If you are ever in Croatia the Plitvice Lakes and Rastoke Day Tour is a must! I typically don’t love tours because I have to be on someone else’s time, but tours do relieve you of any travel stress as everything is planned for you. We took a day tour from Zagreb with Portal Day Tours. It started at 8am and we got back to Zagreb around 7:30pm. So it was a long day, but the tour was outstanding! Our guide, Milan, was amazing! He knew so much about Croatia, its culture, its people, and he had a great sense of humor.
What to bring
- Good walking shoes! You walk quite a bit and hike through the national park.
- Food and water: food is not included in the tour so I would suggest bringing snacks, a lunch, and plenty of water. The tour does stop at a cafe before Rastoke for you to buy food and drinks if you do not want to pack your own.
- Money: for food, drinks, and to tip your guide. The entrance to both parks are included in the tour price, so you don’t have to worry about that!
- Sunscreen: you will be outside for a long period of time, so protect your skin!
- Raincoat/umbrella: you never know with mother nature.
- Camera: the views you will get to experience are breathtaking, so bring your camera!
Where to meet
You meet the coach bus in a beautiful park in Zagreb near the meteorological display. Portal Day Tours makes it very simple to locate the meeting place as they email you the address and even a picture of the spot you are supposed to meet.
Stop one: Your first stop is a small cafe/restaurant called Marché. If you didn’t bring a lunch, I would suggest buying something here as food is not included in the tour. We brought our own lunch, but we got a delicious coffee to stay caffeinated in preparation for our hike through the national park.
Stop two: Rastoke. This small watermill village is situated where the Slunjcic river flows in to the Korana river. It is amazing to see the natural phenomenon of the water pouring over the terrain leaving gorgeous waterfalls. Rastoke is basically a smaller version of Plitvice Lakes National Park. It was like an appetizer to the main dish 🙂
Stop three: Plitvice Lakes National Park. This national park has a chain of 16 terraced lakes that are connected with waterfalls. During the tour you visit both the upper and lower lakes. Seeing all the lakes create waterfalls and flowing in to each other is definitely something you don’t get to see everyday. The water is a beautiful blue-green color and you are surrounded by lush greenery. You hike along a narrow wooden plank path with lots of visitors so I suggest wearing something with pockets or bringing a bag to keep belongings in because we saw a lot of people drop things in to the water and falls, including myself. I lost a camera lens cap that day and it is now somewhere in the falls.
Stop four: Vila Velebita. After a day of hiking and marveling at Croatia’s beauty you stop at a restaurant for dinner. It was a nice way to relax, spend time with the awesome people you met on the tour, and to end a great tour.
The other great part about the Plitvice Lakes and Rastoke Day Tour is that you can either go back to Zagreb or transfer buses and continue on your adventure through Croatia to Split.
Travel hack: We are on a budget currently since we are traveling with no jobs and we happened to find this tour through Chase Rewards. We used our points and this day tour was free for us 🙂 It pays off to use credit cards that earn you points and miles!
