Sailing Dubrovnik to Split with G Adventures as a Solo Female Traveller

In June 2023, I finally realised my dream of visiting Croatia and sailing along the Dalmatian Coast. Here’s my experience of sailing Dubrovnik to Split with G Adventures as a solo female traveller.

Why I chose a G Adventures sailing trip

I’ve wanted to visit Croatia for years, and I’ve always thought that sailing on a yacht would be a great way to experience the Dalmatian Coast. I’ve done a little bit of sailing before, but I definitely didn’t feel anywhere near confident enough to charter my own yacht. Plus, I would be travelling on my own, so I wanted a trip where I could meet people and have some company for dinners and drinks. So joining a trip sailing Dubrovnik to Split with G Adventures as a Solo Female Traveller seemed like the perfect option.

The G Adventures sailing trip is on a 54 foot yacht. There are up to 8 people, plus a skipper. You all live on the yacht for the week – you sleep on the yacht, and have some meals there. Living in close quarters means you quickly get to know the other people on the trip, which I enjoyed. And living on the yacht meant that we got to visit lots of different places, without having to pack up our bags every day. If we’d been staying in hotels and taking ferries, there would be been days of packing and moving heavy bags between hotels. But on a yacht, your room comes with you, which was great!

What’s the boat like?

I’d been on sailing trips before in the UK, so I knew what to expect from the yacht. But most people on my trip hadn’t been on a sailing trip or a yacht before. There was definitely no need to have any prior knowledge of sailing or boats.

The 54 foot boat I was on was very clean and quite spacious, for a yacht. There was a decent sized seating area downstairs and small kitchen with a gas stove. The bedrooms weren’t big, and I was sharing a room with another solo female traveller. So we’d take it in turns in the room whenever one of us wanted to get changed, and would only both be in the room to sleep. So it worked ok.

The toilets on the boat are functional, but not luxury. They don’t have automatic flushes – you need to pump it yourself. But it’s fine once you get used to it. There’s a small hand-held shower in each bathroom as well, which is fine for a quick shower, even a quick hair wash. But there were 3 nights when we stayed in a marina with proper toilets and showers on the land – and I have to admit, I did enjoy using these more than the boat toilets!

I was lucky that the weather was amazing on my trip, so we all spent most of the time outside. And sitting outside on the yacht was amazing. So even though some aspects of the yacht were less comfortable, for me the positives definitely outweighed anything.

What activities do you do?

Below, I’ll give details of all the amazing activities and experiences on this trip sailing Dubrovnik to Split with G Adventures. But it’s important to note that every trip is going to be a bit different. A lot of this trip depends on the weather – it’s only possible to go to some places if the weather is good enough or the wind isn’t blowing from a certain direction. So there may be things that I did that aren’t possible on another trip – but another trip might have done things that I missed. The exact itinerary is up to the skipper, who knows the area and the weather. But hopefully this will give you an idea of the type of thing you can expect on your trip.

In terms of the actual sailing – get involved as you want. I enjoy sailing so I wanted to get involved pulling the ropes and having a go at steering. But other people on my trip preferred to sit back with a beer, and that was completely fine. You can still enjoy this trip even if you don’t want to do any sailing. But I’d definitely encourage you to give it a try!

Keep reading for a day-by-day itinerary of what I did on the 8-day sailing trip.