Add Croatia to your RTW trip
· Updated · BootsnAll
Round the world tickets tend to skim Europe, on the reasonable grounds that Europe is where a long trip's budget goes to die. Croatia is the exception worth building in, and it has got markedly easier to travel in since we first said so.
Three changes that removed the friction
Croatia joined the Schengen area on 1 January 2023. Arriving from almost anywhere else in Europe now involves no border control, and your Schengen days count here the same as in France.
It adopted the euro on the same date. The kuna is gone, and so is the business of changing money twice on a Balkan loop.
And the Pelješac Bridge opened in July 2022, linking southern Dalmatia to the rest of the country by road. The Split to Dubrovnik bus no longer crosses into Bosnia and out again, which used to add two border checks and an unpredictable amount of time.
Why it suits a long trip specifically
It costs less than western Europe. Not the bargain it was in 2007, but noticeably cheaper than Italy across the water, particularly outside July and August.
It is a hub for overland travel. This is the real argument. From Zagreb you reach Ljubljana, Budapest, Vienna, Belgrade and Sarajevo by land. From Dubrovnik, Montenegro is a short hop. From Split and Dubrovnik, overnight ferries cross to Ancona and Bari in Italy.
On a round the world ticket your flights are finite and your ground time is not, so a country with this many land and sea exits is worth more than its own attractions.
It rewards going slowly. Island hopping down the Dalmatian coast by ferry, Zadar to Split to Hvar to Korcula to Dubrovnik, is cheap, unhurried and one of the better slow journeys in Europe. A two week holiday cannot really do it. A long trip can.
Fitting it to the ticket
Zagreb has the best year-round air service and is the safest bet on a multi-stop fare. Split and Dubrovnik have huge summer schedules and much thinner winter ones, so check your actual dates.
A route that works well: fly into Zagreb, go overland or by ferry down the coast over two or three weeks, and leave by ship to Italy rather than by air. That gets you two countries out of one flight.
When
May, June, September and early October. The weather is good, the ferries are running, and the crowds that now define August on this coast have not arrived or have gone.
August in Dalmatia is genuinely difficult: full boats, full towns and prices to match. If your trip is long enough to choose, choose either side of it.
Where to go once you are there
Everyone does Dubrovnik, Split and Hvar. They are busy for good reasons and they are busy.
The quieter version: Vis, which was a military island closed to visitors until 1989 and is still relatively undeveloped. Lastovo, further out again. The Kornati archipelago, which is a national park of bare white islands. And the interior, which since Croatia was declared free of landmine-suspected areas on 1 March 2026 is fully open for the first time in a generation.