Wrecks, walls and caves within an hour of the city, on water that is warm from June to October and clear most of the year. A try dive needs no experience and no certificate; a certified single dive is the cheapest way to get wet if you already have a card.
By Ana Kovač
The central Dalmatian coast is wreck country. There are Second World War aircraft and freighters in divable depths around the islands off Split, plus wall dives that drop past forty metres and a few short swim-through caves. Visibility is routinely twenty metres and better outside the summer algal bloom, and there is nothing to catch you out — no current worth the name, no cold thermocline until you are deep, no tide.
A try dive is a pool or shallow-bay session with an instructor and one supervised dive to about six metres. No certificate, no course, no commitment: you find out in one morning whether breathing underwater agrees with you. Most centres take children from ten. Expect around €80–100 including all the kit.
If a mask is enough, snorkelling off the Marjan shore costs nothing.
Bring your card and your logbook. A single guided dive from a centre boat starts around €45 with tank and weights, and about €70–80 with full equipment hire. A two-tank day out to the wrecks runs to roughly €110–140. An SSI or PADI Open Water course is around €550 and takes three to four days, which is a real chunk of a week's holiday — worth knowing before you commit to it on the first morning.
Centres are spread between the city, Žnjan and the coast east towards Omiš. Žnjan has been a moving target while the beach was rebuilt, and at least one centre shifted its operation to Omiš for a season, so confirm the actual departure point when you book rather than assuming it is where the shopfront is.
Žnjan is the rebuilt beach strip east of the centre — see the Žnjan beach guide.
Omiš is half an hour down the coast, and the Omiš and Cetina day trip covers the town and the gorge behind it.
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.
Within a short walk.
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.
Beaches
The long, recently rebuilt beach strip east of the centre: wide promenade, sports courts, beach clubs, plenty of space and proper accessible entries into the water. Little shade, but the easiest beach in Split to spend a whole day at with children.
Beaches
A small sandy bay just past Bačvice, in front of the tennis club where Goran Ivanišević learned to play. Shallow, calm and mostly families — the quieter alternative when Bačvice is a wall of people.
Nightlife
Where a Split night ends rather than starts. The row of clubs behind the sand fills from about midnight, runs to three or four in summer, and sits a ten-minute walk east of the Riva, so nobody needs a taxi home. Loud, young and pop-driven — arrive before one and it will feel empty.
Adventure
Split's own barefoot ball game, invented at Bačvice in 1908 and played in ankle-deep water with no points and no winner. Free, faintly ridiculous, and the single most Split thing you can do. Locals will let you join if you ask.
Beaches
Split's city beach, and the only proper sand within walking distance of the palace. Shallow for fifty metres, which makes it excellent for small children and the reason picigin — Split's own barefoot ball game — was invented here.
Adventure
The pine-covered hill on Split's western edge, a fifteen-minute walk from the Riva and the reason the city feels liveable in August. Free, open always, with viewpoints, hermit chapels, swimming coves at the bottom and a proper trail network on top.
Adventure
Two hours on a board lit from underneath, pushing off Stobreč as the sun goes and paddling into the river mouth in the dark. The LEDs light the bottom through three metres of water, which is the whole point: you can see what is down there.
Adventure
Three hours paddling the cliffs and hidden coves along Marjan's south shore, with two swim stops and a cave you can only reach by water. The best way to see Split from the side it was built to face, and easy enough for a complete beginner.
Adventure
An hour and a half up the marked path from Strožanac to the chapel of St George, topping out around 441 metres with Split, Kozjak, Mosor and the islands all in view. It is free, it starts at a supermarket, and locals walk it before work.
Adventure
Around eleven kilometres of the Cetina through its canyon below Omiš, on grade II–III water in summer. Three to four hours on the river, most of it drifting between short rapids, with swimming stops and a cliff to jump off if you want one.
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.