Dubrovnik Day Trips: 4 Day Itinerary
Four days extends the 3-day spine with Cavtat, the easiest day trip on the whole list, as a genuine rest day before or after the busier ones. Day 1 is the Elaphiti Islands, Day 2 is Kotor and Perast in Montenegro, Day 3 is Peljesac wine and Ston, and Day 4 is Cavtat, a 30-minute bus ride with zero border crossing. See the 5-day through 7-day versions for Mostar, Korcula, and Mljet, or the full Dubrovnik day trips guide for the ranked list. Check visitdubrovnik.hr for current border and transport advisories before you lock in dates.
Book these before you go
- A Kotor and Montenegro day tour for Day 2.
- A Peljesac wine and Ston tour for Day 3.
- An Elaphiti Islands boat tour for Day 1, or take the public ferry instead (see below).
- Where to stay in Dubrovnik , your base for all four nights.
| Day | Focus | Travel time from Dubrovnik |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Elaphiti Islands (Kolocep, Lopud, Sipan) | ~25-60 min by public ferry |
| Day 2 | Montenegro (Kotor and Perast) | ~2h drive plus a 10 min to 2h+ border queue |
| Day 3 | Peljesac wine and Ston | ~1-1.5h via the Peljesac Bridge |
| Day 4 | Cavtat | ~30-45 min by bus |
Day 1: Elaphiti Islands
Ferry lines 807 and 831 leave from the Old Port and reach Kolocep in about 25 minutes, Lopud in 35 to 40, and Sipan in up to an hour, roughly EUR 5 each way. Skip the organised “three islands” booze-cruise boats (EUR 30-75 or more per person) and take the public ferry to Lopud instead, then walk 15 minutes to Sunj Beach. Check jadrolinija.hr for the current timetable, which thins out fast outside July and August.
Day 2: Montenegro (Kotor and Perast)
Leave by 7 to 7:30am. Montenegro sits outside Schengen, so the crossing at Karasovici and Debeli Brijeg is a real international border, passport required, with queues that swing from 10 minutes off-peak to multiple hours at a summer midday. An organised tour runs roughly EUR 30-68 per person; an independent bus from Gruz costs about EUR 25-33 one-way. Stop in Perast for the boat to the Our Lady of the Rocks islet, then Kotor for its walled Old Town and a fortress climb, around EUR 15 (free November to April). See the Bay of Kotor for why it holds its own against Dubrovnik’s with a fraction of the crowd, and check montenegro.travel for current hours.
Day 3: Peljesac wine and Ston
No border today, just the Peljesac Bridge, opened in 2022 to bypass the old detour through Bosnian territory at Neum. Wine-tour days run roughly EUR 130-150 per person for tastings at two or three family wineries growing Plavac Mali on the protected Dingac and Postup slopes, plus a stop in Ston for salt pans worked continuously for centuries and oysters farmed a short walk from where you’ll eat them. Check tzdubrovnik.hr for current Ston hours if you’d rather visit independently.
Day 4: Cavtat
Cavtat sits about 20km south of Dubrovnik, close enough to the Montenegro border that people sometimes assume it involves one; it doesn’t. Bus Line 10 runs from the main station for EUR 4-5, 30 to 45 minutes each way, and a seasonal ferry (roughly June through October) covers the same route for EUR 15-20 return. The Racic Mausoleum, designed by sculptor Ivan Mestrovic in 1922, is the one sight worth planning around; the rest is a marina town built for slow lunches, and Konoba Marineta on the waterfront does fair-priced Dalmatian seafood without the Old Town markup. After three demanding days, treat this one as recovery.
Why put the easiest day trip last instead of first?
Because Cavtat needs the least planning and forgives the least energy, it works best as the day you land on after Montenegro’s early start and Peljesac’s wine-tasting pace, not before them. Front-loading the trip with the hardest logistics and saving the simplest day for when you’re tired is the more sustainable order across four straight days of day trips.
Can you fit Mostar into this four-day plan instead of Cavtat?
Not without cutting something else. Mostar alone eats 2.5 to 3.5 hours each way plus a second non-Schengen border, which turns a four-day trip into mostly transit if it replaces Cavtat rather than adding to the plan. Move to the 5-day version to add Mostar without losing any of these four days.
Buy your Cavtat bus ticket from the driver rather than pre-booking; Line 10 runs frequently enough in season that there’s nothing to gain by reserving ahead.