Very Short visit to Dubrovnik

A friend of mine who is running small bed and breakfast in Dubrovnik told me that, on average, people who book rooms in his b&b stay for only 2 to 3 nights.

From my statistics, typical hotel visit to Dubrovnik is even shorter – guests who reserve through this site’s discount booking partner Booking.com, average only 2.3 nights in the town.

Above statistics doesn’t include the day visitors who represent most of tourists who come to Dubrovnik each year, often for just a quick tour from cruise ship or a tour bus to the Stradun (the main square in Dubrovnik), short glimpse at Dubrovnik walls and a stop at the souvenir shops in Siroka Ulica Street.

I noticed that visitors from far countries frequently try to jam too many places into a one or two week holiday.

In my opinion, that’s a big mistake, for the following reasons:

• The very short visit doesn’t allow you enough time to get familiar with each place,
• If you change your place every 2-3 days, it means wasting time in buses, in ferries, trains or airports, the time that could be used for much more relaxed Dubrovnik sightseeing;
• That also means spending more money on transportation, which is also not very ethical in terms of ecological footprint.

So, my advice is if you’re coming to Dubrovnik, try to stay for at least a week. And then also visit some nearby islands after that.

If you can’t give it a week, then at the very least, try to spend two or three days in the historic Old Town, and allow an extra day or two if you want to visit the neighbouring Elafiti islands (Lokrum, Sipan, Lopud or Kolocep). I would also recommend you to take a guided walk around Old Town as well as sea kayak excursion as both activities can improve a lot your experience of the town itself.

I visit Dubrovnik very often ( I even lived there for a few years while doing my university degree) and must say that with every visit, I still discover new things about the city. I hope it will always be like that.

If you insist on a short visit to this lovely city, see my guide on how to visit Dubrovnik for just a few hours and a page about visiting Dubrovnik just for one day (24 hrs)