Getting Around Croatia: How the Coast Actually Connects

The coastal highway and the Bosnian gap at Neum

The A1 motorway and the older Adriatic Highway (Jadranska magistrala) together carry most road traffic down Croatia's Dalmatian coast, connecting Zadar, Šibenik, Split and eventually Dubrovnik along a single, mostly coast-hugging route. What surprises many travellers driving this route for the first time is that Croatia's own territory isn't actually continuous along the way: a roughly nine-kilometre strip of Bosnia and Herzegovina's coastline, around the town of Neum, physically separates the southern Dubrovnik region from the rest of Croatia, meaning a straightforward domestic drive from Split to Dubrovnik genuinely requires crossing two international borders in quick succession, out of Croatia and back in again, even though the whole trip stays on paper within a single country's tourist itinerary. A new bridge, the Pelješac Bridge, completed in 2022, now offers travellers a way to bypass the Neum crossing entirely by routing over the Pelješac peninsula instead, cutting out the double border crossing for anyone travelling the full length of the coast.

Beyond the Neum quirk, the coastal route itself is straightforward and scenic, hugging the shoreline with regular views out to the islands, though summer traffic on the single-carriageway older sections south of Split can slow considerably during peak holiday weekends, when it's worth building extra time into any drive along that stretch specifically.

The ferry network as a system, not a series of local routes

Jadrolinija, Croatia's main ferry operator, along with several private catamaran companies, runs a network dense enough to function as a genuine extension of the road system rather than a set of isolated island shuttles — car ferries connect the mainland to the larger islands on frequent daily schedules, while faster passenger-only catamarans link the more popular island destinations to each other directly, without always requiring a return to the mainland first. This means a genuinely practical island-hopping route doesn't have to zigzag back to a single mainland port between every stop; a well-planned itinerary can move from Split to Hvar to Korčula and on to Dubrovnik, for instance, using direct island-to-island catamaran connections for at least part of the route rather than mainland-and-back each time.

Summer schedules run considerably more frequently than winter ones, and the busiest routes — anything connecting Split to its nearest islands — can sell out on peak July and August dates, making advance booking a genuinely practical necessity rather than an overcautious precaution during the busiest weeks.

Where the road and the ferry network actually connect

Split functions as the practical hinge of the whole coastal network — it's both a stop on the coastal highway and the busiest ferry and catamaran port for the central Dalmatian islands, which makes it a natural pivot point for any trip that combines mainland driving with island-hopping rather than choosing one mode for the entire journey. Zadar and Šibenik play smaller but genuine versions of the same role for their own nearby islands and national parks, meaning a trip along the coast can reasonably combine road travel between the mainland cities with boat excursions branching off at whichever port happens to be closest to that day's island or park destination.