Croatia Complete Guide 2026: Dubrovnik, Plitvice, Split, Hvar, Zagreb and Istria
Browse more guides: Croatia travel | Europe destinations Croatia Complete Guide 2026: Dubrovnik, Plitvice, Split, Hvar, Zagreb and Istria TL;DR Croatia is the country I keep returning to whenever I want the Mediterranean to feel slightly less crowded, a little more honest, and a great deal kinder to my wallet than Italy or southern France. It is a long, narrow ribbon of limestone and pine running down the Adriatic, with more than a thousand islands floating off the coast and a forested, lake-stitched interior that most beach travellers never even glance at. The country joined the Schengen Area on 1 January 2023 and adopted the euro on the same day, which means the old kuna is gone, border crossings into Italy, Slovenia, and Hungary are now smooth, and there is one currency to think about for an entire central European route. For a 2026 traveller, this is a country that has quietly become one of the easiest in Europe to plan. The headline acts are well known. Dubrovnik, with its 1...