Dubrovnik is very quickly becoming a top European summer destination and for good reason. It truly has it all: endless beaches with crystal clear water, fascinating history, and charming cobblestone streets.
If you’re planning your next Euro summer trip and are overwhelmed by the sheer number of unforgettable things to do in Dubrovnik, a tour is a great way to maximise your activity time and get the best out of the city. All these tours are half days or a few hours which means you can perfectly balance exploring and relaxing. We did each tour on separate days and spent the rest of the day either wandering the streets and laneways or swimming at some of the many local beaches.
Kayaking Tour
If there’s one tour you do in Dubrovnik, please make sure it’s a kayaking tour. There’s truly no better way to see Dubrovnik’s impressive city walls from the water and you’ll have regular stops to hear about Dubrovnik’s history from the city’s foundation all the way up until the Croatian War of Independence in the 1990s.
There are a few different tour options but we booked this half day tour. It’s a great way to see Pîle Bay as you’ll meet here and get a quick kayaking lesson before hitting the water. Don’t panic if you haven’t kayaked before, it’s super easy and very difficult to roll your kayak over. You’re also not going to be paddling for 3 hours straight, you’ll take regular breaks to pause and listen to your guide and swim in secluded coves.
This tour is a little longer than others which means you don’t have to paddle too hard to keep with the schedule and have lots of time to swim and enjoy each new location. This kayaking tour also had a perfect balance of alone time to paddle (and get into a rhythm with your partner) and group time where we all linked up and our tour guide gave us a great overview of local history and stories and legends. We obviously did a number of tours around Dubrovnik and this was the only tour to share such in-depth and long term history of the city from creation to now and to hear it all while looking up at the towering city walls is an incredible experience.
Tips/practical matters
- Tip your guide at the end
- Wear shoes you’re happy getting wet — I wore thongs (flip flops) and could take them off while in the kayak and they were easy to throw back on after to walk through town
- Phones and valuables will go in a little screw top drum that’s strapped onto your kayak. Our stuff was perfectly safe and didn’t get wet at all
- Waterproof phone case – enough said really.
- Sunscreen up – should go without saying but it’s HOT and there’s zero shade available so water resistant SPF50 is a must.
If you’re keen on a kayaking tour — plan out your days in Dubrovnik as this is a particularly weather-dependent tour. We luckily went on the first day of our trip because the tours were cancelled the next few days due to strong winds.
Walls and Wars
For my history fans and fanatics out there, this is the Dubrovnik tour for you. Similar to the kayaking tour, this gives you a detailed history of Dubrovnik and its famous walls over the years.
Our tour guide was a local man who had lived in Dubrovnik all his life and told stories that really brought the walls and history to life. From stories about how and why the walls were constructed and the role they played in the more recent Balkans War, this tour is an absolute essential.
This was a bigger tour group so you do get that classic tourist experience of headphones and a Walkman but the guide was quick to assist with any technical difficulties and we heard everything perfectly.
The tour doesn’t include tickets up the walls so that was the first stop of the tour and then you start the climb. Be warned it’s a lot of stairs and the stone can be a bit slippery so make sure you’re wearing proper shoes. Your tickets up the wall are valid the entire day so you can easily hop up and down as you please after the tour.
We did this tour on the cloudiest day of our tour and while we may not have had the best weather photo-wise, it can get shockingly hot in Dubrovnik especially up on the walls without any shade so it worked perfectly on a cooler, overcast day.
Game of Thrones Tour
While this tour had some great bits and pieces about Dubrovnik in general plus its history and architecture, I’d really only recommend this tour to GOT fans. Having said that, whether you’ve watched a few seasons of the whole series, this was such a fun tour and was an amazing way to get some behind the scenes details and explore parts of Dubrovnik outside of the old town.
Our tour group was really small which meant we could all have a chat and a joke and the tour guide really encouraged mingling – a fun way to meet new people if you’re not staying in hostels.
The tour took us up to Fort Lovrijenac and we learnt about the building’s history and significance as well as its role in the GOT series. The fortress also has incredible views over Dubrovnik and the Adriatic and ended up being some of my favourite photos from the trip.
All in all, no matter which tour you book to see the sights and learn more about this fascinating and beautiful citadel, I can guarantee you’ll love visiting Dubrovnik.
Are you visiting Barcelona as part of your next European trip? Check out my top 7 things to do in Barcelona for an unforgettable visit.