Driving in Croatia: Best apps for weather, ferries and road info

You’re planning on visiting Croatia, and your only tools are a Booking.com reservation in a place you can’t pronounce, a car, and 10 days to make the most out of your Croatia road trips. In this article, we’ll talk about the inside perspective on driving through Croatia and what are some of the best driving apps that can be helpful to you while you’re driving in Croatia in search of your new favourite Croatian road trip.

What to know before you start

• Right-hand driving: Like most EU countries, Croatians drive on the right.
• Road conditions: While most of the notable routes are great, Croatia is notorious for its roadworks that usually happen just when you don’t need them to.
• Tolls: Croatia’s highways are tolled, use HAK’s calculator to help you with costs.
• Ferries: If you’re planning on visiting islands, Croatia is well-connected with ferries.
• Weather: Croatia’s climate is generally mild, but there’s a large number of summer storms on both the coast and inland.

Best driving apps for Croatia road trips

HAK (Croatian Car Club)

HAK is our go-to destination for all things driving, but most known as the best Croatia road conditions app and platform. With decades of experience, HAK monitors roads, conditions, weather, and other metrics and is the best and biggest source of information about driving in Croatia.

Their app, HAK—Croatia Traffic Info, is one of the best you can have with you, especially because it is tailored towards tourists from the ground up (if you select Just Visiting on the first opening of the app).

The app will show you everything you need, from law-mandated speed limits to the maximum allowed blood alcohol level, roadside conditions and maps, and fuel prices.

HAK is the best possible resource for driving in Croatia, and I use it fairly often, especially on holiday. One of my favourite features is the tolls tool, which can calculate the toll fee if you input the start and end points. The Where is my car tool allows you to save your car’s location so you know where it’s parked. The webcams feature provides access to dozens of real-time traffic cameras in Croatia, located on the highways, border crossings, and ferry ports.

Seriously, do not sleep on HAK.

HRT Meteo and Windy

Croatia’s specific geography means that our main roads toward the Mediterranean Sea are sometimes closed due to high-speed winds. Because you’d like to know about those things before you’re stuck, you should install both Windy, one of the prettiest and coolest weather apps globally, and HRT Meteo, the official app of the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service.

The Meteo app is focused solely on Croatian weather. It has faster radar access than other apps, a more localised forecast, and other useful information tailored to our small country. The app is also good to use, and its UI is clean and simple. It allows you to find out about the weather without getting bogged down in dozens of menus and weird features. This one’s barebones, smooth, and informative, and is definitely the best Croatia weather app you can find. Bonus: it’s the only app in Croatia where actual meteorologists input their data directly, without automation!

Windy can come in handy when tracking winds before embarking on a ferry or starting a longer drive. Since Croatia’s winds tend to get very strong, it’s a good idea to keep an eye out for weather for drivers. Windy is free to use, so having it on your phone alongside your main weather app can’t hurt.

Jadrolinija

If your route crosses the sea, chances are high that you will embark on one of dozens of ships operated by Jadrolinija, Croatia’s national ship service.

Their app allows for precise and fast access to ferry schedules in Croatia, webcam feeds of ports and the ability to buy tickets from your phone, which can save you a lot of time during the tourist season. Croatian ferries are mostly on time, but are at the mercy of the weather, so having an Croatian ferries app that can tell you about potential delays or ferry closures at Croatian islands is a great idea.

Parkovi Hrvatske

It’s a bit of a curveball, but the official website of the Croatian National Parks is surprisingly helpful and feature-packed. This platform shows you the parking info, opening times, and ticket purchase options for our national parks, which can also prove to be very helpful if you’re intending to stop and visit Krka, Plitvice, or Risnjak on your holiday.

Via Michelin

This one’s probably the most logical, but some people still don’t use it. Michelin’s app, while sometimes weird to use, is one of the few that provides you with a direct calculation of fuel spent on a route and is one of the better planners for that specific purpose. The app serves as the main way of getting informed about the costs of your trips, so you don’t get so surprised once the bill arrives and there are payments to be made.

There are dozens of apps more that can help you with planning routes and getting your bearings in Croatia, but if we were to pick just one, HAK would be the winner. Seriously, download it now.

Final Thoughts: Planning your Croatian road trip

Croatia’s appeal is in its friendliness to cars and visitors coming by car, and I hope that these resources help you plan your trip here better, and more importantly, help you around once you do get to Croatia. In my experience, Croatia is a very relaxed and calm country to drive, so getting from point A to point B should not be a chore regardless of where you’re located.

While you’re here and know about the best apps for driving in Croatia, make sure to take a look at a couple of interesting routes to follow!

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