Thanks dugi. With your latest iteration, are you suggesting more time in Rovinj, and only sleep time in Zadar? It appears so.

Your Croatia 9/18 day drive to Rovinj via ZADAR, REACH Rovinj late evening is all but impossible without a helicopter. With my proposal you will see some of Zadar.

Your decision to drop Sarajevo allows you to tour Mostar on 9/12. Then on 9/13 you pick up a 1/2 + days for visiting Split.Then on 9/16 you can visit more Split, day trip to another island(Brac or Korcula), or do a day trip to krka and sibenik.If you do krka/Sibenik on 9/16 then 9/17 would be:

9/17 am-leave for Zadar. 3/4 day to tour Zadar. ZADAR

The bottom line is that all your nights are reserved, but you will still have a lot of flexibility with your day activities. The decision to keep the car was a good one and it allows all these options.No need to take the car on the island visits.

Thanks dugi. good ideas. As for Car, returning car has produced some negative surprises at the last minute for us, specially in this area, except in Slovenia last year, where we returned car with Sixt at Maribor bus station relatively smoothly. So we will probably try to dump the car right after reaching Zagreb instead of waiting before flight. But the finer details still need to be worked out, like finding location near to our possible Air BNB property, unloading the luggage before that etc. Expecting fun, not!

Dropping off luggage at an Air BNB property can be more complicated than dropping off at a hotel. Each country and each car rental company has its own quirks to deal with. So it does need the attention to detail that you are giving it. Make it all fun!