A Road Trip Along Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast, Home to Vineyards, Oyster Farms, and Sleepy Island Detours

The mere mention of Croatia conjures up pictures of crystalline blue waters, orange-roofed historic cities, and languid times put in island hopping. But traversing the country’s coastline by auto, specifically during shoulder time, can be just as magnificent. A drive along the southern Dalmatian Coastline will carry you to delights often missed by the masses: household-run wineries on dramatic sloping hills, oyster farms nestled in peaceful turquoise bays, centuries-previous villages, and guarded lakes and rivers that are ideal for paddleboarding, windsurfing, and kayaking.

Now, with a new bridge uniting northern and southern Croatia, it is really doable to see these highlights in one seamless road excursion from Dubrovnik to Break up. The Pelješac Bridge, which opened in July 2022 as one particular of the major European Union-funded tasks in history, will allow motorists to ultimately bypass a slender strip of Bosnian shoreline that previously required inconvenient (and in some cases prolonged) border checks. For Croatians, the opening of this new composition marks a historic milestone. And for tourists, it usually means a lot easier highway access to Croatia’s unsung—and usually a lot less crowded—rural highlights.

“It’s opening up locations that were being formerly unfamiliar and type of hidden from the map,” says Zrinka Marinovic, public relations manager for Adriatic Luxury Resorts, a selection of independent luxury accommodations in and around Dubrovnik, where she grew up. “In the earlier, Neretva Valley wasn’t very obtainable mainly because we didn’t have the bridge. You had to cross the Bosnian border to get to it and the relaxation of Croatia.”