I have received so many positive feedback about Croatia that it couldn’t miss in our list of places to visit.
Croatia. Better to see the north or the south?

On the paper seems like a cheap country to visit, well it wasn’t. It might be cheaper being on the north side, but not in the south, especially in the biggest cities. Prices are quite high, getting food or eating in a restaurant would be minimum 20-25 euro. If you are a bag packer, that is crossing half of Europe, you just can’t. It might be a cool option to rent a car there, but we used the public transports and ferries to move around, so we were limited to stay in the main cities.
Internet says that musical festivals and clubs should be great there; we have seen few, but probably you would get the best in Pag and in Novalja, it would be quite similar to Ibiza.
Other side of the coin, in the south, sea and landscapes are absolutely beautiful. Everything is white, blue and green, the water is really clean and you can see the bottom of the sea from everywhere on the surface.

How to get there? In Split there is a small airport, you can catch a flight from there, or travel as we did from Zagreb or Plitvice lakes. Split and Hvar are well-connected through public ferries, the service is good and it has been similar to get a train. Both the cities are on the sea, although in Hvar the sea is cleaner and the beaches more beautiful. Split is more historical, the city has more shops, markets and shopping areas. I liked more Hvar, but is just a matter of preferences, I love sea and I love summer.
Restaurants and touristy spots are expensive, but we had the possibility to try few different water sports. You can do snorkeling, get a boat (and actually drive it), get a jet-ski, a pedal-boat or a kayak. There should also be a thing called party boat, if you able to find it. Everything has a decent price and you don’t need any special driver license to get it. We decided to try the kayak on our second day in Hvar, it was about 70 kunas, which is 10 euro. Have you ever tried one? It is cool, you see the beaches around the coast and the secret spots on the island.
On our third day we got the boat. Still quite cheap, it was 10 euro for each and I have to say that It has been interesting. Thanks to it, we were able to see all the Pakleni islands, and to reach all the beaches, be aware that few of them are for nudist only. We stopped in every small villages, and well, at the end of the day, we survived! If you don’t know it yet, I was born with 0 points in luck and apparently 20+ in adventure, that’s the only reason why, in the middle of the afternoon, we got stacked in front of a completely desert beach. It was impossible to free the anchor from the rocks, so we called the guys from the renting shop that in 20 minutes or so, came to help us. It took literally 5 minutes to them to free the boat, and we were on our way to become pirates again!
What about night life? In Hvar we saw few bars, but they were all closing around 1 or 2 am when you could get a taxi boat that brings you in Carpe-diem http://www.carpe-diem-hvar.com/, a fancy and expensive nigh club on a nearby island. Around 7 pm everyday you
can get a drink in Hula-hula beach http://www.hulahulahvar.com/ and basically meet tourists from everywhere, already drunk.
How long staying here? At least 5 days, keep it easy and enjoy the summer. We stayed there for a too short time and it was quite sad to leave, even though we were going to see the famous kings landing, the place was really amazing.
Enjoy your summer time!
Federica