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Getting there
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By air
If the last six months are anything to go by, flights to Croatia are set to fall quite rapidly. Since the demand to go there hasn’t anywhere reached its peak it doesn’t seem there will be any let-up in this trend. However, if you want to get a cheap flight to Croatia now, you will have to shop around a bit. The quality airlines’ scheduled flights tend to be relatively expensive and the destinations of the budget airlines, such as Ryanair, tend to be limited, so our advice is to first consult the Internet sites dedicated to searching for budget flights. Some of their special offers are actually scheduled flights from one of the big names - so you can find yourself on a regular Croatia Airlines flight and be sitting next to someone who has paid twice as much! We’re not saying this will work every time, but it’s certainly worth a try.
We think one of the best places to search for flights is Sky Scanner, which, unlike most flight search engines, features the budget airlines as well as the more expensive carriers.
The Airlines:
New carriers to Croatia are coming in all the time and the Airlines change their flight schedules periodically (always for the better), so we advise you to consult the Internet regularly to keep apace of the situation. We will try to publish the most up-to-date information as we receive it.
- British Airways have just added an extra flight to Zagreb, making four returns a week. From March 2004 British Airways will commence flights from London Gatwick to Dubrovnik.
- Croatia Airlines offer flights from London or Manchester to Pula, Split, Zagreb and Dubrovnik.
- Ryanair are the cheapest carrier at the moment but with only one direct flight to Croatia, which is from London Stansted to Zadar. They do flights to Ancona and Trieste in Italy from where there are a number of possibilities: from Ancona you can catch a ferry to Split, and from Trieste you can hire a car and cross over the short distance into Croatia.
Airports:
Getting to Croatia from Italy by ferry - Ancona onwards
- Jadrolinija Goes to Split, Hvar, Brbinj and Zadar
- SNAV and Sanmar go to Split (Ryanair flight to Ancona lands so late (21:35) that you can't make the overnight ferries to Croatia, which tend to leave at 22:00 or early in the mornings.)
- Hydrofoil goes to Zadar. The taxi from the airport to Ancona/dock costs £30.00 and takes 20 minutes so try and share or, better yet, catch the bus (35 minutes). No left luggage at Ancona airport but good free facility at the Dock.
- Pescara onwards
- SNAV and Sanmar go to Hvar, Korcula, Brac and Latovo.
Ryanair flight to Pescara arrives 15:30, which means that you won't make the catamaran which departs at 16:00 and cost 88.65 euros - meaning an overnight stay in Italy.
You can take a train up to Ancona (about 1 hour) and an overnight ferry to Split, then a ferry to the island of your choice.
For the return journey the catamarans arrive in Pescara between 13:30 and 14:10, in time for the Pescara Stansted flight, which departs at 15:55.
Hopefully for the 2004 season Ryanair arrival times will change.
- Venice onwards
- Venezia Lines goes to Rovinj, Porec, Pula and Rabac. High-speed passenger service from Italy to Croatia (no cars). Email info@bosmeretravel.co.uk Tel + 44 (0) 1473 834094.
Bus Services
Bus services in Croatia are superb, with buses running from early in the morning to very late at night. If you don’t have a bus timetable most bus drivers will speak very good English and will probably point you in the right direction.
Trains
It must be remembered that very few coastal destinations in Croatia are accessible by train, it being nearly all mountainous. However, from these few destinations it should be possible to arrange alternative transport, such as hire car, bus, bike, etc., to get to other parts of the coast.
Car hire
Find out about car hire in Croatia on our Driving in Croatia page.
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