Boat trip to the Paklinski Islands:
This was by far our most favourite day of the seven spent in Hvar. We hired a boat for 450 kuna / $90 AUD (which is a bit of a big-spend for two travellers who are travelling for a whole year!), but was worth every single penny! Small boats (can generally fit up to 5 people) can be rented from many vendors on the port, and be sure to visit a few of them to get yourself the best price. The price should include hire for the entire day, as well as your fuel. As the boat is only small, you don’t need a licence at all to operate one and you’ll get a mini run-down lesson from whoever you hire it from in the morning.
We spent the entire day visiting the many many bays of the Paklinski islands, which are just off of the island of Hvar. We would simply find ourselves a spot of clear blue water, anchor our boat, and jump off and enjoy. Our boat also came with a cooler box and snorkelling set, which made for a more enjoyable day when we could chill our beer and see the fishes below us!
A few of our must see recommendations while exploring on these islands would be:
Carpe Diem beach (this beach is a big party beach each night, but during the day makes for gorgeous views and an awesome beach bar)
Mlini beach
Zdrilca beach (our favourite)
The bay near ‘Toto’s” restaurant
Otherwise, continue to drive your boat in and around all of the little harbours, and you will discover so many beautiful spots for swimming! There is also a cliff jumping spot that is only accessible by boat or hike that we visited this day also, it doesn’t have an official name as such, but if you use maps.me and search for the bay of Uvala Mala Garska, you will find the cliff jumping area very close to here, you won’t be able to miss it!
We spent around 8 hours out on the boat, and loved every single second of it - be sure to pack snacks and sunscreen, it gets HOT!
The wild lavender fields: After riding up through the hills, you will reach the village of Brusje - the views from this area are amazing, as you are up so high that you can see the ocean far below, and many mountains out into the distance. You will also come across many fields of wild lavender. When we visited they were quite dry, and not so vibrant in colour due to the heat. And don’t go adventuring too close, as there are lots of bee’s about and you don’t want to learn the hard way like Kirk and get stung :P
Stari Grad: this town is located on the bay of the sea. We found ourselves a park and went for a little wander through the old town, rich with cobbled stone streets and history. We stopped off at one of the local bakeries and bought ourselves a traditional apple pastry that we enjoyed as we walked along the water’s edge. Start Grad is probably also a good stop-off for some food or a drink as there are a large selection of restaurants and cafe’s lining the streets.
Jelsa Beach: This was our favourite stop of the day! We decided to continue to ride past the main town and beach of Jelsa, where we kept along the coast. After a few more minutes of driving, you will pass a campsite “Camp Mina”, and this is where we parked our scooter and jumped off to enjoy the beach! Here the water was divine, and the views were gorgeous with many mountains in the distance. There are lots of shade spots and rock areas for you to put down your towels, and even a bakery and crepe stall nearby too!
Dubovica Beach: to reach Dubovica, you will need to drive back through the tunnel and village of Pitve, and then take the main highway back towards Hvar. You will know once you’ve reached Dubovica because you will see hundreds of scooters and cars parked along the main road in carparks, Dubovica is a beach that you can only reach directly by walking down a trail, making it a little quieter than others you will come across in Hvar. Once we parked our scooter, the walk down to the beach was only around 10 minutes, and a scenic one the entire time. Dubovica was probably one of the larger beaches that we came across, with lots of space for people to lie their towels, and there were also two cafe’s down here as well! We loved this little spot, and there were also a few cliff’s either side of the bay perfect for some cliff jumping!