emustyle

Hi All,

I'm in the preliminary stages of planning out a portion of our trip to Europe. With some reward travel we'll be in Croatia for around 9 days (arriving on the 11th of October and departing on the 20th of October) We'll be flying in and out of ZAG (unfortunately due to our flight reward rules we couldn't Open Jaw it)

With this in mind, our thought was to immediately fly from ZAG to DVB and then rent a car to drive back up to ZAG.

Past that we really don't have much of a plan, we know we really want to drive north westerly along the coast at a leisure pace before heading back inland towards ZAG. So the rest of the trip "is our oyster"

I'd love to solicit ideas and suggestions on how to tackle such a road trip.

While everything we've read looks amazing, our main challenge is trying to book out accommodations. We'd love to be able to stop along the way, but we're not sure what are good places to do so, and for how long.
Is it too aggressive to maybe try for a day or two in Dubrovnik, a day or two in Split and a day or two in and around Istria before heading to ZAG? (Should we also try to have a day or two there too?)

I know we're limited by time but would certainly appreciate any suggestions on how to tentatively plan out a road trip for such a trip.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

pjcarly

I've done Zagreb - Dubrovnik and everything in between 3 years ago.

I don't have time to write an entire summary. But here are my two cents.

If you'd ask me, I would skip Dubrovnik, the city is one large tourist trap where all prices are artificially high and cruiseschips of 1000s of people arrive every day, making it very busy. If you really want to. Go through the historic center in a few hours, but leave right after.

Split is nice, but I really liked Zadar, you should really visit it. Next Krka National Park, en Plitvice Lakes are worthwhile. They are well known and thus can be busy especially in the summer.

Zagreb itself is rather small, don't get me wrong the historic center is beautiful but don't spend more than a day.

With the limited time you have, this should do.

TN_Again

I spent 2 weeks in Croatia on a road trip - we made the whole thing up as we went along. Flew into Venice, drove over and started following the coast. No plan, no reservations.

There are rooms for rent everywhere - signs that say APARTMENT or FREI or FREI ZIMMER. Being there in the off season (Oct), you are going to have zero problem finding quaint places to stay very cheaply. We were there in June and even at that time of the year it was simple. Drive into town, look for signs, pay 50 EUR or so per night. Either right on the water or within blocks of it. Don't make any reservations for lodging. You will get to make the whole trip up as you go along, stopping wherever feels nice.

We LOVED the island of Krk.

Hope this helps!

emustyle

Thanks very much for the suggestions!

From your experiences, was there anything that really jumped out at you that you didn't know prior to visiting? like things you normally wouldn't see or read about in blogs/travel sites etc.?

How did you guys find the roads? Ever since getting into a "fender bender" driving on the "other side" of the street, I've always tried to get a sense of what driving is like as opposed to North America. Any insight on that?

Thanks again!

JBord

Related questions, as I'm in the preliminary stages of planning a Croatia visit for this summer (finally!):

Our current thought is to travel along the coast, basically from the Istrian Penninsula to Dubrovnik. I know it's a long coast , we're still figuring out stops and such. But the main question is how to travel. I'd rather not rent a car for the whole time because we just don't expect to need it for days where we're in a city such as Split or Dubrovnik.

So, the questions:
1. It appears bus might be the best way to travel this route, agree or disagree?
2. Assuming DBV is our last stop, does it make more sense to take a bus or fly there (say from Split for instance if we can arrange the trip that way). It seems like a long drive and perhaps the route leaves the country for a bit?
3. We may try to work in a day trip or 1 night in Mostar. I assume renting a car for this doesn't make sense. Any recommendations for tours? Or just best to figure out a bus or train (?) route from Split maybe?

Thanks!

pjcarly

@emustyle I cant especially remember anything special about driving. Some highways are really new and those are with toll IIRC.

My Route was Zagreb - Pula - Cres - Krk - Zadar - Krka NP - Split - Dubrovnik - Plitvice NP - Zagreb
@JBord, I have no idea about public transport, when I was there it seemed that most of tourists do rent a car to get around (or use their own car). Do keep in mind if you go down to Drubovnik there is a small patch you drive through Bosnia, which means you leave the European Union, and reenter a few KMs later. As a European this was very easy for me, however I cant tell you how long this will take as non-Europeans. I know there is a route over the islands in front of the coast so that you never leave Croatia, but I think you need to take a ferry.

I visited Bosnia (and Mostar) last year in off-season (May), and even then it was very busy. I can imagine in the summer Mostar will be very crowded (tourist-trap). The roads in Bosnia aren't as well as in Croatia, and are without highways mostly, so think of that when planning, you'll take extra time. Bosnia is beautiful by the way, it is a forgotten gem with breathtaking nature.

emustyle

Thanks Guys,

From a car rental point of view, are there any special considerations when leaving croatia and re-entering croatia?

dafunk10

drop-offs between Croatia and full-EU can be very, very expensive....I was quoted a $5,000 drop fee for picking up in Venice and dropping off in Dubrovnik last spring (we ended up getting a private transfer from Italy to Pula to pick up a car)....you will have to cross through Bosnia if you're driving from basically anywhere else in Croatia to Dubrovnik, but it shouldn't impact the cost of your rental

dafunk10

Driving in Croatia is pretty easy. We did Venice --> Rovinj --> Split --> Dubrovnik last spring with a rented car being our mode of transport once we got into Croatia. I highly recommend Rovinj as your base if you're considering Istria. The old town is neat with great restaurants, there are lots of outdoors/biking activites, and Pula is a drivable day trip with Roman ruins and an amphitheatre. There are also great wineries in Istria (Koslovic near Momjan is the one we went to).

The drive between Rovinj->Split and Split->Dubrovnik are pretty far apart, but there are stops you could do in between (Krka, Ston, etc.). Split is a good spot for island hopping for day trips, and Diocletian's palace is pretty neat (especially if you're a history nerd like myself). And then Dubrovnik is really cool. We stayed in an AirBnB inside the cities walls that was amazing.

For a 9 day trip that starts in Zagreb, adding Mostar to Istria/Split/Dubrovnik seems like it'll be a lot but to each their own (just my opinion). I often get caught up in planning trying to see too much, and have been trying to scale things back (minimum of 3 days in each city/area). It's still a work in progress though

We flew from Dubrovnik to Zagreb. It's an easy hour flight, and I'd imagine a bus ride or car would be quite lengthy. Especially at the end of a 9-10 day trip.

JBord

Very helpful post, thank you!

I think we've ruled out Zagreb and Dubrovnik. I'd love to go to both, but just too much for one trip. My first post was really the beginning of planning and I knew we'd narrow it down. Right now we're thinking Istrian Penninsula, Split (and islands/day trips), and Mostar. Perhaps Sarajevo. We'd also like to see Plitvice Lakes. It's still too much in my opinion, but the plan is to narrow it down to a final set of locations this weekend and then start to form it into an itinerary. Split is the one place that HAS to be in our itinerary, it's the most interesting to us.

Anyway, we'd probably fly in/out of Pula or Split and go from there. If we work Sarajevo in, that might be out final destination instead. Did you have any problems taking a rental car into Bosnia? I assume you at least went through there on the way to DBV. I noticed it's not a bad bus ride from Split=>Mostar=>Sarajevo, so was considering that rather than a car. Avoids a different country drop off and I doubt parking would be fun in any of those cities.

barneyg_

How long are you going to be in Croatia, 9 days like the OP, or longer?

Re: rental car -- that depends on how you like to travel but we found the car very handy in Croatia to drive around the beautiful coast and islands (we did DBV-ZAG in roughly 2 weeks). You'd see some of that scenery on a bus or a ferry, but you wouldn't be able to stop for an hour or so in some unexpected village or beach, like we did in Rogoznica, Murter and a bunch of other spots.

What we found is that many day trip/cruise destinations (Dubrovnik, Plitvice, Split, Mostar) are super crowded (and hot) in the middle of the day (say 11 AM to 4 PM), so during those hours we either traveled or found a nice beach. If you include the Plitvice Lakes, do yourself a favor and get there when they open (7 AM) -- the lakes are as beautiful in the early afternoon but it's just so crowded it's not fun.

You should be able to cross into Bosnia with most rentals made in Croatia (but not Italy, although that may be changing), one-way fees may be an issue if you are leaving from Sarajevo, they'll be lower if you end in DBV. We liked the road from Mostar to Dubrovnik (through Trebinje) but we should have devoted more time to Bosnia -- don't rush it. Parking in Mostar was fine (big lot right next to the Catholic cathedral).

What we liked most on our trip, which did not include Istria: great food in Split (Bokeria, Mozzgoon), Sibenik at dusk (gorgeous little city), the Bay of Kotor very early in the morning, and the island of Korcula (although I hear many islands are comparable). In a do-over we might skip Zadar.

JBord

We're somewhat flexible, but thinking we'd do about 10 days total. So that's really only about 8 days in country. We still have too much, I know! I compared to Rick Steves' 14-day itinerary which includes Zagreb and IIRC part of Slovenia too. I just don't think I could do that trip in 14 days, it would be continually moving from place to place.

My GF just sent me an email from work around an hour ago about Korcula, which wasn't on my radar before. What did you like about it? And why would you skip Zadar? I saw there was a lot of Roman history there, and I'm a bit of a history buff. But I do think it's a stop I could cut out to save us a couple days. I could use some more information on those two before our negotiations start .

emustyle

I'm totally sponging everything people are saying about Croatia right now. Its the age old problem of too much to see too little time!

Thanks everyone for suggestions, its been a great way to add items to the list! But Also will be painstaking to finally hammer something out and omitting from said list :P

JBord

Please post your near-final itinerary when you can. I'll try to do the same. Maybe we'll be able to help each other finish it off by seeing the itineraries.

deniah

agreed on most of whats been posted, particularly about avoiding zagreb, that small towns such as zadar and split are worth a stay (trogir too).
in october tons and tons of houses will be zimmerfrei along the popular roads/routes, but of course you could always book through airbnb.com, which is what we've always done on our trips.

driving manners in croatia is good. road conditions are also good. and most cities you'll be in are smaller, so very easy to navigate around, as long as youre not trying to drive around dubrovnik center. so no worries on this end at all.
just have a means of GPS.

besides the mainland, its worth visiting one or some of the islands.

do not miss lake plitvice.