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Small boats moored along the Hvar Town waterfront, with the Arsenal, the main square and the Fortica fortress behind

Island guide · 43°10′N · 16°26′E

Where to stay on Hvar, and why we say Hvar Town

The island is 68 kilometres long, but for most visitors the answer is short: stay in Hvar Town. It is where the boats arrive, where the boats leave from, and where you can walk to dinner. Here is the case for it, the twenty-four houses we look after ourselves, and what the rest of the island is for.

By the hvar.com team · Updated August 2026

No. 01

The short answer

if you read nothing else

Stay in Hvar Town. Nine visitors out of ten are better off there, and it is not a close call. The catamaran from Split docks in the town itself. Every boat trip — the Pakleni islands, the Blue Cave, the taxi boats — leaves from the riva you are standing on. The restaurants, the beach bars, the square, the theatre from 1612 and the climb to Fortica are all on foot. And you do not need a car, which on this island saves you money, parking and an hour a day.

First time on HvarHvar Town · nothing else comes close

Group of six or moreone of our villas · 21 of the 24 are in or above the town

Two of you, short staya town apartment or one of our small heritage stays

No carHvar Town · everything is walkable or a boat ride

You want quiet as wellsleep two or three lanes back from the riva

Genuinely off it allStari Grad, Jelsa or the south slope · see below

The rest of this page is the honest version of the alternatives, because the island has 28 towns, villages and coves and some of them are wonderful. But if you are deciding quickly: book the town, and book it early — it is also where almost everything worth staying in actually is.

A stone stairway in the old town of Hvar, lined with potted plants and bougainvillea

No. 02

Why Hvar Town

the case, in full

Hvar Town is the only place on the island where you can arrive by catamaran, drop your bags, and not think about transport again for a week. Thirteen of the island’s twenty-three hotels are here, and so are almost all of our own villas — not because we sell it hardest, but because this is where the houses worth staying in were built.

What you get within a fifteen-minute walk: the largest square in Dalmatia, the cathedral of St Stephen, the Arsenal with the oldest public theatre in Europe above it from 1612, the Franciscan monastery along the waterfront, and the twenty-minute climb to Fortica that everyone does an hour before sunset. Then the beach bars on the western point, the restaurants in the lanes behind the square where prices drop noticeably, and the taxi boats to Palmižana and the Pakleni islands fifteen minutes offshore.

The honest caveat: in July and August the waterfront between eleven and four is a queue, and the clubs run past midnight on one street. Sleep two or three lanes back from the riva and it is a quiet town. Every one of our houses in the old town is off that street, and we will tell you plainly which ones hear anything at all.

Our villas in Hvar Town →Apartments Hotels

The whole Fortica fortress above Hvar Town seen from above, with the old town, the harbour and the Pakleni Islands behind

No. 03

Where in Hvar Town

six answers

You can walk the town end to end in twenty minutes, so nothing here is far. What changes from one part to the next is how many steps you climb, how quiet the night is and how close the water is. Every distance below is measured from the main square in a straight line, so allow a little more on foot.

Inside the wallsstone lanes and steps · everything within five minutes · loud in July and August

The riva and the harbourwhere the catamaran lands · flat and level · the busiest address in town

Križna Lukathe bay just east · 730 m · flatter streets, families, a short walk back in

Majerovica and the shore path820 m west · swimming off the rocks, paved the whole way

Podstine and the far westabout 1.2 km · pine, quiet nights, the last of the town

The slope above1.1 to 1.4 km and uphill · pools, parking and the view · five minutes by taxi

Hvar Town from the air: the harbour, the old town roofs and the Pakleni islands beyond

Inside the walls is the postcard, and it is also a staircase. Our houses there sit almost on top of the square — Villa Forkira is 120 m from it, Hvar Town Palazzo about thirty steps, Villa Alea is beside the cathedral, and the two Heritage apartments are in the lanes behind it. You walk out of the door into dinner. You also carry your bags up, and in high summer the lanes behind the riva are awake until the bars close.

Križna Luka and the eastern side is where we send families. The streets flatten out, the bay is shallow and sheltered, and it is still only a ten-minute walk back to the square. Majerovica and the shore path west are the town’s swimming: Bonj is 550 m out, Majerovica 820 m, Hula Hula a few steps further along the same paved path.

Podstine, about 1.2 km west, is where the town runs out into pine. Nothing wakes you there; Villa Verde sits above that bay. And the slope — Galapagos, Pelagos, Panoramic — buys you a pool, a parking space and the whole harbour laid out below, at the cost of a climb home or a five-minute taxi.

See the houses by area →Tell us who is coming

The town, the bays, and everything bookable around them

No. 04

Our villas, and where they are

24 houses

These are not portal listings. They are twenty-four houses our own team looks after on the island — one number to call, someone here all year, and no platform commission on top. Twenty-one of the twenty-four are in Hvar Town or on the slope just above it, which is the clearest answer to the question this page asks: that is where the good houses are.

A villa starts to make sense from about six people, or from four if you want a pool and a kitchen. Below that, look at the apartments in the next section.

Villa Hvar Panoramic seen from the air — a long pool, a terraced garden and the tiled roofs of Hvar Town below it

Villa Hvar Panoramic16 guests · 7 bedrooms · pool · Hvar Town

The stone facade and balustraded terrace of Villa Hvar Town Palazzo, wedged among the old houses of Hvar

Villa Hvar Town Palazzo12 guests · 5 bedrooms · Hvar Old Town

The pool and loungers of Villa Galapagos on the slope above Hvar Town, framed by palm fronds

Villa Galapagos10 guests · 4 bedrooms · pool · above town

View all 24 villas →Ask us which one

The rest of the town houses sleep six to twelve: Villa Garden Beauty, Villa Verde, Villa Azzurro, Villa Heraclea, Lola’s Summer House, Villa Pelagos, Villa Forkira, Villa Anabel, Villa Mediterranean Beauty, Villa Timeless Beauty, Villa Elegant Beauty and Villa Infinity Blue. Three sit outside town: Villa Vinea Privata among the vineyards at Sveta Nedjelja, Villa Luxury Bay in a quiet bay near Vrboska, and Villa Perfect Escape out on the Pakleni Islands. Or sort the whole list by what matters to you: private pool, right on the sea, family, luxury, large groups.

No. 05

Apartments and smaller stays

two to six people

For two people, or a couple with children, an apartment is what most guests actually book: a kitchen, a terrace, a front door in the old town, and usually less than a hotel room in the same street. We keep a handful of small stays of our own in the middle of Hvar Town — the two Heritage one-bedrooms are about as central as it is possible to sleep on this island.

The living room of Hvar Heritage Riva, a laid table and glass doors open onto the old town

Hvar Heritage Riva2 guests · 1 bedroom · on the riva

The sitting room of Hvar Heritage Residence, white built-in shelves and a door open to the terrace

Hvar Heritage Residence4 guests · 2 bedrooms · Hvar Old Town

A dining table set against the bare stone wall of Villa Alea in the old town of Hvar

Villa Alea6 guests · 3 bedrooms · Hvar Town

Three more of ours sleep two to six: Hvar Heritage Kala in a lane behind the square, Seaview Retreat with Terrace above the harbour, and Infinity Residence, which has a pool. You get the same person on the phone for an apartment as for a villa.

Ours

Forkira Luxury Villa, our pride

5.0 on Google

Luxury apartments inside the historic walls of Hvar Town, steps from the riva and the Pjaca. King beds, air conditioning, a modern kitchen, and a host guests remember. Our only house with instant online booking.

Five boutique studios, daily breakfast, and the same island team that stands behind every other house on this page.

Book now See the rooms

The stone facade of Villa Forkira in a narrow alley of Hvar old town

Everything else in Hvar Town — live prices for your dates

Prices come from Booking.com through our partner Stay22. Booking through these links costs you nothing extra and pays us a small commission.

View all apartments →Or a hotel

Change the dates in the bar at the top of this page and those three refresh with them. The apartments page does the same thing for the whole island, so you can hold a night in the town against a night in Jelsa before you decide.

Two things are worth checking before you book anything inside the old town: stairs and parking. There is no lift behind those stone facades, so a top-floor apartment can mean a long climb with a suitcase, and cars stay outside the walls — fine for a week, less fine if you pictured unloading at the door. Ask us and we will tell you which of ours you can walk straight into.

A table set on a stone terrace above a Hvar bay, oleander and a palm framing the view out to anchored boats

No. 06

Hotels, if you want a desk

23 on the island

These are not ours — we do not run hotels — but the answer to where they are is the same as everywhere else on this page: thirteen of the twenty-three are in Hvar Town, and the rest are spread thin across the island. A hotel earns its keep if you want breakfast handled, a pool somebody else maintains, and a person at a desk at midnight. If you want a kitchen, a terrace and your own front door, the section above is the one you want.

The awninged terrace restaurant of Palace Elisabeth at dusk, tables set and looking out over Hvar harbour

Palace Elisabeth5 stars · main square · Hvar Town

The rooftop terrace of the Adriana hotel, low chairs and parasols facing Hvar Town across the harbour

Adriana Hvar Spa Hotelspa · rooftop bar · Hvar Town

The cascading pool of the Amfora resort seen from the air, curving around planted islands above a pine-lined bay

Amfora Hvar Grand Beach Resortbeach resort · pools · Hvar Town

View all 23 hotels →Compare with a villa

The other ten in and just outside town: Riva Marina on the waterfront, Park Hvar by the square, Pharos Bayhill and Teranea above the bay, Villa Nora and Dea in old stone houses, Beach Bay and Sirena on the promenade, Podstine a quiet walk west, and Moeesy in the pines. In Stari Grad: Maslina Resort, Arkada, PLACES Hvar, Antica and Amicor. In Jelsa: Hotel Hvar and Fontana. Then one each in Vrboska (Aminess Senses), Milna (Fortuna) and Zavala (Skalinada).

No. 07

Prices, and where to see them

three lists

A night on Hvar moves more with the date than with anything else, so any number written into an article is wrong by the time you read it. Every one of our pages carries the real rate, and two of them quote live availability for your exact dates. Start in the right list:

Villas24 houses · rate on every page Apartmentslive prices for your dates Hotels23 on the island · 13 in town

Or go straight to search every stay on the island and put your dates in. The bar at the top of this page does the same thing.

The cathedral bell tower above the tiled roofs of Hvar Town, the hills behind

Three things move the number, and it is worth knowing which. The date matters most — July and August are a different island from May, June, September and October, and the last two weeks of August are the top of the market. What you are renting matters next: a hotel charges per room, a villa charges for the whole house, so the two only compare once you divide by the number of beds. And how early you ask matters more than people expect, because there are twenty-four houses of this kind on the island and the ones in the town go first.

If you already know the shape of what you want, these narrow it down faster than a price filter: private pool, right on the sea, family, large groups, luxury.

And if you would rather not sort through any of it, send us the dates and the number of people. We will come back with what is actually free, what it costs, and which of them we would put you in.

Ask for a quote →Search every stay

No. 08

Stari Grad, Jelsa and the centre

12 places

Stari Grad is the oldest town in Croatia, founded in 384 BC, built around Tvrdalj — the fortified summer house of the poet Petar Hektorović with its walled fish pond. It is also where the car ferry docks, which matters if you are bringing a vehicle. In the evening it is quiet, the restaurants sit in stone lanes and nobody queues.

Jelsa and Vrboska are the family end of the island: a square with plane trees, shallow water at Mina and Soline, and cooking that is simple and good. This is where the same dinner costs noticeably less than on the Hvar Town riva, and it suits people who have already done the town once.

Behind them is the Stari Grad Plain, a UNESCO site still farmed along field boundaries laid out in the fourth century BC — flat, walkable, and empty at eight in the morning. If you want an island that feels lived in rather than visited, this is the third of it to book.

All 28 places →Beaches nearby Restaurants

Tvrdalj, the fortified summer house of the poet Petar Hektorovic, in Stari Grad on Hvar

No. 09

The wild east

8 places

Past Jelsa the island narrows and the traffic stops. This is the third that almost no visitor sees: shepherds’ hamlets, roofless stone villages, and coves you reach on a track. Humac has no electricity and no cars and you walk in; dinner there is cooked under an iron bell over embers. Twenty minutes further on foot is Grapčeva cave, a Neolithic site with pottery from around 5,000 BC.

Sleeping out here is a deliberate choice and it needs a car. The nearest supermarket, restaurant and pharmacy may all be fifteen or twenty minutes away, and the road is slow. What you get for that is an island with nobody on it, even in August, and a night sky you will not get anywhere near the town.

The abandoned village of Malo Grablje is on the other side of the island but belongs to the same Hvar — the one that lived here for two thousand years before the boats started arriving.

The abandoned stone village of Malo Grablje on Hvar, its roofless houses standing on the hillside

No. 10

The south side, sea and wine

bring a car

Sveta Nedjelja, Ivan Dolac and Zavala sit on terraces under a cliff, facing open sea. The water drops away fast and stays a couple of degrees colder than the north coast, the light in the afternoon is the best on the island, and this is where the plavac mali grows — on some of the steepest vineyard terraces on the Adriatic.

Two practical things. First, you need a car: buses are sparse, and the road in from the north goes through a single-lane tunnel at Pitve that runs on alternating traffic. Second, there is very little here besides the view, the sea and two or three konobas — which is exactly the point for some people and a long week for others.

If you want the south coast without living on it, sleep in Jelsa and drive over for a tasting and a swim. It is twenty-five minutes.

Villas on the south side →What to do on Hvar

Vineyard rows on the steep southern slope of Hvar west of Sveta Nedjelja, with the open Adriatic below

No. 11

Getting around from where you sleep

the 20 km that catch people out

The single most useful fact about arriving on Hvar: the catamaran and the car ferry do not dock in the same place. The passenger catamaran arrives in Hvar Town. The car ferry arrives in Stari Grad, and there are another twenty kilometres between the two. Book a room in one and arrive in the other and you have a transfer you did not plan.

Without a car you can still do a great deal. Buses link Hvar Town, Stari Grad and Jelsa several times a day and meet most catamarans, taxis wait at the harbour, and for the south coast and the Pakleni islands the taxi boat beats the road anyway. A car only becomes necessary if you are sleeping inland or on the south side — and if you are staying in Hvar Town, a car for the whole week is money and parking stress you will not use.

How to get to Hvar →Ferries & catamarans Taxi boat

Mina bay near Jelsa on the north coast of Hvar, pine trees down to clear shallow water

No. 12

Match it to your week

by what you came for

Three days, no carHvar Town · one boat day, one beach, one dinner

Six or more of youa villa in the town · kitchen, terrace, one bill

A week with childrenJelsa or Vrboska · shallow water, flat streets, short boat days

Beaches above allnorth coast for easy swimming, south coast for the light

Wine and quietthe south slope, or Jelsa with a car for the day

Walking and cyclingStari Grad · the Plain is flat and empty at eight

NightlifeHvar Town, and two lanes back from the riva

A group of eight or morea villa, and almost certainly not in the old town

One thing worth saying plainly: push-chairs and the old town of Hvar do not agree. It is stone steps almost everywhere. Stari Grad and Jelsa are flat, and that alone decides the week for a lot of families.

And if you can only come once, come between June and September. That is when the sea is warm enough to stay in, every konoba and beach bar is open, and the boats run from morning until the light goes. Outside those months the island is quieter and cheaper with a shorter list of things open — a different holiday, not a lesser one.

See the villas →Apartments Things to do

The shallow, sheltered beach at Soline near Vrboska on the north coast of Hvar

No. 13

Where to stay, common questions

Where is the best place to stay on Hvar?

Hvar Town, for almost everyone. The catamaran from Split docks there, every boat trip leaves from that riva, and the restaurants, beach bars, square and fortress are all on foot — so you never need a car. Stari Grad and Jelsa are the alternatives if you want quiet evenings above everything else.

How much does it cost to stay on Hvar?

More than anything it depends on when you come: July and August are a different market from May, June, September and October, and the last fortnight of August is the top of it. It also depends on what you are renting, because a hotel charges by the room and a villa charges for the whole house — the two only compare once you divide by the number of beds. Rather than quote a figure that ages badly: every villa page carries its own rate, the apartments page and the search bar quote live prices for your dates, and the hotels page lists all twenty-three on the island.

Where exactly should I stay in Hvar Town?

Inside the walls if you are two people who want to walk out of the door into it and do not mind steps. Križna Luka, 730 m east, if you have children: flatter streets and a sheltered bay. The shore path west past Bonj and Majerovica if swimming matters most. Podstine, about 1.2 km out, for silence. The slope above town for a pool, a parking space and the view, at the cost of a climb or a five-minute taxi.

Should I stay in Hvar Town or Stari Grad?

Hvar Town unless you have a specific reason not to. Stari Grad is quieter and it is where the car ferry docks, so it suits people arriving with a vehicle or coming back for a second visit. For a first trip, the town wins on everything that matters day to day.

Is it better to book a villa or a hotel on Hvar?

From about six people up, a villa — a kitchen, a terrace, a pool and one bill instead of four rooms. We look after 24 houses ourselves and 21 of them are in Hvar Town or on the slope above it. Below six people a hotel or an apartment in the town usually works out better.

Do you have apartments in Hvar Town?

Yes. Our own small stays sit in the middle of the old town — Hvar Heritage Riva and Hvar Heritage Kala sleep two, Hvar Heritage Residence sleeps four, and Seaview Retreat sleeps five. Beyond those, the apartments page shows live prices and real availability across the island.

Can you stay on Hvar without a car?

Yes, and in Hvar Town you should. Everything in the town is walkable, the taxi boats cover the Pakleni islands and the south coast faster than the road, and buses link the town with Stari Grad and Jelsa several times a day. A car only becomes necessary inland or on the south side.

Is Hvar Town too noisy to sleep in?

On the waterfront in July and August it can be — the clubs run past midnight on one street. Two or three lanes back it is a quiet town, and every one of our houses in the old town is off that street. We will tell you plainly which ones hear anything at all.

Where should families with young children stay on Hvar?

A villa with a pool in or above Hvar Town if you want everything close, or Jelsa and Vrboska if shallow water matters most — Mina and Soline are warm by June and flat to walk to. Bear in mind the old town of Hvar is stone steps almost everywhere, which push-chairs do not enjoy.

How far in advance should I book?

For July and August, as early as you can. There are only twenty-four villas of this kind on the island and the ones in the town go first. Outside those two months a few weeks is usually enough, and May, June, September and October are the best value on the island.

Tell us how many of you there are

Give us your dates and the size of the group and we will come back with the two or three houses that actually fit, in the part of town you want to be in — plus the boat, the transfers and a table when you arrive. One local team, no platform commission, same-day answer.

Concierge request →WhatsApp