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Room Reservations Necessary?

My husband and I are planning a trip to Slovenia and Croatia (northern portion) in mid-May. We plan on staying in private rooms (sobe) as much as we can.

Is is really necessary to make reservations ahead of time (months or weeks before) travelling at this time of the year (May)? We plan on renting a car to explore the Julian Alps and the Plitvice Lakes areas and would prefer to be able to have a more "free wheeling" approach to our vacation and not be locked into our room reservations. Also, Rick Steve's book says many places require a minimum of a 3 night stay, or you might well pay a 30%-50% surcharge?!

I welcome all advice!

Posted by
4341 posts

Minimum stays are more prevalent in summer and along the coast.
I’d scope out some things in advance just in case, but I admit I’m pretty picky. In very small towns, you just never know.

Posted by
2 posts

Hi Cynthia, I am from Bled and I know that the private rooms can be fully booked by May. I would recommend booking at least in March, there are a lot of nice places, if you want to stay in Bled or surroundings (that's where Julian Alps are ;) Or you can decide to go to the southern part of Julian Alps - in the Soča valley. Would recommend to stay either in Bovec or in Kobarid.

Posted by
9 posts

Thanks so much for your responses-they are greatly appreciated!

Posted by
27092 posts

One thing I'd warn about with sobe: You will be staying in someone's home. There will be no regulation against smoking by the host. Check on that if it would bother you. It's something I forgot to ask about when desperate for an affordable place to stay in Rovinj. I don't even know whether that sort of information was available to the travel agency where I booked the room. I landed in a nice place with nice people, but one of them was a chain smoker.