In April 2019 we spent five days exploring the island of Vis, Croatia with our two kids. This tiny island has an area of about 90 square kilometers and a population of about 3500 people. Vis is about a third of the way to Italy on the Adriatic Sea. Of the inhabited Croatian islands, it’s the farthest from the mainland.
On this post you will find lots of ideas for things to do when visiting Vis with kids.
Getting There
To get there, we took a ferry from Split. On the way out, we took the high-speed catamaran, which took 1.5 hours. On the way back we took the regular (and enormous) ferry boat, which took 2 hours. We preferred the regular ferry because it was roomier for the kids to move around. There were also lots of couches, tables, chairs, a bar, making it more fun! In contrast, on the catamaran you had to sit inside on a row of hard chairs without access to the deck.
A Bit About The History Of Vis
The history of Vis goes back for thousands of years, dating back to prehistoric times. In 200 BC the Ancient Greeks wrote that Vis produced the best wine (and it is still famous for its wine to this day). From the 1940s until 1989, Yugoslavia used Vis as a military base. During that time, foreign visitors couldn’t visit the island, and there were few regular inhabitants.
Having been closed to the outside world until relatively recently means that the island hasn’t developed much. Many of the historic buildings on the island are in ruins or awaiting renovation. We think this will change dramatically in the next few years as tourism continues to grow. Vis is currently the farthest out, under-visited neighbor of highly popular Brac and Hvar islands.
Pomalo
We loved our time in Vis. We really enjoyed the easy going way of island life, described by the locals as pomalo. Nobody here seems to be on a rush and we really liked that. People were friendly in their own ways, but they mostly kept to themselves. It must be hard for this tiny island to get so many tourists for a few months of the year. We wondered how they felt about this and the changes that come with increased tourism.
We visited Vis in early April and the island was rushing to get ready for sumer. People were fixing roads, paving sidewalks, renovating stores, restaurants, and more. The island is known for its food and wine scene, built on the freshest seafood and fine wine (both traditions dating back at least two millennia on the island). There were a few restaurants open, and we ate a couple of meals out. By pure luck, ended up eating a nice dinner at one of the best-rated restaurants on the island, Restoran Pojoda. We had grilled fish, seafood risotto, and spaghetti heaping with prawns, plus local white wine for not much.
Traveling To Vis In The Low Season
There are plenty of things to do in Vis other than eat out. Vis is very hilly and hiking opportunities are endless. You can walk from one side of the island to the other in about 4-5 hours. The trails are clearly marked so it’s easy to get around on foot.
There are many beautiful beaches on the island and several leftover military bases that you can explore on your own. There are a lot of things to do in Vis with kids, even in the low season!
Getting Around
To explore Vis with kids, having a car is the best option. One option is to rent a car in Split and take the car ferry to the island. Beware that the car rental agency in Split charges an extra fee to take a cars to the islands. The ferry ticket (both ways) for moving a car on the boat is also more expensive. A better option is to rent a car once you arrive in Vis. The person meeting us at the port to take us to our Airbnb was a tour agent (Medo) and we rented a compact car from him for about US$40/day. He dropped off the car at our house and was very flexible and accommodating. We also rented a car seat from him (included in the price).
If you are planning a visit to Vis and you need a car, want local knowledge, or want to book a tour of any of the island attractions, we definitely recommend you contact Medo here.
Things To Do in Vis With Kids:
We had lots of time to explore Vis and we tried to make the most of our time there. Here is a list of some things to do in Vis when visiting with kids.
Stoncica beach and hike to Stoncica lighthouse
This beautiful, sheltered sandy beach is perfect for kids! The beach stays shallow for about 30 meters so the kids can play in the water without worrying about it. Stoncica is a 15-minute drive from the Vis and Kut, and it’s very popular in the summer months. On the sunny April morning when we visited, we had the beach all to ourselves. There is coastal trail that leads to a lighthouse from this beach, just to the right side of it.It is also possible from here to hike along the coast out to a lighthouse, but we just stayed at the beach enjoying ourselves.
Vis old town
We stayed in Kut, the original settlement that later became part of Vis and a short walk along the sea to Vis Town. This area is on the eastern side of Vis and a great place to watch the sun set over the hills of the island. Kut is a beautiful, compact stone town. We enjoyed exploring the narrow streets, finding cute squares to play in, and walking on the waterfront or riva.
One afternoon we walked farther east on the riva (waterfront) and had a great time going down onto some of the wooden docks and rock areas to look for tide pools. The Adriatic Sea around Vis is rich and plentiful so we were able to find lots of sea critters on the tide pools there (sea urchins, sea snails, sea slugs, crabs, and other critters).
The western side of town, which is where the ferry arrives, is the old town of Vis and is also very fun to explore. Our kids loved running around the streets and finding cats everywhere!
Komiza
This town is the second biggest town in the island with about 1500 residents (it’s really the only other town on the island, not counting a few small settlements scattered around). You are supposed to be able to see Italy on a very clear day!
We visited Komiza hoping to find a place to eat lunch but, like most of the island, nothing was open (except coffee shops, which seem to be open everywhere all the time in Croatia), so we ended up grabbing picnic ingredients from the grocery store and eating lunch on the beach with an amazing view of the town and the mountains behind it. Komiza sits in a deep bay and it has the best weather on the island, so it was a perfect place to do some al fresco eating!
Abandoned Missile Bunker And Forts
During WWII, Vis became a strategic military location for the Allied forces. Later, when Yugoslavia became a country, there were as many as 30 military bases in the island. Tito, the Yugoslav leader at the time built huge underground bunkers and filled the island with a wide network of underground passages and rooms where he could hide from attacks.
In Vis we visited a huge missile base that at some point housed a 12 ballistic missiles, each 20 meters long. The entrance to the bunker was carved into the hill with camouflaged styrofoam all around so it’d be invisible from above. Small stone huts hid rocket fuel exhaust pipes on the hillside. We also came across extensive tunnels and complexes hidden inside dilapidated houses on the hills. We explored these tunnels and it was incredible and incredibly spooky to walk inside this massive network with a single headlamp and then pop out somewhere on a hillside. The kids really loved it and Paola spend her entire time underground hoping all her worst fears wouldn’t come true and that nobody would lock us inside one of those tunnels. We all got our adrenaline fix!
On our way to the large missile bunker we drove by Vis’s dumpster and our hearts sunk. The “dumpster” is just the hillside where trucks bring loads of rubbish and just dump them over the hill. We saw the trees filled with plastic bags, plastic bags flying around, and trash all over. As we all know, most of it will eventually end up in the ocean and, most likely, will be the reason why beautiful wild animals will die. This sight shocked us. Croatia is a very clean country, including the surrounding Adriatic Sea and beaches. It’s sad to see how we are poisoning our planet and everything in it.
Tito’s Cave
During WWII, Yugoslavian leader Tito hid in Vis and there are two caves on Mount Hum where people think he might have been working in hiding. Whether he actually hid there, nobody really knows. It is really easy to visit the cave as it’s on the way to the top of Mount Hum and there are signs for the trailhead. Once you reach the parking lot you will have to climb 275 steps to the cave. Our kids loved the hike up and were very excited to explore the caves and learn more about them.
Mt. Hum
Mount Hum is the tallest mountain on the island at 587 meters, and it sits right behind the town of Komiza. We drove to the start of a short trail to reach the top of Mount Hum and take in the views but, by the time we reached the parking lot, the day was very windy and cold and we were surrounded by fog so we decided to skip the trail and head down to Tito’s cave for a more sheltered hike. No point in reaching a panoramic view completely obscured in the clouds!
Stivina
Named the best beach in Europe in 2016, it has apparently become a major attraction for day tripping instagrammers arriving via boat to come have their photo taken. You can reach the beach by boat or you can hike a rocky trail down for 30 minutes (or longer with kids). There were no boats operating when we visited the island so we decided to hike part of the trail down to get a good luck at the beach. The trail is rather steep with loose rock. It’s doable with kids, but if your kids are young, you’d want to be prepared to do a ton of climbing back up while carrying them. Because of this, we just went down as far as we figured our kids could hike back up!
The beach is a surrounded by cliffs with a narrow passage into the sea. The water is an incredible turquoise color and it looked so beautiful from above. Apparently, the beach has become so popular that it is better to explore other coves in the island to find more peaceful spots during the high season.
Tavez
On our last day in Vis we were supposed to take the 7am catamaran back to Split but we woke up to strong winds and torrential rain. When we went to check with the boats, they told us our boat had been cancelled and that we had to wait for the 2pm ferry. We immediately contacted our host and asked for a later checkout (which she agreed to), and Medo about extending our car rental (he also said yes), so we packed our bags into the car later in the morning and headed to explore a different part of the island.
Joe had read about a small ridge top town called Tavez. The town was supposed to look the way towns in the area looked 200 years ago, hidden up in a forest, so we drove back to the western part of the island, parked our car and found a trail to hike up to Tavez. A local man greeted us when we parked our car and told us which way to go. We hiked up and found that the entire tiny town had been turned into a spiffy vacation rental and was closed to visitors.
We explored the beautiful area around and found a WWII tunnel to explore as well as two bunkers at the top of the hill, plus many wildflowers, butterflies, and lizards. The kids loved the hike and exploring the military sites. The oldest lighthouse in the Adriatic is nearby (built by an Illyrian Queen), but we didn’t find the trail to it.
When we got back to our car, the man who had greeted us was waiting for us to offer us some of his honey for sale. He told us his name was Rocco and talked to us in a mix of Croatian and Italian for a long time. We bought some delicious honey, and headed to a nearby restaurant that Medo recommended to us. After lunch we drove back to the port to catch our ferry.
We had the most amazing five days exploring Vis! We all agree that this was one of our favorite stops in Croatia. I hope you’ll find this list of things to do in Vis with kids useful!
To read more about our travels, click here.
So beautiful! Hugo and Valentina are SO big!
Isn’t she? She’s grown so much! And Hugo has too!