Driving in Croatia

Hello,buddd
We were in Croatia last March for three weeks and loved every minute of the trip!
After 5 days in Zagreb, we picked up our rental car at a downtown hotel and drove through Bosnia to Dubrovnik. We had the car the remaining time and enjoyed a lot of time driving along the coast and through the mountains. We found it an easier country to drive in than many European countries in which we've driven. We went over to Montenegro for a couple of days, was that gorgeous!
The scenery of Croatia is spectacular, the people delightful. It was a fabulous trip that left us both wanting more.
We always book with autoeurope as we getting consistently good rates and upgrades. We usually select a smaller car as we've just barely gotten through some of the small village streets when touring. We always take full insurance. Several times our car has been damaged when left and we've managed to bruise the mirrors while navigating those narrow streets.
As I said earlier, it's actually very easy to drive in Croatia. The signage was easy to read, drivers very polite, and the roads were great.
If you do drive into Bosnia, they use the Cyrillac alphabet, make sure you get a map with same. I was guessing when drive down the center of that beautiful country. But, I also thrive on getting lost.
Feel free to email me if there's anything else you'd like to ask.
Have a wonderful time!
Cheers!
Gigi

Just returned last night. You will have a wonderful vacation. It's a beautiful vacation destination.

Hi,

driving in croatia is no problem, they are more polite drivers than the french !

We drove from england to luxemburgh, germany, austria then italy and stayed in croatia for 3 weeks, We stayed in the Istra, no problems on roads, maybe more traffic in peak periods. people really friendly. Didn't pass many horse and carts it is a modern country.

topbox

We're planning on touring Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro next May for about 3 weeks. Everyone seems to use AutoEurope but the rates I've been quoted are astronomical....or should I expect to pay $80US/day for a car?? If I rent from AutoEurope, can I drive in all 3 countries and maybe up to B-H if we have enough time? How about ferries in a rental car? Any problems?

Tenderfoot.
A few things may influence your auto price.

1. Are you renting and returning in different countries? That will run the price much higher.

2. Can you drive a manual transmission? An auto is going to cost a lot more.

I am paying about $50 a day in Crotia this Sept. Generally car rental in Europe is just higher then in the US IMHO. AutoEurope usually gives me the best price, but I have never gotten a "deal"

As for your other questions, call AUto Europe or whoever you want to rent from and ask. Advice here is cheap, but also can be useless. (Do you really want to be saying to the rental car company "But the Fodors Board said I could take the car to XYZ"

Croatia is very simple to navigate and drive in. Love it. We would highly recommend driving. What a gorgeous, gorgeous country!

We always use AutoEurope - if you find lower rates elsewhere they'll match. They've done that for us twice. Plus we receive emails from them whenever there are any "deals", which usually means a free upgrade which we take advantage of.

We just got back and I agree with everyone that driving in Croatia is very easy. We rented from Economy Car Rentals through their website. We paid a nominal fee to have the car dropped at a hotel in Dubrovnik and picked up at the Sheraton in Zagreb. It was inexpensive and all super convenient. Have fun!

no problem driving in croatia.

try poland!

We flew into Trieste Italy and rented a car there. No problem taking it into Slovenia or Croatia. It was the most reasonable rate we could find, plus we loved Trieste!

Make sure that you are allowed to take the rental car from Italy to Slovenia and Croatia. Not all companies allow this.

I am currently in Rovinj. The only problem I have had with driving is that I am unsure of the speed limit on secondary roads. It seems to change a lot. Not on the motorways but the smaller roads.
But driving hasn't been a problem except that most cars seem to want to pass me. Not really in an angry way but I assume that I am not going fast enough for them. They don't pounce upon me just politely pass.

It depends on where you are going, what you are doing, and how much time you have. As mentioned, the drop off fee for country to country can be steep, so it is probably best to train or bus into the country and rent there. Roads and driving conditions are fine, but along the coast some of the steep winding roads could be considered difficult to some drivers.

We recently took a 4 day trip from Sarajevo to the Dalmatian coast around Dubrovnik and back. some of the roads were very difficult but that was mostly our fault for choosing secondary routes and you can avoid those.
I would strongly disagree with the observation from another poster that the drivers are "polite." In both BiH and Croatia they are very aggressive and impatient and insist on overtaking in very dangerous spots (i.e. at blind curves).

There's a boat from Venice to Porec, Rovinj and Pula: www.venezialines.com. It doesn't run all year round. But if it fits with your vacation dates, you could pick up a car in Porec or Pula.

We found Croatian drivers no problem at all. Nothing like Vtttraveler describes. (That sounds like Italian drivers.) We were there in later September and the roads were relatively empty.

We may have been a little too sensitive to the bad drivers because we were in a small accident in Sarajevo on our way out of town toward Croatia (rear-ended, not our fault). but the drivers in BiH and Croatia really were bad in many instances--worse than those we have encountered in Italy and even Guatemala. Obviously there were no accidents when people passed on the curves (or we would have a much worse accident to report) but this was due to luck that no one was coming in the opposite direction and to our pulling over whenever possible to let impatient drivers pass safely

Vttraveler. Maybe it was the time of year we were traveling (I just returned home) and where we were. We were mostly on secondary roads around Rovinj. Traffic was very light on most days.
The worst trip was to the Zagreb airport night before last. The wind and rain were awful and I was so glad to finally get to the airport hotel.
But the roads were empty. It was very late.

Sher--the windy mountainous roads were definitely the worst. Even a few really bad drivers can make these stressful. Odds are they won't hit someone head on if they pass at a blind curve and there isn't much traffic, but if there is another car coming....

KEEP YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON AT ALL TIMES. It's a ticketable offense/ revenue maker.lol

We had no problems driving in Croatia. Rented from Hertz, as I recall, in Zagreb.