Croatia’s Top 10 Nature Spots (With Video)

Croatia is not only blessed with ancient Mediterranean culture and Dalmatian towns built of gleaming limestone but also with extraordinary nature. Here are ten of my favorite places to enjoy nature in Croatia.

Croatian nature is open to everybody and offers numerous possibilities for recreation, extreme sports, relaxing, sightseeing, and even pitching a tent to sleep outdoors. In addition to the well-known places like Plitvice Lakes National Park or Skradinski Buk in Krka National Park, where more than a million tourists go every year, there are so many other places worth visiting.

Birdwatchers will enjoy huge wetlands and lakes in eastern Croatia; adventure seekers can ride thrilling whitewater on the Zrmanja, Cetina, or other rivers.

Seekers of peace and contemplation can enjoy the silence of remote hikes on Velebit Mountain with magnificent views of the Adriatic Sea and its beautiful islands.

Here are ten of my favorite places to enjoy nature in Croatia: Croatia is not only blessed with ancient Mediterranean culture and Dalmatian towns built of gleaming limestone but also with extraordinary nature.

It is a small country with a beautifully indented, island-speckled coastline and preserved rivers, pristine forests, huge wetlands, and wild mountains in the interior.

Croatia still harbors three big carnivores: the wolf, the bear, and the lynx, as well as a long list of other animals and plants. Croatia boasts more than 15 endemic species of freshwater fish that live in short, isolated, and very diverse rivers with waterfalls and deep canyons. Fauna that lives in several thousand known caves is more than 70% endemic! Croatia is even now home to two UNESCO Global Geoparks!

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Kopački Rit

Kopački Rit is a huge Danube floodplain, with more than 17 hectares of reeds, sedges, and flooded forests. It is home to hundreds of birds, deer, wild boars, otters, and all other European wetland species. Deer rutting in the end of the summer is a truly magnificent display of roaring.

Mljet Island

Mljet Island in the Dubrovnik region is the authentic Mediterranean that once was. It’s an unspoiled oasis of tranquillity that, according to legend, captivated Odysseus for seven years. Mljet is known for its extensive pine forest; thus, it is called green island. One-third of the island is in the national park, where saltwater lakes are the main attractions. Forest and the lakes are in such close contact that some mussels grow on the pine branches that are immersed in the water.

Plitvice Lakes

Plitvice Lakes are unavoidable on any Croatia list. Sixteen big lakes and numerous smaller ones continually fed by springs and streams plunging over magnificent waterfalls make this truly the land of the falling lakes. Kilometers of earthen and wooden plank paths offer intimate glimpses of the national park.

Drava River

The Drava River is a hidden gem of Pannonian, continental Croatia. It is one of the few remaining lowland rivers in Europe, where the river, through never-ending erosion and sedimentation cycles, constantly recreates habitats like steep banks, gravel and sand bars, side-branches, oxbow lakes, and flooded forests.

Mrežnica River

Mrežnica River, with a hundred waterfalls near Karlovac, is just like Plitvice lakes, only stretched to more than 70 kilometers in a forested canyon. This is an oasis of silence where nature reigns and people paddle on the nearly still surface of the green river or swim near the dazzling waterfalls.

Velebit Mountain

Velebit mountain looks like a giant fortress above the northern Adriatic and is both a nature park and a national park. Thousands of hectares of rocky grasslands, forests, and craggy limestone rocks comprise the heart of wilderness where wolves hunt freely. An excellent network of hiking trails offers lifelong possibilities for exploration.

Krupa River

The Krupa River, a tributary of the better-known Zrmanja River, hides extraordinary beauty in only seven kilometers of its course. It is nestled in a vast rocky canyon with giant waterfalls, while the river abounds with endemic fish.

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Lastovo Island

Lastovo Island is located far from the mainland coast. This isolation left many cultural and natural spots preserved. But the true treasures lay below the sea surface. Blue depths of the smaller nearby islands, especially Bijelac and Sušac, are full of colors from red and yellow gorgonian corals, together with huge shoals of fish.

Gorski Kotar

Gorski Kotar is the green heart of Croatia, a forest-clad mountain range with a high density of lynx, wolves, and bears. This is the most humid part of Croatia, with long-lasting white winters and fresh summers, where spruce and fir fragrance revitalizes the body.

Telašćica Nature Park

Telašćica Nature Park in Dugi Otok Island is a beautiful natural harbor with a very long, indented coastline. The area is uninhabited and popular among yachters and for day excursions. The main attractions are tall cliffs, the huge bay, and saltwater lake Mir.

Do you agree with these choices? Comment and make your own list.

Don’t forget a decent pair of compact travel binoculars!

Goran Šafarek, biologist, author of several books and films about Croatian nature. Please do check Goran Šafarek’s Instagram and Youtube accounts for more great info!