Croatian law lets anyone drive a boat under 5 kW without a licence, which is enough to potter round a bay at walking pace and reach coves the buses do not. Around €57 a day out of season and €88 in August, and nobody will ask you anything except for a deposit.
By Ana Kovač
The threshold is 5 kW of engine power — a little under 7 horsepower. Below it you need no licence and no certificate of competence to take a boat out in Croatian waters. Above it you need a proper skipper's licence, and rental companies do check, because the harbourmaster fines them rather than you. Note that the limit is stated in kilowatts and advertised by some rental firms in horsepower, which is how people end up in a boat they are not entitled to drive.
A small open boat, four or five metres, doing perhaps six or seven knots flat out. That is enough to cross to Čiovo, work along the Marjan shore, or spend a day drifting between the coves on the south side of the peninsula with the anchor down. It is not enough to reach Brač comfortably, and it is emphatically not enough to be out in wind. Treat it as a floating picnic table with a motor and it is one of the best days you can buy here.
The coves on the south side of Marjan are the same ones in snorkelling the Marjan shore — bring a mask.
If you want someone else to drive, a skippered day sail will take you to Šolta or Brač.
Roughly €57 a day in the shoulder months and €88 and up in high season, usually with fuel extra and a cash or card deposit held against damage. Before you leave the pontoon: confirm the engine is genuinely under 5 kW and get it in writing, check there are enough lifejackets for everyone including children, ask what the boat's insurance excess is, and get the operator's phone number. And look at the forecast — a small boat and the afternoon maestral are a bad combination, which is why the sensible plan is out early and back by two.
For how a boat day compares with everything else, see is Split expensive?
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
Boat trips
A full day on a fast twelve-seat boat: the Blue Cave on Biševo, the Monk Seal cave, Stiniva's famous cove, lunch on Vis and a swim off Budikovac's turquoise lagoon, finishing with a stop at Hvar town. Ten and a half hours, small group, no coach transfer.
Boat trips
Five hours to Šolta and back on a ten-person boat: three swim stops in coves you cannot reach by road, an hour in Maslinica for dinner or a drink, and the run home across the channel as the sun goes down behind the island.
Within a short walk.
Nightlife
Split's staging area, not its destination. The seafront cafés turn into bars after eight, and you are paying for the seat and the view of the palace wall going gold — a fair trade for one round while the group assembles, a poor one for a whole evening. Move inside the walls by half ten.
Culture
Split's palm-lined seafront promenade, and the city's actual living room. Locals walk it at seven every evening, coffee lasts an hour, and nobody is in a hurry. Free, always open, and the correct place to watch the light go orange on the palace wall.
Boat trips
Two hours out of the city harbour towards Čiovo and back as the light goes, with a drink in your hand and Split's waterfront lit from the water. The single easiest good decision on a first evening in the city.
History
Two hours around the palace cellars, the Peristyle and the Klis-facing viewpoints where Meereen was filmed. Honest verdict: worth it if you love the show, skippable if you merely watched it — a standard palace tour covers the same stones with more history.
History
The vaulted basement halls that held up the emperor's apartments, preserved because they were filled with rubbish for a thousand years. The best-surviving Roman substructure anywhere, ten degrees cooler than the street, and the one part of the palace that looks like a ruin.
Food & drink
A high-ceilinged former shop turned bistro, doing modern Mediterranean plates and a serious wine list. The most reliable smart dinner in the centre, and the room is genuinely lovely.
Family
The most Split thing you can do for ten euros. Poljud is a listed 1979 shell of a stadium, the Torcida have been going since 1950, and a mid-table league game on a Saturday night tells you more about this city than any walking tour will.
Family
The south side of Marjan drops straight into clear water over rock rather than sand, which is exactly what you want and exactly what the city beaches are not. Bring a mask, walk in off the stones at Kašjuni or Bene, and it costs nothing.
Boat trips
A skippered yacht for the day, out to Šolta or Brač and back on the afternoon wind. Slower than the fast boats, quieter than all of them, and the only way to see this coast the way it has always actually been travelled.
Adventure
The noisy end of the Split waterfront, and the only place near the city with the full concession: parasail, jet ski, banana, tube, pedalo. Nobody will pretend it is authentic. It is, however, exactly what a bored eleven-year-old wants at four in the afternoon.
Family
A genuinely good rainy-day answer in a city with few of them. Several rooms in and around the old town run in English, take two to six players, and cost €60–80 for the room rather than per person.