The Plitvice Lakes National Park is Croatia’s oldest and largest national park, covering an area of 114 square miles. Fortunately you don’t have to walk all of it to see the highlights!
Spectacular natural beauty
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. On our visits to the park we’ve always been lucky with the weather, clear skies bathing the whole place in sunlight and showing the natural beauty of the park’s lakes, cliffs and waterfalls.
One day or two?
Entrance tickets are either one day (110Kn/$17) or two (180Kn/$27), so the second day is discounted but very few people spend two days in the park—you can see a lot on the 4-hour walk. We offer Plitvice as an overnight destination—allowing you to get an early start ahead of the day-trippers—or if you’re OK with a shorter visit, we also offer excursions to Plitvice from Split and Trogir, either as group or private day trips. The Plitvice area is working hard to encourage longer stays though, with other attractions like the Barac Caves making renewed efforts to encourage visitors and additional activities being offered, such as kayaking and biking. If some “active relaxation” appeals, Plitvice is a fantastic place to do it.
Skip the lines
Staying in the area will help you skip the lines—both into the area and for the car park and ticket office. Tickets can’t be bought online, so you need to get one before you go. We made the mistake of standing in line for a solid 20 minutes or so for the main ticket desk at car park #2, but when we walked down to the entrance we found no lines at all at the ticket desk there.
Take water and snacks
There are very limited opportunities to buy drinks and refreshment in the park itself (usually at one or other end of the various boat or road-train routes), so make sure you’ve packed some water and some fruit or an energy bar.
Pick a route
Depending on how much time you want to spend walking, what you want to see and where you start from, there are various marked routes you can take. The shortest will take you 2-3 hours, the longest a whole day. Most popular are routes B and F (essentially the same route, just starting at entrance 1 and 2, respectively). This route entails a 3-4 hour walk with a bus and boat ride to cover some ground more quickly.
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Plitvička Jezera, Croatia
Charlie is head of marketing at JayWay Travel. A long-term Prague resident, his interests are cooking, eating out, cycling, skiing and of course, travel.