A Day on the Pakleni Islands by Small Boat: The Right Way to Do Hvar's Archipelago

The Pakleni Islands are a string of twenty-one small wooded islets that lie a kilometre off Hvar town, sheltering the harbour from the open Adriatic and giving the place its postcard skyline. The name is a Croatian linguistic accident, it sounds like 'hellish islands' but actually derives from paklina, the pine resin that islanders once collected here to caulk wooden boats. The reality is the opposite of hellish: clear water, pine forest, a handful of family-run restaurants on jetties, and dozens of coves that are reachable only on foot or by boat.

Most visitors see the Pakleni from the deck of a 150-person party catamaran that leaves Hvar at 11:00, plays loud music, and lets passengers off for 45 minutes at each of three crowded coves. There is a better way.

Charter a Small Skippered Boat

For €250, €450 a day in summer (cheaper in shoulder season, more for newer boats), you can hire a small open boat or a six-metre skippered RIB that takes up to six people, including a captain who knows where the catamarans are not going to be, fuel for the day, life jackets, and usually a cool box for whatever you bring on board. Book ahead through any of half a dozen small operators on Hvar's harbour (Hvar Boats, Lupis, Kruna Charter, Ivona Boats), most have WhatsApp numbers, all will reduce the price if you book direct rather than through a hotel concierge.

Bring: swimsuits, towels, sunscreen (factor 50, your shoulders will thank you in October), a hat, drinking water, cash for lunch at the islands' restaurants, and a snorkel mask each. Skip: speakers, anything inflatable, and the temptation to plan the day too tightly.

A Sample Itinerary, From a Boat That Knows the Coves

9:30, Leave Hvar harbour. The skipper will likely head west around the breakwater, past the Franciscan monastery, and aim straight for Palmižana, the largest island in the chain. It has the most yachts moored in its sheltered bay, two famous restaurants (Toto's and Meneghello, both run by branches of the same Meneghello family who have lived on the island since 1906), a pine-shaded isthmus, and a small art gallery in the family's botanical garden. Drop off on the south side, walk five minutes across the isthmus to the wilder north shore, and swim before the day-trippers arrive at 11:00.

11:30, Reboard. Head south-west to the smaller island of Stipanska. The eastern cove (Stipanska bay proper) is dominated by the famous Carpe Diem Beach Club, with sun loungers, DJs and a €20 minimum spend; the far cove on the western side has a tiny family-run restaurant called Laganini Beach Bar serving exceptional octopus salad, grilled fish, a cold carafe of pošip and exactly the right amount of nothing else.

13:30, Lunch. Eat slowly. Swim before pudding. The water here is six metres deep three metres from shore, the colour photographers chase and never quite catch.

By mid-afternoon the catamarans have collected their passengers and gone. The coves go silent. The water turns that specific late-summer Adriatic turquoise that you will think about, occasionally and without warning, for the rest of your life.

15:30, Reboard. Ask the skipper to anchor for the afternoon off Jerolim (the closest island to Hvar town, traditionally a naturist beach and still gloriously empty on the western side) or Marinkovac (a horseshoe cove called Ždrilca, with two coves connected by a narrow channel where the boats moor stem-to-stern in August and disappear by mid-September). Snorkel. Nap on the bow. Read the book you brought.

18:00, Head back to Hvar with the late-afternoon sun behind you. You will arrive sunburnt across the bridge of your nose, slightly drunk on pošip, with salt in your hair and the calm specific only to days spent entirely on water. Shower. Eat dinner at Konoba Menego in the old town. Sleep early.

Practical Notes

Best months: late May to early October. The catamaran party boats run from mid-June to early September; book your private skipper for late September or early October if you want the islands almost to yourself.

If you do not want to spend €300, the public taxi-boats from Hvar harbour run to Palmižana, Jerolim and Stipanska every 30, 60 minutes in summer for €6, €10 each way. You will share the boat, but you will have the same coves, and you can plan a perfectly good slow day with a beach towel and a paperback.

Do not skip lunch at Laganini, Toto's or Meneghello to save money, half the reason to charter a boat is to eat at restaurants you can only reach by sea. Book a table the morning of your trip; both Toto's and Meneghello fill up by 13:00.