Croatia/Slovenia/Bosnia anyone?

We have been to Croatia, to Split and Dubrovnik. Both are beautiful old cities, and there are some lovely beaches on the islands near Split. There is also a wonderful National Park with lovely walks between Split and Zagreb.

Thank you for saving me having to look it up!

An online friend is visiting there now. He says it is beautiful and is having a good time.

No suggestions but enjoy your trip. My parents are doing a tour in the fall of Croatia, of Dubrovnik for sure and Split maybe. On my mom's side her grandpa came from Yugoslavia, so that has prompted their visit. It looks beautiful. I know many people from our area have been, because of their ancestors.

I went to Croatia and Slovenia some years ago and it was lovely! We did a day trip to Mostar, Bosnia. Dubrovnik is a small town and was over run with cruise passengers.

Here are some Rick Steves links for you:
Croatia

Slovenia

As I mentioned above, we took his advice and visited some less-popular destinations and had a wonderful, memorable trip. It was very interesting seeing the old grandeur of some of the cities and realizing how repeatedly that area was divided among different countries. Istria felt very much like Italy, and Italian was primarily spoken in several towns we visited. Both countries are very well set up to accommodate tourists. We were actually surprised at how touristy some areas were.

We rented a villa in Dubrovnik from Dubrovnik Apartment Source, but I'll bet there are more online booking options now. I don't see that the place we stayed still exists as a rental, but it was in Ploce, above one of the old city gates.

Our landlady (who was all of 25) gave us some good tips for conducting ourselves in Bosnia, including driving the speed limit, as we were driving a car with Croatian plates and they would likely target us. Surprise! We got pulled over for speeding and the officer was confused when we couldn't understand what he was saying. While my husband was outside of the car trying to converse with the officer, I was flipping through our guidebook trying to figure out if we had to pay a bribe or what might happen. Eventually, the officer gave up on trying to deal with clueless Americans and sent us on our way. What I remember most about driving to Mostar were the women dressed all in black who were tending roadside stands selling large jars of honey backlit by the sun. They looked so beautiful that I wanted to stop and take photos, but I probably would have ended up buying vast quantities of honey. I learned never to point out anything to my husband because vendors assumed I wanted to buy it, which is how I ended up purchasing a bouquet of unusual flowers the day we were to fly out. That area of Bosnia definitely had a different feel than Croatia or Slovenia, but it didn't feel dangerous.

I ended up with a photo theme--cats! There seemed to be cats everywhere we went, lounging around like they owned every town, even in the Roman amphitheater ruins in Pula.

We went in October, after the season had essentially ended, so we weren't able to get out to the islands like Korcula or Hvar (the ferries only went on certain days that time of year), but we did take some boat outings to smaller islands.

Oh, and in Slovenia, they have special pastry restaurants (like bakeries) called slascicarna (don't know how to add the correct accent marks), if that helps convince you to visit

I have not been to Bosnia. Why does your son want to go there?

Last year we spent 11 days in Slovenia and 6 in Croatia (the northern part, Rovinj).
We loved Slovenia. The people we encountered were really helpful and friendly. If you (or your son) is into outdoor activities then I suggest you spend time in Bovec. We only spent 3 days there and I wish we could have spent more.

In Croatia, I'll also recommend Plitviče as a must do. We enjoyed the Roman ruins in Porec. For us it was just too far of a drive down to Dubrovnik (or trip was ending in Budapest).

I will say that in the past I have used Rick Steves' guidebooks with great success. I felt his book for Croatia and Slovenia did not serve us well. The Lonely Planet guide to Slovenia was much more helpful.

As Chendra mentioned you can't go wrong in Europe with a Rick Steves Travel Guide. I took his Guide Books with me when I went on my recent trip to Poland and Germany and they were both invaluable.

He says on his website that while you are traveling to cut the books apart so you don't have to spent each day hauling the entire huge book around. I was so busy packing that I didn't get a chance to do that until I was in my airbnb in Poland. I did it with a kitchen knife and luckily they had some masking tape in the kitchen drawer. Hint-much better to do this before you leave. It was the best advice I got. So much easier to put a smaller piece of the huge guidebook in my travel purse as I walked around for hours each day. 

Speaking of travel purses-my Mom cautioned me about pick-pockets in Germany and said to take a purse that is more secure than my regular one.I found the perfect one on the site magellans.com  It's called Magellan's Multi pocket RFID Hobo handbag. I looked at a lot of different styles and this one turned out to be perfect. It's a big large but that was what was so great about it. I could fit whatever I wanted in it or just a few things. The shoulder is adjustable to be cross body or shoulder style. For me that was wonderful because I'm short. It has steel embedding in the strap so it can't be slashed and in the body of the purse, plus you can secure two of the zippers. Wasn't really what you asked, but I thought I'd throw it in. 

I think the language barrier might have helped in our case. We only knew some basic phrases in Serbo-Croatian. If he wanted a bribe, he didn't make it clear to us, even though I thought maybe that's where we were heading. And how do you know how much to bribe anyway? It's reminiscent of "how much do I tip. . . ?"

Anyway, peppermintpatty, don't let that dissuade you from visiting such a beautiful part of the world. You should definitely go! Just don't speed in Bosnia

I am fairly sure there was a ferry from Split to somewhere in Italy (thank you google maps - to Ancona!). There are probably others to/from other cities. 
It is a fair distance from Prague to Zagreb, Croatia - nearly 700km - and buses (I can't see a train route) take 9.5-10 hours. Zagreb is not neat the coast, so you'd need another 3-4 hours minimum to get to somewhere you could catch a ferry.