Helpful Information for hiking Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

When we were preparing for this trip, we found a number of posts about Plitvice Lakes, or links to people’s pictures, but not a ton of answers to our questions or truly helpful information. Yes, we have beautiful pictures too, and you will too as it’s pretty impossible not to. Our goal with this post is to stand out as the truly helpful post after you go fall in love with everyone else’s beautiful pictures.

I’m going to bullet this list and we will hopefully continue to work on it, but because we are here now and actually want to do more things, I don’t have time to make this the great post we’d love to share. I will still publish it though, in case it can still be helpful to others asap, even in rough form. Please feel free to reach out with questions.

What we did: Hiked Trail B, which seems to be the most common, easiest, and prettiest one that everyone does.

Transportation & Parking: –

• We had the 7am entrance ticket so we got in pretty early and there was still plenty of spots available, and we even got one in the shade. Cars were continuing to filter in though and the lot was full when we left by 11.
• When we entered, we overheard the employee telling someone else that you are able to leave and come back later, which we then even confirmed for later today and for tomorrow, and it sounds like you can basically come whenever, so I don’t really understand what the timing is for, but I wouldn’t risk it. It could have been more flexible today because it’s a Thursday, and maybe they are stricter on really full days? When we booked for 7am it said you can be late up to 1 hour but have to enter by 7:59am. So… not sure how helpful this is or not, but just trying to help set expectations with our actual experience.
• You pay your parking ticket with an attendant or at the register. We got the car first and pulled up to the little pull-over area before the gate while Jude ran out and paid quickly. You cannot pull up to the gate without having paid yet.
• Parking was $2 (euros) an hour. We were there just under 4 hours and paid $8 euro.

Tickets, Fees, Payments: (and prices are actually for Euros, I’m just used to typing the dollar symbol so I can go back and change these later or just note this here)

• We reserved our tickets 4 days ago for 7am. There were a few options for 8am but most of the rest of the day was entirely full
• We did the 2-day ticket, which is discounted. We paid $60 per adult and $20 per kid (I think this was ages 7-18 and maybe there was a student discount for college-aged young people.)
• We found food and souvenir prices reasonable. We got a large cappuccino for $3.30 and 2 pre-made sandwiches for $6.50 each. Menus for the other food venue (or at least the basic ones if there are nicer ones somewhere), were about $5-$10 per item with the most expensive item being a cheeseburger for $11.50 – I have a picture of a menu I’ll have to upload here later. (NEED PICTURE)
• As for souvenirs. We saw magnets and keychains for about $4 or $5 each, I got a mug for $10-$15. There was a small assortment for t-shirts for $12-$14 and some sweatshirts for $30-$35 or so.
• Oh, and bring credit cards. There are warnings all over the parking lot to take your credit cards with you is payment is always by card only.

How safe/easy is the hike:

I put this out there because i was very worried when I saw the walkways over water with no railings and our youngest is still a nervous swimmer, and I don’t love heights so I was worried about those as well, so here is what I found…

• The hike is overall quite easy and not too far. There is very little up and down, though there are some stairs down at the beginning that are not particularly even, and then a number of stairs up after the boat rides, but there are options for walking a smooth ramp/trail instead of the stairs. I choose stairs and could definitely feel it by the end. I wish I had counted the stairs. I did take pictures (NEED PICTURE) and would estimate it was maybe around 70-100 stairs?
• As for heights, I had no issues at all. Here or there might have some very small sections up higher but the paths were wide, and they had railings where you needed them.
• There were MANY signs and reminders to not go off the path or climb over a railings for a better view. I’d read a number of stories about people falling. I think I read that there’s about 1 death a year, but that there’s something crazy like 1,200 rescues a year!! (LOOK UP SOURCE)
• WEAR SAFE SHOES. I am a flip flop queen and even have some athletic ones with great support that I can walk for miles in, so I could totally be this person. I had read warnings about this though and am so glad I wore my hiking shoes. I think all sandals may even be banned. I don’t know how well they inforce that, but it seemed that everyone I saw today had reasonable shoes on.
• The stairs are also made of stones and not smooth. We even saw a girl (in hiking boots) hit a step wrong and take a short stumble, though she was fine. The point is, you do need to watch where you are stepping, but as long as you do that, you should be fine.
• The boarded trails by the water are NOT smooth. I did catch my shoe on them more than once. All 4 of us did. Never badly enough to trip or even stumble, but I was watching closely and the boards are not smooth and flat and fit together perfectly. They are a bit uneven and have small gaps between them (some you could drop a cell phone through at it’s skinniest, but nothing much bigger than that). The gaps only matter because that’s where you are most likely to catch the toe of your shoe/boot… and would be a lot more likely to trip in a sandal.
• A lot of the boarded trails by the water do have railings, particularly where the water is deeper, but not everywhere. There are times when you have a little land on one side of you, so that you have a little more space, if needed, and don’t really need to walk close to the edge. The parts that cross over water, cross over water that does not seem particularly deep (maybe up to a meter, though I’m not positive). The water was beautifully clear and I think even someone who couldn’t swim would be able to get out and/or be helped out immediately without much issue.
• Overall, as someone who has anxiety about exactly these types of situations, I felt very safe for myself and the kids, and so did they. That said, we always paid attention and didn’t walk around starring through our phones for better pictures. Stop when you take a picture. Leave room for people to pass. There are plenty of spots with little “pullout”/views that make it easy to pause for pictures. Be aware of others around you. The boarded paths are wide enough to pass other people fine, but people need to pay attention. If you are turning around to talk to people or take pictures, you could certainly bump into someone or miss a step.

The boats:

• Boat rides (one way) are included with your park ticket. On trail B, you take one main boat ride, and then a very short ferry ride after it.
• The 1st boats you’ll get to from entrance 1 (and the most common routes by far) start at 8:30 am and leave every half hour pretty exactly. We got there around 8:10 and read the sign to not get in line until everyone in your party was together as no one is allowed to jump the queue, and we foolishly believed that, so what was a short line (maybe 30 people) at 8:10, was much longer by the time we got into it at 8:20ish.
• And of course, multiple people came and went from the line and then came back to join their families and nobody did or said anything, though there were some grumblings in line. I’d think you are probably fine if you are a family of 4 and 1 or 2 people take a short break to run to the bathroom or to bring back food, but I would not have 1 person or a small number of people holding space for a larger majority of the group.
• The 1st boat from dock 1 can hold 100 people
• Because of the 10 minutes we waited to get in line while 1 person went to the bathroom and 1 got coffee, we missed the 8:30 boat by 4 people, but were in the shade for our 30 minute wait until the 9am boat. The line was long and growing behind us, so I can easily see how later in the day, people maybe waiting easily over an hour if not maybe even 2 (or more, at peak times of peak season). Again, we are peak season, but on a weekday and got in there early so crowds were not much of a problem for us anywhere.
• The boats are electric so they are very quiet and make very little wake
• There are life jackets overhead that could be easily reached
• We felt very safe on the very smooth boat ride
• The boat ride took 22 minutes.
• When you get to the second dock, if you are doing hike B, you have to climb up a flight or two of stairs and come back around to the other side of the dock to catch your next ferry/boat. That was slightly confusing as it looked like the same dock (and it was) but it is sectioned off. And, for good or bad, there are lots of signs directing you down different paths which were usually great, but we found them confusing a couple times, at least for a minute, and this was one of those, because the looped arrow didn’t seem entirely clear, but half of our boat was doing the same thing as us anyway, so that helped.
• The second ferry ride took 3 minutes from boarding to getting off.
• The second ferry from dock 2 to dock 3 comes every 15 minutes though only holds 50 people. We had no line for this and ours was only about 2/3s full, so there should never be much of a wait for this one.

After the boat rides

• There is a nice area with food options again at similar prices to what I listed above. There are benches and picnic tables around. It looks like there may be an option to rent a small paddleboat for an hour, but that was definitely not open while we were there, so I don’t know if time of day matters or what. I was surprised to see this option at all, so maybe it’s just a holdover from something they used to do but don’t anymore? I’m not sure.
• Following pretty much all trails, you need to start climbing up out of the canyon. You can use stairs or the smooth paths (see my comments further back about safety and shoes).
• At the top, there was another building and then the “panoramic trams” or whatever they are called. This was the other time we got confused as we were at station 2, but it looks like there is an arrow to a further station for those following trail B, but I guess that arrow is just showing you which direction you are going, or that the tram will take you to station 1, which is where you are headed. We confirmed with one of the “information” staff people standing around to help, which luckily there were a number of those people around to answer questions, and she confirmed we get on the tram here, so we did, and that was correct.
• The tram ride was fairly short, maybe 5-10 minutes. The buses are neat and do have big windows, but the view is only the trees/forest you are driving through, we never once had a view of the lakes from the “panoramic” tram ride.

After the tram

• There was a bit more hiking after the tram but not much. It was higher and there were overlooks. There were a few areas with no railing here or there, which could have been a bit scary, but they were only at parts where a fall would not have been to far to the area below. There are some nice overlooks, but mostly you aren’t seeing much. Part of this stretch you are even quite close and just a bit below the road and we could easily see cars passing a few meters away (SHOW PICTURE)
• The hike ends back where you started at Entrance 1. You can get the same pictures you took from the overlook originally but now with different lighting. There are some benches and sitting areas again.
• When you walk out of the gates, there are restrooms and 1 cafeteria with same items and prices as the others, and the gift shop (which looks like 3 or 4 tiny cottages all next to each other, but is all the same shop and connected on the inside).

Back to parking (and coming from parking in the morning, I just hadn’t mentioned it yet):

• There is a short bridge to climb up and over the street. It seems higher than it needs to be, but probably only about 25 steps on each side. These steps are smooth and treaded so you should slip on them at all.

What to bring: (Jude and I each wore a hiking backpack… as did our son, but that was for unnecessary things he just likes carrying around):

• Water – you’ll need to stay hydrated, especially if sunny and hot as it often is in summer.
• Sunblock
• Bug spray – there were a few mosquitos here and there but we’ve definitely had them much worse in other national parks. Still glad we had this
• Snacks/food – you can also purchase there, but we like to have some protein bars or other simple little things in our packs usually
• Credit card
• A camera!

Okay, I think that was all of my notes I can think of. What else do you have questions about? Was this helpful? I still need to add pictures too. I tried to get pictures of the boardwalks and trails and signage, and things like that, not just the beautiful views which everyone posts. It was a pretty easy hike for all of us. We could feel the stairs for sure, but that went away after we finished and no one is sore later in the day. The path is definitely not accessible for anything on wheels, sadly (strollers, wheelchairs, etc.) That said, if you are concerned about safety, I wouldn’t worry about it as long as you don’t take risks for getting the slightly better picture from a few inches over a railing or off the path. If you pay attention and have real shoes on, you will be fine, and again for context, I have anxiety and was definitely the person who worried a bit about this because I felt like I read very mixed reviews but also never knew if it was someone who was trying to warn people of anything and everything, or someone who’s scared of nothing. Accidents do happen, but it sounds like the vast majority of them are people not staying on paths and climbing where they shouldn’t for that “perfect” picture (trust me, they will all still be gorgeous if you don’t risk your life and just stay on the paths!) I’ll post pictures when I can!