From Zadar, our route south followed a series of picturesque coastal towns around Split, a detour across to the  very popular island of Hvar, a wonderfully secluded little beach camp in Duba, before culminating in that most iconic of all Croatian coastal cities, Dubrovnik. It’s a coastline with a LOT to see ( this did take us a bit more than a week – 10 days in fact ).

South of Zadar, en route to Split, lie two other Dalmatian coast gems – Primosten and Trogir.  We spent more time at historic Trogir, and stayed the night, finding a beautiful park up spot right by a nearby beach. Such gems are exceedingly hard to find in Croatia given its draconian rules on wild camping ( for travellers coming here with a campervan I’ve provided some candid information in the addendum to this blog- worth reviewing before you come! ).

The coast south of Split includes some of the Croatia’s most desirable islands – Brac, Korcula and Hvar just to name a few. They’re all scenic and historic and probably more the domain of the ultra rich but since we were as close as we were ever going to be we decided to put our rig on a ferry and pop on over. Hvar was the choice, and then only because we were closest to it – while the old town is one of the nicest on the coast, it was especially crowded, the roads were incredibly narrow and much of Hvar island, save for the old town in Hvar town itself, is not particularly scenic. Interesting though, to wander the backstreets of the old town and the waterfront marina to check out how the top 0.1% live – there were some incredible motor yachts docked there ( one 70m long ! ). Its impressive old castle affords stunning views over the old town and out to the smaller islands offshore.

Needless to say, we were not long on Hvar and soon left. Continuing on down the coast, we stumbled upon what for us was a real diamond in the rough. A beautiful little secluded, rustic campground, right on the beach, near the town of Duba, away from the crowds and main road, and with all the facilities we needed. For the most part, there were just six of us camping there and we spent a wonderful few days, relaxing and simply winding down – the beach just metres from our van. This we need to do more often !

Freshly rested, we prepared for the final coastal assault in Croatia – Dubrovnik. As mentioned, unquestionably its best known coastal landmark and justly so, its famously walled old town attracts visitors from all over the world. For obvious reasons, they’ve struggled with tourism overload so we didn’t even pretend that we were likely to park anywhere nearby. Instead, we parked outside the city and just walked in for the day. It was a stunningly beautiful day as can be seen from the pics below.

With Dubrovnik’s sights completed, it was a wrap for Croatia. Only about 30kms further south lies Montenegro, a place we loved before and one we were excited to return to. In our minds Montenegro ( which we passed through on our first 3 months in Europe ), was the point from which we started heading north to Amsterdam. Getting back to Montenegro then, was really just picking up from where we left off in May.

Till next week……

In Case You Wondered:

Q: How do you fill propane/lpg tanks given that fittings are different all over the world ?

A: Fortunately we don’t have this issue as we do not use propane anywhere in the vehicle. We use a diesel heater and an induction cooktop and love both.  Propane tanks are a headache to fill on the road and a nightmare when it comes to shipping ( which we discovered in South America – we had a propane tank in our truck camper ). It’s also very flammable. More and more people are foregoing propane. For a camping stove the standard butane cylinders work well, are cheap, disposable, and can be bought everywhere in the world. We carry a couple (as backup only) with a small stove that we have.

If You Take A Van To Croatia

This is a little side note that will be of interest and relevance only to those travelling to Croatia ( and Slovenia ) with a van/RV/motorhome.

We had been warned about Slovenia and Croatia prior to our arrival in these two countries but didn’t believe the stories until until we saw it for ourselves, The hard truth is that these two countries are probably the worst in Europe for travelling with your own rig. They hate people in campervans ( they figure that the Croatian tourism industry is not benefitting sufficiently from them since campers typically don’t stay in hotels, nor eat regularly at expensive restaurants). They make parking very difficult, in some cases, impossible, and always charge punitive premiums for vans versus regular cars, applying differentials that simply defy any logical explanation. There seems to be a national crackdown on parking and any larger vehicles are particular targets. The fines are heavy and it is a “take no prisoner” approach.

Take a look at the picture below as an example. We pulled up behind a German couple on a scenic roadside pull out just south of Split and planned to have lunch there and enjoy the view.. Then we noticed a parking sign just behind us, indicating €2 per hour for a car and, wait for it, I kid you not, €50 per hour for camper vans.!!! Yep, 25 TIMES THE CAR PRICE ! Needless to say we quickly moved on, as did our German friends. This would have been free anywhere else in the world. It was but one example. In many places, campervans were prohibited from parking at all. One Just did not feel very welcome in this country.

Costs at attractions were another irritant in Croatia ( and totally out of whack with costs we saw in other countries in Europe). We paid €40 each and €17 to park at Plitvice ( that’s €97, or $US115. By way of comparison ( and to put the cost into an international perspective), you can get an Annual US National Parks pass for $80 which allows you entry to every national park in the United States and includes everyone that is in your vehicle. Invariably no parking charges. That’s considerably less than we paid to get just two of us and our van into Plitvice National Park in Croatia .

It gets worse – they asked €40 per person just to walk the walls of Dubrovnik ( and understandably got very few takers ). The prices for these types of things in Croatia were just next level and bore no relation to pricing for other comparable attractions in Europe. And yes, lots of folks complained about this as well !

Considering the extortionate fees for the Plitvice Lakes NP visit, the Dubrovnik wall-walk fee and some periodic less-than-friendly attitudes that we encountered, you could say this was just not our favourite place – easily could have been, and should have been….. but wasn’t. Everyone with a camping vehicle that we spoke to said the same thing and no one could figure why the attitude to campervans was so harsh and different to everywhere else in Europe. Hopefully that may change.