Wife wants to go and I'll take her if I can make sense of a three week venture. Anyone here been? Do/Don'ts?? Safe? Rent a car? Take tours? Include Venice for a few days?

How is this a vacation destination for a woman?

Bring a gun.  Somehow.

Nevermind.  I was thinking about Serbia.

Great country and very safe. What does she want to see and do?

We concentrated our last one in Istria. Tons of good food and we did not run into another American until we went into a touristy area for lunch.

Another basement dweller exercising ignorance.

Had a college professor that loved Croatia and would recommend it to anyone. I trust her advice.

Back in the 1990s but I’m sure the beaches are still nice

It’s the more stable country considering it’s fucked up neighbors.  

Not sure it’s all that touristy.

All I know is my maternal grandfather is from a small village named Mrkopalj. Still have family there.

Croatia's a beautiful country. Obviously it depends what you're looking for out of a vacation, but I wouldn't complain about a free plane ticket there.

so common on here it is not even worth mentioning anymore

on topic

Go to Plitvice Lakes National Park

Family from the islands and spent lots of time there. Beautiful country. I’d recommend northern coast - Istria like a previous poster said- or the northern islands. Less touristy. Southern coast cities like Dubrovnik are beautiful also but cruise ships stop there.

Feel free to dm for additional info

Gorgeous and affordable.

Had a two week trip planned for Croatia/Slovenia but then the scamdemic happened.

Did 2 weeks there in 2020.  Split and Dubrovnik.  Loved it.

In comparison we did Greece/Athens and Amsterdam the same year.  Croatia beat them both easily.

It's affordable, safe, and friendly.

My brother lives in Supetar

https://watermanresorts.com/

OP, let me first say I haven't been but have researched it a bunch and it is on my list of places to hangout come retirement.

A female friend of mine went with another female and spent a week there, just two girls alone and had a blast.  Her pictures showed an amazing beach and landscape scene.  They felt safe and had no issues.

Check out Trip Advisor 15 things to do in Croatia

The place is full of history, I can't imagine you and your wife wouldn't enjoy it.

I have been to Greece several times looking around and my retirement plan is to burn threw my 90 days abroad by staying in AirBNB's in Greece, Croatia, Italy and Spain.

Plitvice Lakes National Park would definitely be worth a trip.

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I think this video was filmed there.

I've been. We rushed it a bit too much, because we passed so many amazing beaches that would have been great to stop at but we had no time. Three weeks though you can do it at a very leisurely pace.

We flew into Dubrovnik, drove up and over to Venice.

The biggies are Dubrovnik old city. It's a walled off port city. You can walk the walls in a few hours. I'd spend a day or two there. Split is same same but different. Cool old town worth exploring.

There's a Roman ampitheater at Pula.

Spend a day at Plitvice touring the lakes. Lots of walking.

Don't stick to just Croatia, Slovenia has some incredible stuff.

We toured the Postjona caves. It seemed like there was two caves there you could do tours of. One had a mini railway thing inside it that was great to take. Room after room of incredible stuff.

Look up Lake Bled. I'd spend a day or two in that area. We had a fancy dinner at Tito's former lake house and were practically the only ones there. But that was 15 years ago and the global economy was bad, sorta like now.

There's a route, I think we got from a Rick Steves guidebook where you drive out of Bled, up through the Julian Alps. Incredible views. We stopped at a little roadside restaurant on the way where they had bear on the menu. In the afternoon you drive up to a small train station where they have flat bed cars. You actually drive your car up onto a flat bed, and then ride in your car, through tunnels, up and down hills, back close to where you started. It was surreal to be in your car, but on a train. Here's a cringy couple doing it two years ago so it's probably still possible.


I would recommend a few days in the Dolemites, especially if you like hiking at all. There's plenty of places where you can take a ski lift up and then easily hike back to your starting spot. Even if you don't like to hike you can see incredible stuff from the car. If you've never been to Italy don't let this area spoil you. The Dolemites region is more Austrian in cleanliness, things working like they should, people not being assholes, etc. and with great Italian food to boot. It is way better than the chaos worship that is the rest of Italy.

Military stuff, we stopped at a couple of small museums that had to do with WW1. Just stuff we wandered across but were clued into by the giant artillery shells outside. In Croatia there was one town with an open air museum of downed airplanes, shot up tanks, etc. and a ton of the buildings in that area had bullet damage.

And then yeah finish up in Venice. Some can see it in a day, I could spend weeks there. I really like just heading it one direction, down tiny alleys, its often very much like a maze, getting totally lost. And the finding my way back. Throughout the town there are signs on building pointing the way to major landmarks and from those you can find your way anywhere.

It's the Biennale in Venice this year. If you like weird modern art you can fill a day or two wandering through the pavilions. https://www.labiennale.org/en

Take a day trip into Slovenia, go to lake Bled.

Fabulous vacation for my family last year.  Flew into Zagreb, then hit

Plitvice Lakes National Park
Split
Mostar, Bosnia
Korcula Island
Dubrovnik (flew out of there also)

Nine nights total.  Car rental is easy.   Wished we could do Istria also, but needed more time.  We went in May, before the heavy tourist season and it was perfect.  PM for ideas if you want.

Whn I went there a year ago, they are making a lot of effort to improve everything and be welcoming to tourists. Everyone was pretty polite and accommodating. Nice country, the landscape reminded me of southern California and west virginia.b
Lots of Euros vacation there because it's cheap, I would recommend. They speak English in the tourist areas. Also expect to see bombed out buildings from the war sill around.

A lot of the towns have a nice city center and stone roads. Most are walking mainly in these areas but you can get by with a scooter. We just walked.

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A vast majority of the beaches are pebble. They are rounded and worn, so it isn't hard on your feet but you may need shoes in most spots. You sink into them because they are water logged and will move around.

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Plitvice lakes are cool and worth a day trip. You CANNOT get into the water anywhere or fish, which seriously sucks

Driving there is 100% safe and the roads are decent. Look at your route and be careful with any sudden deviations, as the mapping can screw up. Waze, Apple, and Google all had minor issues.

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Food culture is a mix of influences. Italian, German and local. You have some French in there too, but the food is quite good and seafood is plentiful. We did wine tasting at a few family wineries and brought home some great wines.

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I have tons of photos, but most are over the 3mb for uploading. So, these are mainly snapshots from a GoPro.

If you are looking for an all over tan or nude resorts, beaches, or areas, you will find plenty in Croatia. Snorkeling is decent for a non-reef type area, the kayaking made it worth the effort to bring ours, and there are tons of private beach areas to explore. It really depends on what you and her want from the trip.

I've been multiple times, was there last summer too.

It used to be crazy cheap and not heavy with tourists. Since they adopted the Euro and game of thrones, it is not as affordable as it once was and is much more busy now.

Sailing in the Adriatic and visiting the islands is fantastic . Krka and Plitvice is amazing to see, though swimming is limited there now due to over tourism.

The food is great, the roads are good condition and don't be afraid to rent a car. Just be mindful of their intersections.

It's hot, though as a TX that doesn't bother me.

Friend of mine goes there a lot.  Loves it

This is key right here.  I am not a fan of tourists and never act like one anyplace I have ever visited.  I prefer to stay in non-tourist areas and hotels, I want to experience the real culture of an area, not what has been created for the tourists.  

Most of my trips to Greece are in Sept/Oct.  It is still very warm, even hot during the afternoons, the water is plenty warm for swimming but the summer tourist crowds are gone.

Slovenia's castles are worth a trip. Not far from Istria and very easy to cross back and forth. Just let the rental car company know and pay the extra $20 for the pass.

Croatia is gorgeous. Great food, cheap beer, beautiful women. And rakija.


Edit to add: …the coast, that is. Never been inland.

Also I would like to add that you should go soon to see a more authentic Croatia.  It appears tourism is exploding there.  I found it sobering in Split.  A few years ago there were 2,000 residents living within the walled palace.  Now only 800 reside there.  Apartments are being scooped up for boutique hotels and commercial enterprises, and cost of living is sky rocketing.  I found it to be sad, even as I was contributing to it in some fashion.

Reject modernization, embrace tradition. Its Yugoslavia.

I did see 3 Yugos there. Man, those were some decent rides for the price.

I know this was already mentioned regarding the touristy areas and no language barrier but how is it outside of that? I’ve been to Prague and a bunch of other European destinations and had no problem getting around only speaking English or a few words of German, but wondering how it is in Croatia once you get off the beaten path a little bit? Might be on the shortlist for me and my wife after I retire.

It has become a pretty common destination over the last decade.

My experience was so long ago as to be worthless. It’s a completely different country now.

My daughter went there as part of a longer trip with several friends.  One of the young ladies is perhaps Croatian but left quite a while ago, is fluent in one of the local languages, and several others so they were covered for languages, but it didn't seem too big an issue anyways.  At Plitvice (and probably "everywhere") they suggested an early start on the day's tours/walks, etc., around the lakes to get ahead of the organized tours and larger crowds, etc.  They took trains then rented a car, IIRC, at Zagreb?  Parking in some of their destinations was a problem but their lodging places helped them with getting that figured out.  They started in Italy as my daughter had been there for school, then to Munich, then through a couple of stops in Austria and Slovenia before driving in Croatia.  Not all of the countries are in Schengen/Euro Union so there were some border crossings which were time consuming but not too much trouble.

Adding, tons of history and the areas were beautiful.

Been to Dubrovnik, I’ll just give a big +1 to the other comments.  I really want to go back.  Maybe HS Produkt does factory tours.  

I also liked Italy a lot, even on garbage strike days.

Honestly most of Mediterranean Europe was enjoyable to me.  Felt a lot more, I dunno, human?  Even the touristy crap.  Especially compared to the touristy crap in the US.

...

We went ALL over and had very few issues. Lots of Brits hit the area and English is a language offered in most schooling. Signs were in English in most places too.

Only had it at a couple of local restaurants. There would be only 1 or 2 employees that spoke English. Translate apps were awesome for the times we didn't ask for an English menu or if they didn't have one.

The local convenience stores was almost no English though. If you were in a touristy area, you were fine. We found a lot of local wanted to practice there English with you.

Older people seemed to not speak or know any English while the younger ones were definitely the dominant group for speaking English. Their Spanish speaking was not big either but German was fairly dominant.

Only jerk we encountered was a German...... a tourist that needed a good butt kicking for stealing my wife's chair.

ETA- Funny story... On the way to leave out of the airport, we had to get detoured on the main highway due to an accident. Small town and classic little homes and small streets. Torrential rain and lightning storm that was quite impressive. Stop at a gas station and the wife needed to use the bathroom. I got the translate app and was trying to use it when he said he spoke English. He moved back to Croatia a year ago and lived about 1/2 mile from us in the US.

I'd love to spend a week in Bosnia to see how different Mostar, Sarajevo, and Tuzla look compared to the last time I was there.  If I ever get my catamaran Dubrovnik is on my short list of stops in the Med.

@uv18
that’s an awesome story! Thanks for the details on that. I hate going places overseas where I don’t at least have a few phrases and basic stuff I can try to communicate in and hate to be the stereotypical American tourist who just expects everyone to speak English, but it’s nice to know it’s navigable with minimal foreign language skills. Thanks again.

Perhaps you could even make time to stop by and visit HS Produkt ?

It's been a cruise destination for years now with carnival and Norwegian. Also, it's seen increased volume ever since game of thrones was filmed there.

Why is it you cannot go into the water and some of the places there? I heard most of the beaches there have topless German tourists,  is that true?

In the tourist areas like Dubrovnik, Split, etc they all speak English.  Outside that, no.  A lot of the signs have English so you start to pick up words pretty easily.

Was there last September for 2.5 weeks.  No need to have a car in Dubrovnik or Split and I did some island hopping to Mljet and Hvar where a car would have been a hassle.  Rented a car the last week to go to plitvice national park and explore a little of istria.  Tons of tourists (more than hawaii) but I didn't feel like it was too much of a hassle and I don't like crowds.  Safe country, saw absolutely no signs of theft and you pay after you pump your gas.  Roads are excellent, I believe due to the soil although parking sucks as the tourist areas seem to have treated it as an unwanted afterthought.   They really go after tourist dollars which has pluses and minuses.  Was easy to rent a bike in a lot of places to cover more ground.  Air was pretty hot but ocean was cool which was refreshing and lots of interesting sea life, kind of surprising.  I found price to value was a bit varied in terms of everything - you can get great meals, places to stay for cheap but it's kind of a roll of the dice.  Everyone has a rental, even out in the sticks.

Some of the people are friendly, some are not.  I can imagine dealing with so many clueless tourists as part of your daily grind to earn a living can't be fun so the unfriendly didn't bother me.  Can't drink the water, and they don't have water fountains anywhere.  Food is pretty good, excellent seafood and if you stay in the sticks at a hunting lodge they'll have local trout and game, including bear.  Load up on cheese and honey, it's everywhere and excellent.

The flying was probably the worst aspect of it.  There the crowds got to me and it's a long grind from hawaii.  European airlines quite possibly suck more than American carriers, and that's saying a lot.  Make sure you have a big enough layover wherever you fly into Europe, because you will have issues especially at frankfurt.

I love Croatia and frequently work near Trogir. Its safe, affordable, the food is good, and the beer is fantastic.

Just go. You'll have a nice time.

BTDT.

Get a rental car and drive around to the nice cities. We ferried over from Venice to Rovinj, got cars and drove to Split, Plitvice, ferry to Hvar, Dubrovnik and a bunch of small towns in between it all. It was an awesome trip. Country people don't speak much English.

Hide yo kidneys, bruh !

No sand beaches there, it's quite rocky and what constitutes a beach is usually a ladder for access.  Yes, there are some topless women in thongs there, not that I noticed .  There are some beaches that are small rocks which  can be more of a pain to navigate as they can be sharp.  But having a dive mask was great as I saw a lot of very cool critters in the water.  Ladder access can be slippery and you notice they don't have a large population of lawyers so you don't see all the safety stuff you see in the nanny state here.

The number of girls traveling there to get their perfect Instagram shots is very large.  I noticed a couple posing one morning, took the tour of the walls of Dubrovnik and came out probably an hour and a half later and they were still there working on their poses.  Just packs and packs of college age to 40 something women there, I guess from tv and movies.  I don't have tv so I didn't have any notions of the place aside from a few pictures.

Good place to go, but I feel they aren't reinvesting in some of their attractions and not preserving them as well as they could.  Venice and Italy in general is much better in this regard, but I found the country a good balance between cultural attractions and outdoor activities.  Not as relaxing as my previous trip to Greece in 2019, but still good.

It's beautiful. I never thought I would end up drinking with a Priest, but when Niko Moric as our host, we experienced Croatia from a native's perspective.

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I call it Italy East.
Good beach vacation.
A lot of locals speak English.
Good seafood.
Dubrovnik is a great medieval walled city.

Interesting timing of this thread...

I'll be in the Northern part for ~26 days in May. Then traveling to Zagreb, eye of God, split etc.

First time going, so this thread is useful!