Zadar Day Trips

Zadar is unusually well placed for inland trips, which is the half of the region most coastal visitors miss. Plitvice, the lake and waterfall system inscribed by UNESCO, is around 130 kilometres away and back comfortably in a day. Krka is closer, roughly an hour south, and its falls at Skradinski buk are the ones you can reach on a boardwalk. Paklenica, at the foot of the Velebit, is the closest national park of all at about forty five minutes and is the one for walking and climbing rather than looking. The Zrmanja canyon carries the rafting and kayaking trips through water that turns an improbable green in early summer.

Closer to home the trips are smaller. Nin has the sandy lagoon, the salt pans and the church of the Holy Cross, twenty five minutes north west. Sibenik, an hour south, holds the stone cathedral of St James and a hill fortress above the old town.

Agencies on the Riva and the peninsula sell all of these with hotel pickup, and the coach trips are usually cheaper than driving once fuel, the A1 motorway toll and parking are counted. National park entry is charged on top of most tour prices, and Plitvice in particular operates timed entry that sells out in high summer, so it is the one to book first.