Ultimate Guide to Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia

Besides, gorgeous beaches and beautiful sunsets, Croatia boasts with breathtaking national parks. With Krka National Park and Plitvice Lakes, being the most popular ones, we had to decide which one to visit on our trip to the country. However, the beauty of Plitvice National Park outbalanced and we had a great day-trip from Zadar on our way to Zagreb.

Why Visit Plitvice Lakes National Park?

Plitvice Lakes National Park or Nacionalni Park Plitvička Jezera in Croatian is the ensemble of 16 named lakes which naturally cascade in each other, creating breathtaking waterfalls. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the biggest and oldest national parks of Croatia offering seven different routes to visit the lake system and four various hiking trails throughout the year.

The infrastructure is well developed in Plitvice park, with well-marked trails, buses to take you to several stations of the park and a boat to take you over the river to continue walking on your tail.

And if you get tired, there are cafes that serve hot and cold beverages and a snack at those stations.

What is forbidden in the Plitvice National Park:

• Tearing away any plants
• Animal feeding
• Swimming
• Leaving garbage
• Walking on the unmarked trails

To make sure you remember the rules, the administration has printed them on the ticket.

What you should wear in Plitvice Lakes National Park:

• Comfortable shoes, but you don’t need any hiking shoes though. I was wearing sneakers and it was just fine. They didn’t even get dirty!
• Bring a jacket or a sweater. Even though we were there in October, the weather was very nice, warm and sunny. But in some areas, it would get chilly.
• If you plan on visiting the park in summer, make sure to take a hat and sunscreen.

Plitvice Lakes entrance fee

Plitvice Lakes National Park entrance fee varies through the season and your age. Children and students benefit from reduced prices during all seasons. For a regular adult ticket in the low season costs 150 180 Kuna per person (as of June 2020). Here, you can get more information about their price packages and guided tours.

How many trails you can do in a day trip

This depends on many things – a time of your arrival, season, number of tourists, and your walking speed. If you are eager to visit everything in a day, you can for sure, but you’ll need to be there right when they open.

The administration there is happy to guide you which trails to take according to how many hours you have to spend here. We had around 5-6 hours on tops and we managed to see parts of both – lower and upper lakes.

How to get to Plitvice Lakes National Park

The location of Plitvice National Park enables visitors to have day trips from various big cities of Croatia. The park is just around 2-2:30 hours ride from Zadar, Zagreb, Split, or Rijeka for instance.

There are many travel companies that organize day tours to those national parks, but it’s perfectly doable on your own. The park has two entrances, one to lower lakes and one to the upper lakes. In case you drive here, there are parking areas on both entrances.

When to Visit Plitvice Lakes

Plitvice Lakes National Park is open all year round. There is no best season to visit it, it all depends on your preferences. Autumn here was gorgeous, and from what I have seen in pictures, the snow-covered park is also worth giving a shot. And here’s your winter guide to Plitvice Lakes in case you are here during this time.

Summer months here see hundreds of thousands of tourists, however, autumn and spring also brings many visitors, but not as much. Most of the trails were not packed and we could wander through them on our own, but in some areas, we got to wait for people to pass by.

How to get that iconic picture of Plitvice Lakes

If you have ever looked at the pictures of Plitvice Lakes on the Internet, you might have seen this picture a lot of times. You can take that kind of pictures and you won’t need a drone either. Here’s hot to get to the spot:

When you enter the park from Entrance I and take an A trail to the big waterfall, look for stairs nearby. Follow them and continue your walk through a small cave until you reach the small hut.

Then go behind the hut and continue your way straight until you reach an asphalt road. Walk another 2-3 minutes and cross the wooden bridge.

Turn right after the bridge and follow the dirt road trail again which will lead you to a viewpoint and voila! Now take your phone or camera and start shooting!