I'm extremely interested in spending 5 or so days in this country exploring it's major cities and beautiful coast lines. What's the easiest way to travel from city to city? Are there rail lines?

I think it would be a great add-on to another two weeks spent in Italy.

There is a rail system, which would probably be easiest.

This is the train company, but the website is in croatian.
http://www.hznet.hr/

This website looks like it can help
http://www.croatiatraveller.com/Transport/train.htm

I was just looking into this. To get to Dubrovnik you have to take a bus from Split but you can also check out www.eurorail.com just like you would other European countries

There are no trains to Dubrovnik, you have to take a bus. I spent 3 nights in an apartment in Dubrovnik in June, and I really enjoyed it. We were inside the city walls, within 100 m from a "beach" and had our own kitchen/patio. It is more pricey (at least Dubrovnik). FWIW, we caught a bus from Mostar, Bosnia and then onto Montenegro from Dubrovnik by bus.

Time to travel in Croatia takes some time, roads are curvy along the coast and can take some time....so 5 days would not give you all that much time if you wanted to see that much. Where would you be coming from/going to after?

also, there are budget airlines to Dubrovnik, as well as ferries, but I dont know about those.

I believe the European discount airlines fly into Dubrovnik then you take the bus to the city.

You have to figure out the trip backwards to see what initial city you should fly into from the states.

Yes, the budget carries fly to Croatia, it is a budget tourist destination for people here, similar to Turkey or Romania.

That being said, if you do go by plane, you will have to check the baggage limits very carefully or it will get really expensive. As I told the guy wanting to go to Morocco from Portugal, small airlines offer cheap prices here, but they also have a lot of restrictions, some dont allow carryon luggage, most only allow one piece of checked baggage and weight limits wont be anything like your transatlantic flight.

So dont pack heavy if you want to fly to Croatia.

Usually Frankfurt and Charles De Gaulle are the cheapest airports in continental europe, maybe Madrid is cheaper but its also a lot farther away, Ive never considered it.

Amsterdam Schipol is also cheap, Brussels is okay, but connections are an issue.

Check budget carriers

Air Berlin
Ryan Air
Germanwings
TUI

Im not checking them, but I know at least 3 of those fly out of Stuttgart and maybe some of them out of Frankfurt.

http://www.flycheapo.com/flights/dubrovnik

a list of all budget airlines/destinations that fly to Dubrovnik

fwiw, we have no idea what the OP is even planning or where he is even coming from yet...more details are needed from OP

Well after a bit more research, the front-runner plan is basically an Adriatic cruise departing from Venice, stopping in Dubrovnik, and going all the way to Istanbul. This appears to be a ~10 day affair. We're afraid we'd have trouble existing solely in a Slavic country for a week by ourselves, and this would be a logistically simple way to visit 4 different counties. In addition to that, we could easily tag a few days on the front end visiting somewhere in Italy.

What's the window of months where you'd want to visit that part of the world? Is there a cold winter that would make it less than ideal? I'd probably want to be enjoying the water and beaches over there.

Surviving in a slavic country for 10 days? Its not a problem....I spent roughly 3 weeks and dont speak any of the languages over there and had no issue. The food may get to you first, as it is mostly grilled meat, which is good for the first couple of days, then you want something more. But surviving is not an issue at all.

And I was there in early June, it was mostly in the low 80s and we could get in the water. Granted, the water is chilly, but once you get in for a minute, you can get over it. I am sure you could do the same in late may, but any before then maybe questionable, but I am not an expert by any means.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovnik#Climate

Wiki has a thing called Climate for almost any city in the world.

Typical Mediterranean climate, somewhat warm for European standards in the summer, but not Texas hot, and then mild in the winter.

My wife said that she was there about 15 years ago and the road from Split to Dubrovnik had no rail on the Adriatic side of the road and was only about 1.5 cars wide, she saw more than one car half way down the several 100 meter (yard) cliffs. She suggested not driving yourself under any circumstances, also you have to be cautious of car thieves, most rental companies wont allow you to drive a car from Italy, Austria or Germany to Croatia, Serbia or Bosnia.

I dont think that you would have to worry that much about it being a Slavic place, you just dont need to draw attention to yourselves, which is a learned practice. I figure there is no issue as long as you are quiet, dont speak English around groups of strangers and dont act outlandish. I was at the grocery store the other day and there was a group of 2 Americans and 1 brit behind me in line, I almost turned around and asked them if they felt the need to speak with the entire store, or if it would be sufficient to speak with each other, you couldnt miss hearing them no matter where you were in the store. Most of the time that isnt really a problem, its just annoying, but it does draw sometimes unwanted attention to yourselves.

Turkey will be the same in that regard and they will want you to buy whatever crap that they have at their stand in the bazaar (just firmly say no and keep walking), you just need to watch out for groups of children (pickpockets), dont draw attention to yourself with your voice level or expensive things like jewelry or cameras etc.

Also since I guess it was defroach that had a good thread recounting his trip to Croatia/Bosnia etc Id go ahead and dig that up.

Here you go, it was a good read.
http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?forum_id=54&topic_id=1435544

Oh my, after a wee bit more googling this morning, I've come across what appears to be a perfect itinerary for us. Our main goal was to see Croatia's 4 or 5 main coastal towns. Check this out http://www.uniqueworldcruises.com/arion/venice_adriatic07.html and it's pretty affordable! The website's a little dodgy though as I can't even confirm if dates are for 2009/10, and if you find their link to 2010 travel this Adriatic cruise isn't listed. I will call them to clear it up because it looks very promising.

Thanks for the link, Randy. Will read it now.

I LOVE Istanbul

We were there in April and it was definitely chilly but the tulips were all in bloom. Absolutely stunning

[This message has been edited by Mrs. 96CH53 (edited 11/23/2009 9:05a).]

Many of the websites are trying to sell rooms on this ship called MS Arion. It's a medium sized cruise ship, holding ~320 passengers. I haven't read any reviews on it yet, but it looks like it would just be okay and not super romantic. All the meals and midnight snacks are included though which just makes all that more affordable. Frankly I'd like to find a better ship though.

Another option is to charter a yacht which is probably $2000 more total. It would certainly be more romantic, but I'm not sure if we'd feel cramped on a 100 foot boat with however many couples.

My dream vessel & itinerary is listed on a website called jauntee. It disembarks from Nice in the French Riviera, travels down and around Italy stopping in the Amalfi Coast (another place I dream of), visiting two ports in Croatia but NOT my desired ones (Dubrovnik and Pula) and ends in Venice. It would be like $11,000 total though after airfare :-(

These are most of the options I've found so far.

These people offer the French Riviera to Adriatic cruise as well as some good strictly Adriatic options:http://www.jauntee.com/cruises.html
I believe we'd be on the MS Monet for this trip:http://www.elegantcruises.com/Adriatic-cruises.shtml
This looks like a more romantic boat possibly:http://www.skardacruise.com/
MS Arion again...http://www.affordabletours.com/search/tours/23279/
MS Arion again...http://www.uniqueworldcruises.com/arion/venice_adriatic07.html
This is the private yacht charter:http://www.adriatic-cruise.com/

FWIW, the road in Croatia is a lot better than a previous poster described it as. Its an easy 2 lane highway, with traffic of course. It wouldnt be too bad driving it though. As far as rental cars, I believe you are good taking cars into Croatia now from other parts of Europe.

Randy, thanks for linking that, I had lost the link of it so that helps me out.

Its good that I linked it yesterday, Gabe gave me free stars for like 2 weeks, but they got taken away today.

Sorry to bring back a really old thread, but I have some miles burning a hole in my pocket and was thinking about the following:

Flying DFW to Venice somehow (need to go back and forth with AAdvantage reservations on this)
Spend some time in Venice
6-8 days driving from Venice, down the coast of Croatia and ending up at Dubrovnik
Ferry from Dubrovnik to Italy
Spend some time in Rome, fly back from there

12-14 days in total. What do you guys think?

Actually, with miles it looks like it'd be easier to fly into Rome and grab a cheap flight to Trieste and rent the car and drive from there and out of Rome. I'd miss Venice, but don't really mind that too much.

If you call up AA, you can get anywhere in East Europe with your miles for the same as Western Europe. I flew into Sarajevo for the same as London. You will just be using Malev Hungarian.

If you want to fly into Zagreb, it can be done with a phone call to them. Their website only lists AA only flights, and not partner airlines.

Phone call to AA that is, not Malev

did exp ever go? i've been looking at croatia lately and hadn't considered trying a cruise

If you have any sort of adventuresome spirit, I wouldn’t limit my visit to Croatia by taking a cruise.

In July 2008, we drove from Vienna to Belgrade, Serbia then took the train from Belgrade, Serbia to Zagreb, Croatia. We rented a car in Zagreb and drove to Split through beautiful pine forests, stopping for a swim at Krka National Park, a beautiful little park with cascading water falls. We spent two days in Split enjoying the old city. We then took a bus ride down the coast to catch the ferry to Korcula, one of the coastal islands. (We thought the ferry terminal would be very visible from the highway and because all of the signage is in the Kryllic alphabet, we missed our stop. 5 miles down the road we realized our mistake, asked the bus driver to stop and pedaled out bicycles furiously back to the ferry terminal just in time to catch the ferry, but that’s another story!)

We just loved the time we spent in Croatia. We did some cycling on Korkula, took a boat to Mjet to visit a beautiful monastery set in the middle of a lake, cycled around the lake, hung out in old Korcula town, rented mopeds, listened to bluegrass music, dined outside, swam, etc. It was one of the most relaxing vacations we have had. We sat and shared homemade wine with an old couple from whom we rented a room one night. Although they couldn’t speak more than a couple of words of English, they were very generous. Croatia is prospering and the people are generally very happy and welcoming. If we had more time, we would have loved to have taken the ferries to some of the other islands. The ferry schedule to most islands was not on a daily basis which made it harder to plan.

Just a note, they warn against hiking or walking off the roads as there are apparently still many unexploded mines. There are still reminders of the conflicts and if we had more time, we would have liked to have traveled to some of the small villages off the beaten path. Croatia is a beautiful country.

Some of our other family members drove from Belgrade to Vienna via Slovenia. They said Slovenia was absolutely beautiful, similar to what Switzerland was like approximately 40 years ago. As much as Serbia was interesting, it was the first country we have visited where we felt something close to animosity toward Americans(or at least hatred directed toward Bill Clinton). We met some lovely people but we were not entirely comfortable there. That was not the case in Croatia.

Also, we flew from Split to Vienna on one of their local carriers.

[This message has been edited by Riverdancer (edited 7/1/2011 10:25a).]

Hrm I never had any problems in Serbia with dislike of Americans. Of course I speak in German or Serbian when Im there, so there is less issues with getting "outed" as an American.

Serbians in general dont like Bosnians or Albanians and maybe a small historical issue with Turks (all Muslims), but Americans .. thats new to me.

[This message has been edited by Randy03 (edited 7/1/2011 2:18a).]

I have never felt as liked outside the US as I did in Albania....

I can see why Serbs wouldn't like Americans, but I have never had any outright hate shown anywhere. Most people can differentiate between Politics and the people of a country. If you don't tall politics, you'll likely not face any issue. Just my take...

Tall=talk...to lazy to get off the mobile texags to change it.

So if I fly into Zagreb and want to drive down to Dubrovnik, is it worth it to keep going through Albania to Macedonia?

I figure if I go that far I might as well go all the way to Athens.

Good luck with Albania. Montenegro is worth it. Albania is just a pain in the ass to get to. Again, look at my thread that was linked earlier in this thread.

In Montenegro, you have Kotor, Budva, Svet S...something, and that temple in the mountain. You can spend a coupe days there and be good.

Albania requires some initiative to get to. It's either 3 crappy buses from Montenegro, or paying a tour bus to illegally give you a one way ticket. It's an interesting place though...te people are incredible nice and there is decent nightlife in Tirana.

If Macedonia bordered Croatia, I would say go. But to get there, you'll likely have to do Albania or go way out of your way. I liked the place, but with your time frame, probably not worth it.

If you are talking about renting a car and driving from Croatia to Athens and leaving it in Athens, I'm 99% sure they won't allow it. I mapped it out on how to do it by public transport (was my original plan for this trip).

dubrovnik is nice, but i would hit up hvar for most of your time. i have been to croatia 5 times for a total of 7 weeks since the war ended and hvar is by far the most fun.

island mljet is also great, very low key, not too touristy and absolutely stunning. definitely look into renting a car. it will make everything much easier.

if you decide to go, post here and i will tell you what i think is worth doing/seeing.

fyi... jadrolinija sails between ancona, italy and split, croatia...possibly even dubrovnik.

For the life of me I can't find a reward ticket until October...when I can't go.

They could get me there, DFW-Chicago-London-Budapest-Zagreb, but couldn't find an award seat for the way back. Boo.

Try flying out of Sarejevo. It honestly is a beautiful country and go through Mostar.

When I used the miles, I had AUS-Chicago-Boston (night+day layover, went to a red sox game) - London - Budapest - Sarejevo.