I'll be driving my own, personal car from Switzerland to Croatia.
Anything I need to know?
Anything I need special for driving in Croatia.
Pay the highway tolls along the way.
Specially, be clear how you have to pay. (Sticker, Péage, Pre payment over internet etc.)
check the winter tire regulations carefully.
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/travel/country/croatia/
driving license + passport/ID
green card insurance document + vehicle registration (ownership) document
reflective jacket + warning triangle + first aid kit + (if not LED/Xenon lights) spare bulbs
some EUR coins or Croatian Kuna for pay tolls
The license plate acts as green card document. https://www.nbi-ngf.ch/en/nvb/dokumente/gruene-karte
(But to avoid Sbrinz's experience, better take it with you)
But how the f. do you get an ownership document for a Swiss car?
To be on the very safe side upgrade this to jacket s . One for each seat.
i mean "Fahrausweis". if it is registered in Switzerland, one should have it anyways
but if not the owner of the car, one might need extra document.
according to this website , you should also be careful where to go topless.
I assume this has to do with cabriolets only.
also, if you are passing through slovenia, a fire extinguisher and highway sticker (vignette) could be required:
recently, drove through europe to turkey and back, and prepared such stuff before i left, but nobody checked for them. though, you never know.
EUR coins for pay tolls are good to have.
The thing is, unkown to many, the person listed in the gray card is not the owner
Regarding fire extinguisher, if we trust the Austrian ÖAMTC it is only for commercial vehicles.
https://www.oeamtc.at/laenderinfo/kroatien/
https://www.oeamtc.at/laenderinfo/slowenien/ Not mentioned for Slovenia.
Avoid driving on weekends.
Tom
Spare light bulbs??? But even if a light goes out I won't be able to fix it.
I'll have to look where I can purchase these.
Is this just the front lights ? or front and rear.
Depending on where you are driving to in Croatia, you might need to buy the vignette for Slovenian Motorways, but if you are just crossing from Trieste to Reijeka there are a couple of roads where Vignette is not needed.
You can buy set of bulbs (H2,H3,H7...) in Hornbach or in Coop bau und garten. Consider to throw in one towing rope, Croatian cops ask me for one last year (when they didn't find any other issues) but again maybe that was 'cos I'm Serbian and generally our nations still have some issues. Exchange some eur/chf to Kuna's because lots of gas stations and stores (further from highway) won't accept franks not sure about euros, but there are exchange point in almost every village. Good luck with your trip, hope you'll enjoy it, it's a beautiful country. Cheers
i forgot the most important: check how to use the indicator on roundabouts.
Croatia was fine, but I got caught out when we entered Serbia - they insisted on a green card, or buying over priced insurance at the border.
Yes, I did it that way last time we went to Croatia.
Tom
Last month I drove from Venice to Slovenia. If you do intend to use the motorway to cross Slovenia don't forget to buy a Vignette . You can buy them from the last few service stations in Italy. They cost 15€ for a week or 30€ for a month. Don't risk it, I saw 4 or 5 random police checks in the 2 days of motorway driving I had there.
But the motorways are great, not too busy and the drivers were careful and considerate (apart from a few Swiss boy racers with AG plates on the way back on Sunday). And everyone was very friendly and spoke great English.
Slovenija is small, motorways are sparse and actually not evey A and B can be reached through them, depending on where you enter and exit, you might better opt for country-side roads to see some scenery/attractions and save at least 30 Eur - assuming you will drive back at some point. The time difference will be insignificant(the country is small).
To cross Italy you will need some 40 Eur one way in tolls, in a good weather motorways are way faster, in a bad weather country-side roads might be faster - too many incidents last time I drove in heavy rain. Be carefull - 130 Km/h limit is for foreigners, you will be tail-gated in the left lane at this speed and eventually overtook from the right, so use the left lane rare.