Which Island Near Split Is Best for a Villa Week?

Access Adriatic finds villas on the Split to Hvar coast and arranges the week around them. Four islands are in honest reach of Split for a week in a house, plus one joined to the road. They are not variations on the same holiday. What separates them is the crossing you pay twice a day, how many houses are actually let there, and whether you can walk to dinner. Whether an island suits you at all is the question before this one, answered in Split or Hvar, where to base your week.

Which island suits which villa week?

Crossings below are scheduled ferry and fast ship times. Private boat times are shorter, leave when you do, and are in how far is too far, crossing times.

Island	Crossing from Split	Houses	Nightlife	Families	Boat days	Car
Brač	Ferry to Supetar, 50 min	Most	Bol only, in season	Strongest	Good from Bol	Yes, outside Bol and Supetar
Hvar	Catamaran 1 hr; car ferry to Stari Grad 2 hrs	Second, four areas	The only real one	North shore, yes	Best here	Yes, outside Hvar town
Šolta	Ferry to Rogač, 1 hr	A handful	None	Fine if quiet suits	Few departures	Yes
Vis	Ferry, 2 hrs 20	Fewest	Early nights	Older children	Stiniva and Biševo	Yes
Čiovo	None, a bridge	Sold as Trogir	Trogir, on foot	Very good	Trogir and Split	Useful, not essential

Read your row, then the island below.

Brač, the near island: who should choose it?

Anyone whose week has to work first time. Brač is the largest island in Dalmatia at three hundred and ninety six square kilometres, with 13,931 residents across twenty two settlements at the 2021 census, and the closest of the four. The car ferry from Split to Supetar takes fifty minutes and the catamaran to Bol an hour and five. That fifty minutes is the difference between an arrival day you can still swim in and one you spend travelling.

Brač also carries the most rental houses of any island near Split, roughly twice what Hvar does, which is what decides whether five bedrooms and a pool exist in the first week of August. Bol is the draw, where Zlatni Rat runs into the Hvar channel as a white pebble spit two kilometres west of town, its arms measured at 377 and 479 metres in 2015 and shifting with the wind. The afternoon maestral that shapes it also made Bol a windsurfing destination, so swim in the morning.

If Brač is your shortlist, read where to stay on Brač, then private boat tours from Bol.

Hvar, the famous one: what does the name cost you?

Peak season prices and a longer crossing, in exchange for the best water and the only proper nightlife. Hvar is sixty eight kilometres long with 10,678 residents, and it behaves like two islands. Hvar town, population 3,979, is the harbour, the late dinner and the all night bars. Over the ridge, Stari Grad at 2,772 and the Jelsa municipality at 3,501 are villa country, quieter and closer to mainland prices than to the riva.

Getting there splits the same way. The catamaran reaches Hvar town in about an hour. The car ferry takes a hundred and twenty minutes and lands at Stari Grad on the north shore, twenty minutes by road from the harbour, which catches out anyone booking a car crossing.

For boat days nothing beats it, with the Pakleni Islands fifteen minutes off the riva. Choose your side of the ridge before the house. Start with where to stay on Hvar, then villa concierge Hvar.

Šolta, the quiet one: is a villa week there realistic?

Yes, if you ask early and stay flexible about the house. Šolta is the emptiest of the four by a distance, fifty nine square kilometres and 1,975 residents at the 2021 census, with no resort town and no nightlife. The car ferry to Rogač takes sixty minutes. The villages worth knowing are Maslinica at the western tip, Stomorska and Nečujam on the north coast, and Grohote inland.

The constraint is stock. On the villa lists we read in September 2026, Šolta’s pool villas run to a handful; the rest of what is let there is village houses and apartments. That inverts the search: you find which of a very small number of houses is free, then build the week around it. Give us a month rather than a fixed week, and say that quiet is the point.

Vis, the far one: is it worth the crossing?

For the right group, yes, and it is the only one of the four where the crossing is a real decision. The car ferry from Split takes a hundred and forty minutes, more than twice the run to Supetar, though from June to September a daily fast ship links Split with Brač, Hvar and Vis in one hop.

The hours buy an island that missed a generation of building. Vis was a Yugoslav navy base closed to the public, and the military did not leave until 1989, so it has 3,313 residents, two proper settlements in Vis town and Komiža, and coastline with no equivalent nearer Split. Stiniva, Budikovac and the Biševo cave are on the doorstep rather than at the end of a long day.

The trade is honest. On the villa lists we read in September 2026, Vis had the fewest houses of the four, and much of what is advertised there is a two or three bedroom house rather than the ten bed villas Brač has. It suits eight people who have been to Croatia before, not sixteen who have not. Days out are on private boat tours from Vis.

Čiovo, the island you can drive to: does it count?

On the map, yes. In the week, barely. Čiovo is twenty eight square kilometres, joined to Trogir by a bridge since 1964, with a second bascule bridge of 546 metres opened in July 2018, taking through traffic out of Trogir’s old town and tying the island to the airport road. It sits fifteen minutes from Split airport, closer than anywhere else.

So there is no crossing, no timetable and no ferry queue on the night you land late with tired children. There is also no island quiet. Okrug Gornji and Okrug Donji are busy in August, and houses there are sold as Trogir rather than as an island address, which is why Čiovo sits at the affordable end. The cheapest house we checked in September 2026 was a five bedroom on Čiovo sleeping ten to fourteen at about GBP 335 a night in July and August, seven nights, Saturday arrivals, with the bands behind it in what a villa week in Croatia costs to rent.

Choose Čiovo when arrival logistics matter more than the idea of an island.

What about Korčula and Dubrovnik?

We will find you the house. We will not pretend we can build the same week around it. Korčula sits about an hour and twenty from Hvar on the larger fast boats, nearly three hours of a day spent moving before anyone swims, and further again from Split. Dubrovnik is beyond that and is not a day from this coast at all. Ask anyway if Korčula is the house you want. We will shortlist there and say plainly which parts of the week we cannot cover that far south, before you commit rather than after.

When is the answer the mainland?

More often than island photographs suggest. A first trip, a group that wants wine days as well as swimming, a late landing, an early flight home, or three or four nights in high summer all point back to the mainland. From June to September most houses of any size here are let for five to seven nights, and on an island a fixed Saturday changeover plus a ferry crossing turns a short stay into a lot of moving. Settle that in Split or Hvar, where to base your week before you settle the island.

What should you send us?

Dates or the month, the number of nights, people and bedrooms, whether the island is fixed or still open, the two or three things the house must have, and the budget, per night or in total. If quiet, nightlife or a short crossing is what decides it, say which, because it changes the island before it changes the house.

We come back with two or three houses that fit, each with the total for your nights and what sits on top, you book the house with the villa’s own booking office at its published rate, and we arrange the boat days, the chef and the drivers around it.

Request villa options on find a villa.