Plitvice Lakes: Is it Worth the Visit?

Instagram is littered with amazing and beautiful images of the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. Those drone pics are just mesmerizing to look at and when we visited the Balkan countries, Plitvice Lakes was in the itinerary. I'd like to share that experience and let you know my thoughts after the visit.

Background

Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of the oldest and largest national parks in Croatia.It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. What makes this park special is that it consists of a collection of cascading interconnecting lakes that were formed as a result of the confluence of small rivers and subterranean karst rivers in the area. These lakes are formed cascading due to the mountainous terrain and the water collecting at various levels. 16 lakes are supposed to be visible on the surface.

Trail along the upper lakes

View of Veliki Slap, the Great Waterfall

How to Get Here

You have the options of taking day tours that run from Split, Zadar or Zagreb. Another option is by public transport but you might have to stay overnight in Plitvice itself as it is a few hours away from major cities. On my trip, I took a day tour from the beautiful city of Split which roughly takes about 12 hours from start to finish.

Map of the Park

One of the lakes at the upper parts

The Visit

On our tour, we started from Entrance B walking towards the mini train that will take us to the upper lakes. From the upper lakes, there will be trails that you can walk all the way to the lower lakes. You will be passing through a number of lakes here with some paths crossing the lakes itself. Some lakes look so beautiful with really turquoise water. We walked until Kozjak lake, which is the largest lake, where we can take a boat to the other side of the lake. The other side is a large field with places to eat and take bathroom breaks. From then on, we continued by foot into the trail going further down to the lower lakes until the last stop at the Veliki Slap, the Great Waterfall. To return, we walked up another trail that leads to Entrance 1.

You can row boats at Kozjak Lake

One of the many waterfalls

The Experience

As it was the end of summer, the weather was a bit humid but cooler at the upper lakes. The trails were small so you'd have to walk fast and also, our tour guide seems adamant at finishing the walk on time so there were not much time given to soak in the view on the way down. Only proper stops were at larger spaces and significant areas. At the time of our visit, there were also a lot of people, so you can imagine the many tourists going through the same trails. That was probably another reason we had to walk fast. The walk down is very easy while the walk on the return can be tiring. We were told that due to the summer, there wasn't much water flowing so waterfalls were small and some lakes even dried up.

The crowd can cause traffic jam at the trails

Beautiful turquoise water

Recommendations

I think it would be nicer to go by yourself so that you can plan to go when there are less people and take really nice pictures without the crowd. Early morning or late afternoon would be a nice time as most day tours will have the tourists visit in the afternoon. A visit in the fall or winter might have better waterfalls but I'm not sure of the greeneries. Also, there are various trails to try so it would be nice to avoid the ones tour groups take. The nice pictures you see on Instagram are usually the drone pics so if you have a drone, then that's the best way to capture the beauty of the lakes.

Looking down to a lake from the trail

The view of the lower lakes and Veliki Slap from Entrance 1

The lakes look so inviting for a swim but alas, swimming is not allowed. I would've probably enjoyed it more. So what do you think? Will you go check this place out?