As you are well aware, the global climate is changing, with summers getting hotter and hotter. European destinations are trying to attract travelers into visiting in the off-season. There are many valid reasons for that. Less crowded, more affordable, more...local? Yes, yes, and yes. Dubrovnik is a city for all seasons, although winter is now slowly yet steadily becoming more and more popular. Why is that? Isn’t it freezing cold in the winter? Nope. Read on, dear traveler, and check out the five main reasons why you should visit Dubrovnik in the colder months of the year!
We’ve been getting a lot of interesting feedback from our guests on our tours over the past summer! Word is, more and more folks think that Dubrovnik is an expensive place to visit. Overpriced food in the restaurants, 35 Euros for the city walls… Well, they might have a point. But all that changes with November 1st. It’s like someone flipped the switch and presto! - everything is suddenly much more affordable.
Forget about pricey meals from November until March – when the tourist traps close for the season, what’s left open are the restaurants that cater to locals, not exclusively to tourists. Read that again – Croatian standard is considerably lower than that of the US, UK or Germany and to us it makes a big difference to pay for a meal 15 Euros or 25. The restaurants know this and they have this beautiful thing – the so-called daily menus!
Ah, what a delight it is to have lunch in a 4.7-star rated restaurant inside the Old town for only ten Euros! Yes, it’s true – we know the place and we’ll tell you at the end of our Old Town walking tour, when we recommend the best places to eat out. ;) Heck, just a couple of weeks ago a newly-opened practicum for the hospitality and catering school opened in the Old town, offering lunch starting from a ridiculous six Euros for seafood spaghetti.
This one we can gladly share with you right here, right now – check out the Akademis Garište and you can thank us later. It’s now the place where our tour guides go for lunch after the morning tour of the city walls!
Now that we mentioned the walls – yes, there’s been some backlash on the ticket price for the famous city walls of Dubrovnik. But again, this all comes to naught from November 1st to February 28th (or 29th) as the price of the single adult ticket for the city walls plummets from 35 Euros (or even 40 in 2025.!) to just 15 Euros per person! Believe us, we also travel around Europe and we know how much museums cost – the 15 Euros is an absolute bargain!
An even better deal for any traveler visiting Dubrovnik in the winter is the price of the Dubrovnik Pass. The super-saver city card that we like to recommend because it’s practical also starts from 15 Euros for the one-day pass, 25 for the three-day and a whopping (ironic) 35 Euros for the seven-day pass! It includes the city walls, which itself makes it worthwhile, as well as all the city museums that you can explore should you really have such bad luck that it rains during your visit to Dubrovnik.
How cold does it get in the winter? Probably the question our tour guides heard a million times this past summer; the answer to which, at least from our own Marko, the founder of Dubrovnik Local Guides, is the diplomatic: “Not so cold.” To be more precise, Dubrovnik enjoys a Mediterranean climate with mild winters.
According to Climates to Travel – World Climate Guide, in Dubrovnik “the winter, from December to February, is mild, and is characterized by sunny periods, alternating with periods of bad weather. Sometimes the rains can be abundant, and a strong southerly wind can blow. Although the winter is generally mild, there can sometimes be very cold days, where the bora wind blows. In these cases, the temperature can drop to 0 °C (32 °F) or below at night, while the maximum can remain around 5 °C (41 °F) or below. Wind gusts can exceed 100 kph (60 mph), increasing the feeling of cold. The wind can bring some snowflakes from the interior, but it is rare for the city to be covered in a white blanket, however, this can happen every now and then, for example, it happened in January 2017. The cold record is of -7 °C (19.5 °F), set in January 1968, while in January 2017, the temperature dropped to -6.5 °C (20.5 °F).”
Do not let this scare you away or put you off! The average duration of stay in Dubrovnik is 4.2 days. So come on, be positive and expect that those four days that you’ll spend in Dubrovnik will be sunny! To comment on the Climate guide above – when the northeasterly Bora wind blows, it clears the sky. So, it is sunny, but it’s kinda chilly. :)
Remember – you are statistically more likely to have good weather than bad weather in Dubrovnik in the winter. And it is extremely unlikely that it will snow when you’re here. And well, even if it does, it’ll be super-cool and you can share amazing photos on social media.
Forget about busy streets and crowds of sweaty people that you have to elbow your way through to get from Pile gate to Ploče gate! Ah, blessed be winter – the only time of year when we, the locals, can have the town back to ourselves! And yes, of course, to share it with you, our dear guests, who made the right choice to visit in the off-season.
Forget about long queues to buy tickets for the walls, forget about the lines in front of restaurants, in the winter everything is easier, quicker and you don’t sweat as much as you do in the summer. Take for example the city walls – if you’re lucky, you might even enjoy moments of total solitude on the walls in the winter (check out the pic we took the other day if you don’t believe us!).
Overcrowded buses and local grocery shops? Again, only in the summer. In the winter, hop on the local bus lines with locals going to work, kids going to school and still the bus will not be full. Same goes for grocery shopping – if you need to buy a pack of smokes, couple of bananas and a pack of chips, you’ll be in and out in no time.
Which is good for you, the visitor! Like we mentioned already, the places that stay open in the winter are those that are open primarily for us, year-round residents, folks who call Dubrovnik home, and you can benefit from enjoying the same service and, just as importantly, the same prices like we do. If you want to connect with the locals, check out the bars where we go for our morning coffee or late night drinks.
During the Dubrovnik Winter Festival you can hang out at one of the Christmas houses lined along the main street – grab some prikle and mulled wine or hot tea and watch the world go by! It’s the Mediterranean way of slow-living and enjoying the moment. Sip on your coffee for an hour if you want, no pressure. See the latest Hollywood blockbuster in one of the two indoor movie theaters inside the Old town, subtitled but with original audio and afterwards go for a walk along the quiet and almost empty Stradun, which you have all to yourself.
Now that we have you all hyped up and planning your winter trip to Dubrovnik, you may be wondering how to get there? Dubrovnik is primarily an airline destination and over the winter months it is connected to several European cities, some of which are international hubs, like London, Barcelona and Frankfurt.
There are flights to and from Warsaw, Vienna, Brussels and of course, the Croatian capital, Zagreb. So, it’s not impossible to visit Dubrovnik in the winter! In fact, you are probably just one connecting flight away from soaking up some winter sunshine and relaxing by the Adriatic sea, far away from the freezing cold of the north of Europe. For your convenience, here’s a direct link to Airport of Dubrovnik’s winter flight schedule. Find your flights at Skyscanner.
Dubrovnik in winter offers a unique and unforgettable travel experience. With lower prices, mild weather, and fewer crowds, it’s the perfect time to explore this beautiful city. Start planning your winter getaway to Dubrovnik today - it’s the perfect city-break destination, ideal for three or four days in the much warmer Mediterranean, compared to everywhere else!
If you decide to visit, and want to meet a local of Dubrovnik, consider joining our guided walking tours for an insider's perspective. We specialize in small-group and private tours of the Old town and the City walls. And yes, even the tours are a little cheaper than in the high season! Why not discover the Old town with one of our guides or maybe walk the city walls in a small group? We look forward to welcoming you in Dubrovnik this winter!
Dubrovnik Local Guides