Internet in Croatia these days is widely available and broadband services are now both extremely commonplace…and fast! Wifi is extremely widespread – you’ll almost always find it offered in your place of accommodation, or cafes/bars and in ‘hotspots’ around town. Internet cafes are therefore less commonplace, although you may still find some Internet cafes – or a computer in the corner of a bar – in some places.
Wi-Fi in Croatia
As we’ve mentioned, Wi-fi coverage in Croatia is pretty widespread these days. A number of towns (or parts of towns) even have their own free-to-use hotspots.
More and more accommodation places (particularly private accommodation) are recognising the demand for wi-fi and many offer the service to their guests. You will also find wi-fi in other typical places – bars, cafes and so on, although many times these are secure networks for which you’ll have to ask the password. Don’t hesitate to do so…although you may have to ask the waiter (or similar) to write it down for you if it’s something a little on the tricky side (i.e. in Croatian)!
Here are maps of some of the wi-fi hotspots in Croatia – click on each town or city to see a map.
These days, many people travel with smartphones, tablets and the like so it’s actually very easy to search for open wi-fi networks and connect to them when and where you can. If you travel extensively, you may also like to contact your home mobile/data network provider to see what their data costs are for Croatia.
Internet in Croatia – Using your smartphone
As Croatia is part of the EU, and following the scrapping of EU roaming charges in June 2017, you can use your smartphone without extra charge in the country. That means you are using your home phone allowance package to make calls, send texts and use data, just as if you were at home. (As long as ‘home’ is another EU country! In terms of the UK, post-Brexit – your home network should still allow free data roaming in Croatia/the EU, but double-check with them before travelling.)
For non-EU citizens, if you’re planning on using your mobile device (smartphone or tablet) extensively for data purposes, you could also purchase a Croatian data SIM card to keep costs down. One such company that does this is BonBon – check out their PrePaid Sim Card page for more details and for where to buy.
Like so many other places around the world, you’ll see many mobile shops all over Croatia. Don’t hesitate to pop in to one and ask for help buying a data SIM (or other kind of SIM card) – staff should be able to help you in English.