There aren't any airports that are especially close to the Plitvice Lakes but as most people will usually take a trip to the Lakes as part of their holiday to Croatia, most are prepared to undertake a bit of travelling to appreciate the full beauty of this nature park!

Zagreb Airport is the best airport to fly to to reach Plitvice - it is about 140km away. From Zagreb Airport, take a connecting bus (they wait outside the terminal building) to the main bus station in Zagreb. From here, you can then take one of numerous buses to the Plitvice Lakes; journey time is about 2 hours 20 minutes.

Zadar Airport is the technically the closest airport to Plitvice, at about 130km away. More and more airlines now fly to Zadar Airport, so it's actually not a bad place to start from if you're planning a visit to Plitvice Lakes. If you do find yourself flying to this airport, take a connecting bus to Zadar Bus Station; then another bus from here to Plitvice. Journey time is about 2 hours.

Although Rijeka Airport isn't all that far from Plitvice, it's not an ideal place to fly to as there aren't direct travel connections to the Park. After transferring from the airport to Rijeka Bus station, you would then most likely have to take a bus to Karlovac (journey time 1.5 - 2 hours), and then another bus from here to Plitvice Lakes (journey time 1 hour 20/30 minutes). You can use the Zagreb Bus Terminal website to look up timetable details.

Here's a brief list of bus journey times from various places in Croatia to the Plitvice Lakes to give you an idea of how long it will take you to get there:

from Zagreb: 2 hours 20 minutes

from Zadar: 2 hours

from Split: 5 hours 50 minutes

from Dubrovnik: 9 hours 35 minutes (N.B. Only one bus a day which arrives very early in the morning - try instead taking a bus to Split and changing there!)

from Varazdin: 4 hours 20 minutes (one bus per day)

If you're travelling from elsewhere in Croatia to Plitvice, take a bus to one of the above places and change for another bus from there.

Day trips to the Plitvice Lakes
You can also book an organised excursion to Plitvice Lakes from a wide variety of other towns and resorts in Croatia. Call in at a local travel agent for details; the one-day round trip will normally take all day (so, a little bit on the tiring side) but it may well be worth it if you weren't otherwise planning on travelling to or nearby this part of the country.

Thomson Holidays also offer organised excursions to the Plitvice Lakes from both Porec and Rovinj in Istria. See their Excursion to Plitvice Lakes page.