip to Croatia and wondering if this itinerary makes sense or if it's trying to fit in too much. There's so much I want to see! Also curious about renting a car in Croatia and if / where it's worth it. Thoughts?
Fly in to Dubrovnik - 3 nights
Consider day trip to Mostar or spending 1 night there
Split - 1 night
Hvar - 2 nights
Plitvice Lakes - 1 night somewhere nearby...
Rovinj - 3 nights
Zagreb - Fly home
We visited Croatia for ten days in 2021 going to Dubrovnik for two nights, Korcula for two nights, Hvar for three nights and Split for two nights. Two things that made it such a relaxing vacation were: (1) once in Croatia. we only traveled by ferry and bus.
We boarded no trains, planes or automobiles to travel between all four destinations. And ( 2) A minimum of two nights was the rule for overnighting anywhere. Day trips were done, but overnighting anywhere had to be for at least two nights. I think that really made a difference in the quality of the whole trip. While it would have been possible to add one more location to the four, there would have been a push to squeeze it in. It was one of those times when less really was more, and going to fewer destinations made the whole holiday much more enjoyable.
For your itinerary specifically, since you are flying out of Zagreb, it makes sense to go to Plitvice Lakes National Park because it’s on the way to Zagreb from Split. And if you stay at one of the government-run hotels inside the national park, you can buy an admission ticket available only to guests staying at those 3 hotels (the hotels are the Jezero, Plitvice and the Bellevue) which allows entry the afternoon you arrive at the national park and also the next morning. In essence you’ll be getting two admission tickets for the price of one and you’ll be able to enjoy the park during times most visitors have departed during mid-afternoon and the next morning when the park’s entry gates open before the crowds arrive. There are
buses taking about 3.5 hours from Split to Plitvice Lakes NP and also buses taking about 2.25 hrs from PLNP to Zagreb.
I would add one night to Split and stay within the walls of Diocletian’s Palace and plan on two nights in Zagreb. Rovinj is a geographical outlier on this particular itinerary so I would save it and Mostar for another time.
Do you have 10 days or 10 nights? It isn’t exactly the same.
kenko makes a lot of good points. And some of what I may suggest depends on some “what ifs”.
You could get by with 2 nights in Dubrovnik if your flight arrives morning or early afternoon (mine arrived mid-morning).
I would skip Mostar this trip. Not enough time.
Ferry to Hvar for 2 nights.
Ferry to Split for 2 nights.
1 night Plitvice
You need to figure in at least the night before your flight in the city you fly out from - so if that is Zagreb, then 1 night Zagreb.
If you have 10 nights, that leaves you with 2 nights. I love Istria, but a short 2 nights in Rovinj really is sad to think about - since it’s not really close and you will spend much of your time in transit. If you decide to go to Rovinj, I would suggest you cut Plitvice and have 3 nights for Rovinj (as wonderful as Plitvice is). Otherwise split that 2 nights between your other destinations. (Maybe go back to 3 nights in Dubrovnik with a day tour and if you are going during a good time of year, I might add the 2nd extra night to Hvar.)
HI,
We went to Croatia about 8 years ago. We did almost your exact itinerary with a few more places in Istria but we had 15 days. We did drive and that was easy. I can't imagine taking a bus to Mostar or to Plitvice, but I guess it can be done. If you choose to rent a car, I wouldn't pick up the car until you are ready to leave Dubrovnik and would turn it in as soon as you arrive in Zagreb. We stayed outside Plitvice in a B&B and just got to the park before it opened. We were there in May. I would say that by the time we were ready to leave Plitvice (a few hours later) the park was uncomfortably crowded with tour groups. I assume you are using Rovinj as a base to see other places in Istria?
I followed a largely similar itinerary. Rovinj is really out of the way, and is going to eat up a lot of time and effort to get to. I cut it from my own itinerary for this reason. You’ll benefit from spreading those days into the rest of the trip. I would do 4 nights in Dubrovnik, 3 in Hvar, and 2 in Split. You won’t regret it. In a way, there’s a lot of similarities in the major tourist coastal towns. I mean that in a good way, just that Rovinj could be considered “more of the same” as Hvar or Korcula.
Dubrovnik was highly enjoyable, and has a lot of options as a base. With an extra day, Mostar isn’t a stretch. Though I found day trips to Lokrum and Cavtat to be plenty (and easy.)
I found Split to be a marvelous surprise and was glad to have two nights there. I could have stayed a third. I’m not sure why some folks are lukewarm on the place.
Plitvice is absolutely worth including if you’re headed to Zagreb. Stay in one of the park hotels and take advantage of the convenience. As recommended, figure on seeing the park late one day and the morning of the next. In truth, this was the stickiest bit of the trip, but 100% worth the effort and expense.
Lastly, you kind of hand-wave Zagreb here. Do your plans include a night? Zagreb was another real pleasant surprise, and definitely underrated in my eyes. I’m not sure if I’d make it two nights at the expense of say, Dubrovnik, but I would try to give yourself a solid day there.
While the bus is a solid option heading towards Zagreb, I didn’t exactly enjoy it. Renting a car could bring a little more comfort and convenience. It’s a long trip any way you cut it. It’s a judgement call.
What month?
I would eliminate Rovinj--I just think that time could be redistributed to your other stops and that area saved for a future trip (Istria can pair nicely with Slovenia or the northern Croatian islands, or even Venice). That's just a personal preference about pace though--it would theoretically "work." If you keep Rovinj in the plan, you will want to use a car, and I would pick it up in Split and drop in Zagreb. I don;t think that long slog by bus would be fun.
If you skip Rovinj, you really would not need a car at all--catamaran and bus service is quite efficient.
You may need a night in Zagreb depending on flight time--and I like the city myself, at least worth a day if you can swing it.
Thanks everyone for your responses!
So, you're planning to ferry from Hvar back to the mainland (Split? other?) and then drive or bus to Plitvice all in one day? Seems like a lot; it leaves too little time for stops along the way. Or, are you planning to ferry to Hvar from Dubrovnik before you spend a night in Split. That might be more reasonable.
When we had 11 days in Croatia (2018), we travelled by car from Zagreb and stayed outside the Plitvice NP. The next day, after we spent perhaps 5 hours in the Park, we headed to Split, but we broke up the Plitvice - Split portion with an intermediate night in Zadar. From Zadar to Split, we stopped at Krka NP and Trogir. (From Split, where we surrendered the car, we joined a bike tour to three different islands and then on to Dubrovnik.) Driving between Zagreb and Split was on good to excellent roads from Plitvice to Split; adequate but not great roads from outside Zagreb to Plitvice.
Given your travel plans, perhaps limit Dubrovnik to two nights?
Since our trip did not include Istria, others should weigh in on whether to include Rovinj or, perhaps instead, add more time on the Dalmatian coast. We enjoyed just under 24 hours in Zagreb, a medium size city that does have charms from Austro-Hungarian times and some interesting places (https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/croatia/zagreb), along with the scars of Tito era socialist housing and bullet wounds from the war in the 1990s.
