The Ultimate Winter Guide To Plitvice Lakes National Park

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Positioned in the center of the charming county of Croatia is Plitvice Lakes National Park – a beautiful preserve featuring limestone canyons, forests, and cascading waterfalls. This incredible national park offers stunning views from every angle. During summer, the park is flooded with ambient hues of greens and blues, but during winter, Plitvice Lakes turns into a park blanketed in pure white snow.

Visiting Plitvice Lake in winter is an experience like no other. You’ll find scenic views, a serene ambiance, and embracing the holiday season by bundling up for the cold. Previously, Evan and I were visiting the enchanting European Christmas Markets in Zagreb, and wanted to take our winter wonderland interlude to the next level.

While one experience offers mulled wine, ice skating, and seasonal decorations and the other features exploring snow covered hiking trails over the intricate lake system within the park. Truly, visiting both Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes National Park are excellent choices for holiday travel to Croatia.

If you want to experience Plitvice Lakes National Park during winter, here’s what you need to know. Meanwhile, if the city is more your speed, follow this link for discovering the Advent in Zagreb (i.e. Zagreb’s Christmas market).

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Or if you prefer to visit countries in Eastern Europe with holiday markets, click this guide or this for more a list of national parks to visit in winter.

How to get to Plitvice Lakes National Park

The National park is an easy day trip away from Zagreb. We were visiting for the festive holiday markets in Zagreb and decided we wanted to take a day trip to Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Since the park is centrally located in Croatia, it is easily accessible from various Croatian cities. For instance, the closest cities are Zagreb (84 miles), Zadar (83 miles), and Split (162 miles).

The easiest route is to rent a car from Hertz, Budget, Avis, Enterprise, or another company.

Besides a car rental, you can also take a coach bus. We took the bus from Zagreb to Plitvice Lakes National Park and it takes the same amount of time as renting a car. It took about 2 hours.

Prices range from $11 to $15 roundtrip and tickets are discounted for students and children ($6 to $8).  The buses leave from the Zagreb bus terminal and arrive at Entrance 1 of the National Park. Most of the buses are direct or offer 1 or 2 stops on the way.

Additionally, the bus schedules are very reliable and easy to navigate. Tickets can be purchased beforehand or on the bus. You can book tickets here.

General information about the park

Plitvice Lakes National Park is the most famous, oldest, and biggest national park within Croatia. It was founded in 1949 in the mountainous region of central Croatia. Since October 1979, this picturesque national park has been internationally sanctioned as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The natural beauty of the Plitvice Park is what attracts millions of tourists annually, displaying its unusual geology and overflowing waterfalls. In fact, the park is recognized for its alluring sixteen lakes. They range in color from vibrant turquoise to light shades of emerald greens.

As well as its cascading waterfalls, stunning forests, and limestone canyons, there are also natural dams and remarkable caves right on the water. Most of these unique geological attractions were formed from the aftermath of water continuously flowing over the various rock structures (limestone and chalk).

In addition, the park offers 22 km of hiking trails throughout the park to help visitors witness these stunning lakes. You’ll find incredible viewpoints overlooking the impressive natural beauty of the park, and hidden spots for spectacular panoramic photos. 

Plitvice Lakes National Park hours

Plitvice Lakes National Park is open every single day during the year – that’s 365 days of access to the gorgeous national park! Even though it’s opened daily, each season brings about different hours of operations, costs, amount of tourists, and nearby facilities that are open.  Be sure to double check the hours by season on the website.

Fall hours — Begin on August 21^st until September 30^th, and are open from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. Starting October 1^st the hours shift from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, until winter hours kick in on the last Saturday of the month.

Winter hours — In this season the park is open the least amount of hours from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. The winter hours start in October on the last Sunday and end in March on the last Saturday.

Spring hours — These hours begin in March on the last Saturday until May 31^st. The hours of operation are from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm.

Summer hours — The summertime has the longest of hours of operations, opening at 7:00 am and closing at 8:00 pm. It runs from June 1^st until August 20^th.

Cost of the park

The cost of the park depends on the season during your visit. You will find two different types of tickets, a one day or a two day ticket. These tickets will include all the transportation within the park such as the panorama train and the electric boat. The schedules are found here.

We purchased our tickets in person at Entrance 1, but tickets are also available for purchase at Entrance 2 and online via the Plitvice Lake National Park ticketing website.

It’s best to order them online if you’re visiting during high tourist season so they’re not sold out. However, winter is low tourist season so there’ll be plenty of tickets available.

The one-day tickets vary from 200 HRK ($31 USD) to 75 HRK ($12 USD) for adult tickets, and go as low as 45 HRK for student tickets.

Adult tickets during winter are 75 HRK ($12 USD), whereas the students tickets are 45 HRK ($7 USD). The higher price is the cost of the entrance ticket during the summer schedule.

If you want more information a detailed look at pricing can be viewed following this link.

There is a parking fee – 10 HRK per vehicle per hour, 100 HRK daily per camper.

When to visit Plitvice Lakes National Park

Since Plitvice Lakes National Park is open 365 days of the year, any time can be an ideal time to visit. Summer is the national parks high peak season, bringing larger crowds, green shrubbery, and pleasant weather. I’ve been told by the park staff spring and early fall tend to have lesser crowds than summer, and the weather is still pretty decent.

Nonetheless, the winter season is the low peak season. There are few crowds and colder weather perfect for snuggling and bundling up.  Plus, look at these gorgeous photos of Plitvice Lakes National Park in the winter!

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The picturesque location amidst a white winter wonderland speaks for itself. (Also, it’s extremely easy to take photos without any photo bombers!)

Pro tip: If you’re visiting Plitvice Lake during the winter, take a day trip to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. During winter, Zagreb hosts a fairytale Christmas market, that’s been voted as one of the best Christmas markets in Europe for three consecutive years. Here’s a Christmas market guide to celebrating Advent in Zagreb, Croatia.  

How to visit the park during winter

For visiting the park during winter, there are a couple of things I recommend for your winter wilderness interlude.  Some essentials for visiting the park during the winter include packing:

Travel snacks. During winter, the park facilities have limited hours since the park closes at 3:00 pm. While there are places to grab a bite, I highly recommend packing your own food for the day so you have more time to explore all the park offers. Here are some ideas for healthy snacks.

Winter coat and gloves. It’s extremely frigid and cold in the park, so wear the appropriate clothing to stay warm.

Snow boots or waterproof hiking shoes. Again, it’s cold! We met another traveler from California while visiting, and they wore tennis shoes. They told us their feet were frozen and cold within the first hour of the trip. With this in mind, consider investing in some waterproof boots.

Pack extra thick socks. After your trip, changing from your boots into clean warm socks is a life changer. Not really a life changer, but it feels good to take off your socks, especially if they’re damp or wet from trekking in the snow. Besides, heat escapes from your feet and hands the fastest, so why not warm those up first?

Backpack for storing all of your items.

Camera. For photos!!

Selfie stick. While winter brings fewer crowds for some insanely epic photos, that also means you can’t ask someone to take your photo, so consider buying a selfie stick for your trip.

Understanding the park layout

There are two main entrances, Entrance 1 and Entrance 2. Normally Entrance 1 can get crowded during the summer months, but since its winter, you can choose either!

I suggest starting at Entrance 1 because it has the most natural flow for viewing the waterfalls.

In addition, the park is split into four main hiking trails that expand across 73,000 acres and seven different routes for viewing the various the lakes. The most common areas in the park are the lower and upper lakes.

The lower lakes showcase the biggest waterfall called Veliki Slap, offers scenic cliff views, and the lookout point for the famed postcard viewpoint (Veliki Slap lookout point). Those aerial scenic cliff views and lookout points are found on a trail near the Proscanko Lake.

Additionally, the upper lakes feature more hiking trails such as the Red Trails and the Maroon Trails. More cascading waterfalls are found in this area, as well as more boardwalk trails.

To get between the two lakes you can walk, take the park shuttle, or hop on the boat.

How to get to the viewpoints over the lake

Once you reach the giant waterfall, you will see a sign and a stairway case to the left as you enter to where the waterfall is. This staircase is how you get to the aerial view of the lakes. Once you reach the top, the aerial viewpoints are to the left, while the Veliki Slap postcard viewpoint is to the right.

To get to the Veliki Slap postcard view follow the road and walk across a small bridge. Immediately after the bridge, there will be a hiking sign to the right. Follow the sign and the viewpoint is less than 10 minutes away.

During winter, the trails are highly covered in snow, so it may be a little difficult at first to find. Try to look for the natural gaps between trees. Each of the viewpoints will have some type of wooden railing, so once you see it, you’ve reached the correct spot! 

Tips for winter travel to the park

1. Wear layers. Although Plitvice Lakes National Park is a dreamy white wonderland during winter, it gets extremely cold. Wear more layers than you think you may need to keep you warm.
2. Get there early. During winter the park is only open from 8:00am – 3:00pm, so get there early to enjoy a full day exploring the national park
3. Bring a thermos filled with a warm beverage. Again, (I cannot stress this enough), it gets cold! Having a thermos topped with piping hot tea, hot chocolate or mulled wine for the holiday season adds an extra layer of warmth. Plus, you can watch the sunset while sipping your beverage of choice.
4. Bring hand warmers. Your hands with thank you later, especially if you’re visiting the park for the duration of the day.
5. Stay near the park. While we didn’t do this, I definitely wish we did to experience even more of the magical wilderness the park offers during winter. At the same time, it makes it easy to sleep and get to the park bright and early.

Have you explored Plitvice Lake or another National Park during winter?  

Resources for National Park Travelers

If you’re an avid hiker here are some more national park guides and resources — The Best National Parks List for Winter Travel, Yosemite National Park, Travel packing list, Easy and healthy travel snacks.

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