Best Day Trips from Ljubljana

Ljubljana is one of our European cities. We’ve been multiple times to Slovenia and we keep getting drawn back to its beautiful and colourful capital. In addition to all the great things one can see and do in Ljubljana, its position still makes it an ideal base from which you can explore several fantastic destinations located within about an hour’s drive. To help you plan excursions and get the most out of your time in the area, we put together this guide on the Best Day Trips from Ljubljana, with a focus on destinations that can be reached in less than 1h30 from the city.

Table of Contents — Best Day Trips from Ljubljana

Disclosure: This page (Best Day Trips from Ljubljana) may contain product affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, we may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. More details can be found on our disclosure and policies page.

You might also be interested in these pages (coming soon):
Best Things to See and Do in Bled (Slovenia)
Best Day Trips from Bled (Slovenia)
5-Day Slovenia Road Trip Itinerary
Best Hiking and Walking Trails Near Bled (Slovenia)

Most of the destinations described below are more easily reached by car and therefore, unless stated otherwise, we will present the travel time required to drive to each place from Ljublana.

If you need to book a rental vehicle for your travels, we highly recommend using Discover Cars to get the best rates on your rental in Slovenia.

We also highly recommend Airalo (eSIM card) for your connectivity needs when travelling abroad. Airalo is the world’s first and largest eSIM store with eSIM plans for 200+ countries and regions worldwide.

Important: All Slovenian freeways and expressways are subject to tolls. All cars, motorbikes, and camper vans must have purchased a digital vignette online when they plan to drive onto a motorway or expressway. Digital Vignettes with periods of validity of 7 days, 1 month, 6 months or 12 months are available and can be purchased from the Slowenien Vignette website. They are not prohibitively expensive — for instance, the 7-day vignette for cars costs €13.90 (2024).

1) Škofja Loka

Distance From Ljubljana: 22 km // Travel time (driving): 30 minutes

Škofja Loka is a charming countryside town nestled in the foothills of the Julian Alps with a well-preserved medieval historic town center. Located a short distance from Ljubljana, the town is small enough that it can be visited in an hour or two but with enough things to see and do (including visiting a hilltop castle and several scenic bridges) to keep you busy for a good part of the day. Despite its obvious beauty, this gem of a town is definitely underrated as few tourists make their way here.

For more information on this lovely town, check out our guide on the Best Things to See and Do in Škofja Loka.

2) Lake Bled

Distance From Ljubljana: 55 km // Travel time (driving): 40 minutes

Lake Bled is without a doubt one of the more popular destinations in Slovenia, and with good reason. With its scenic clifftop medieval castle, shimmering blue-emerald waters and picturesque church sitting on a tiny tear-shaped island, it’s hard to find a place that embodies the definition of a fairytale destination more than Lake Bled. In addition to all of its attractions, one of the best ways to enjoy the surrounding landscapes is to hike some of the great trails around Lake Bled. Although you can see most of Lake Bled’s highlights in a day, as we highlight in our Slovenia Roadtrip Itinerary Guide, we definitely recommend staying a few days here to fully enjoy everything the area has to offer.

Another popular option when visiting Lake Bled as a day trip is to include a stop at the scenic Vintgar Gorge. The gorge can easily be explored via its wooden boardwalks that follow the gorge’s walls and run for approximately 1.6 km.

The boardwalks also crosses the river on several occasions giving you spectacular vantage points to capture some of the river’s various features, including small pools, falls, and rapids.

Unfortunately, you can’t drive directly to reach the gorge – there’s a park and shuttle service for those coming from out of town. From Bled, the quickest option is probably to take the free shuttle between Vintgar Gorge and the Bled bus station. For more information on visiting the gorge, including opening hours, and access fees, check out our Vintgar Gorge Hiking and Visiting Guide. In our guide, we also detail a scenic walking route to get to the gorge from Lake Bled, but it’s probably not an ideal option time-wise for those who plan to spend only a day in the Lake Bled area.

Another fun way and relatively quick way to get there is via a self-guided e-bike tour:

If you don’t have a car or don’t want to drive to Lake Bled, you can also join one of several group tours from Ljubljana:

3) Velika Planina

Distance From Ljubljana: 35 km // Travel time (driving): 45 minutes

Velika Planina is a stunning alpine pasture in northern Slovenia where you can find one of Europe’s few surviving high mountain herdsmen’s villages and enjoy easy hiking trails among free-roaming cattle during the summer months. It’s a fantastic place to enjoy some time outdoors while learning about the unique traditions of the local herdsmen and sampling some of their delicious dairy products. Although you can undertake a challenging hike to reach Velika Planina from the valley below, it’s definitely more fun to ride the cable car and chairlifts up to the summit, and there’s still plenty of hiking to do once you reach the alpine plateau.

For more information on visiting this beautiful alpine plateau, check out our Velika Planina Guide.

4) Postojna Cave

Distance From Ljubljana: 55 km // Travel time (driving): 45 minutes

The Postojna Cave (Postojna Jama) is Europe’s most visited cave system, featuring an underground train ride that traverses several chambers that are filled with stalagmites and stalactites of all shapes and sizes. The entire karst cave system is 24 km long, making it the second longest cave system in the country – though it remains the easiest to explore for tourists. The caves can only be visited via a guided tour, which lasts 90 minutes and covers 5km worth of caves (though 3.5 of those km are covered via the train ride).

The site also offers more activities beyond the tour, including an interactive exhibition detailing how the caves were formed and the Vivarium, which showcases more than 150 species inhabiting the Postojna Cave system including the famous “baby dragons”.

For more information on these awesome caves, check out our guide on the Postojna and Skojcan Caves.

If you don’t have a car or don’t want to drive to Postojna Cave, you can also join one of several group tours from Ljubljana (and some include stops at either Predjama Castle or Lake Bled::

5) Predjama Castle

Distance From Ljubljana: 60 km // Travel time (driving): 1h05

Predjama Castle is a unique and visually stunning Renaissance castle built within a cave, roughly 9 km from the Postojna Cave site. It has stood in the middle of a 123-meter-high cliff for more than 800 years (but most of what you see today is from the 16th century) and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest cave castle in the world. The select and peculiar location of the castle made it quite the impregnable fortress. The cave below the castle is part of the 14 km Predjama cave system. It’s open to visitors from May to September (but closed in winter so as not to disturb its colony of bats during their hibernation).

For more information, check out our guide on the Postojna and Skojcan Caves, which includes further details on visiting the castle.

6) Skojcan Caves

Distance From Ljubljana: 75 km // Travel time (driving): 1h05

Škocjan Caves are a significant underground phenomenon in the Slovenian Karst Plateau carved out by the Reka River. They are home to the largest subterranean canyon in Europe at 146 m deep and were included on UNESCO’s list of natural and cultural World Heritage Sites in 1986. The underground canyon is just so vast and is somewhat reminiscent of the Mines of Moria scenes in The Lord of the Rings movies.

Unlike the Postojna Cave, however, which is easy to visit by most, touring the Škocjan Caves requires a lot more walking and climbing or descending at least 400 stairs. The tour is also divided into two parts: the caves are visited via a guided tour, whereas once you exit the caves, you can just choose one of three self-guided routes to return to the starting point. The shortest one takes 15 minutes and makes use of an escalator, whereas the longest takes over an hour and requires you to climb another 700 stairs. Note that photography and videography are not permitted in the Škocjan Caves, so the following pictures are not ours and are from the official Škocjan Caves website:

For more information on these awesome caves, check out our guide on the Postojna and Skojcan Caves.

If you don’t have a car or don’t want to drive to Skojcan Caves, you can also join one of several group tours from Ljubljana (and some include stops at either Predjama Castle or Lake Bled::

7) Visit Wine Country

Distance From Ljubljana: 60-110 km // Travel time (driving): 45 min – 1h30

Although Slovenia isn’t necessarily the first name that comes to mind when thinking about wine countries, it is nonetheless home to nine distinct wine-making regions that are increasingly gaining international recognition with each passing year.

Wine-making in Slovenia existed long before the Romans introduced winemaking to France, Germany and Spain, and today Slovenia has over 28,000 wineries, producing upward of 80 million litres of wine annually (75% of which is white wine). For an authentic experience when visiting, choose from various native Slovenian grape varieties like Zelen, Rebula, and Pinela.

Fun fact: The oldest grapevine in the world is the Žametovka vine, also known as the Old Vine or Modra Kavcina, and is located in Maribor, Slovenia. The vine is over 400 years old and has been producing wine grapes since the 17th century. Today it only produces on average 100 lbs of grapes, which are fermented and put into about 100 miniature bottles.

The area around the caves (Primorska Wine Region) is one of the most well-known Slovenian wine regions, and one with strong Italian influence, which is expressed not only in viticulture and winemaking but also in its language, cultural traditions, architecture, and gastronomy. There are many great vineyards to choose from in the area, and we particularly enjoyed our time at Petric Winery, which is roughly a 25-minute drive from both the Škocjan and Postojna Caves.

There is also a great organized group Vipava Valley vineyard tour from Ljubljana:

8) Lake Bohinj

Distance From Ljubljana: 80 km // Travel time (driving): 1h10 minutes

Lake Bohinj is Slovenia’s largest lake and is mostly located within Triglav National Park. While the lake doesn’t have an imposing clifftop castle or idyllic island, it more than makes up for it with its size and beauty, with the Julian Alps towering above.

There are many things to do in the Lake Bohinj area, including:
1) Take a panoramic boat ride across the lake (available from early April until early November).
2) Hike to short trail to Savica Waterfall near the western end of the lake
3) Ride the Vogel Cable Car for incredible views from the summit of Mont Vogel.
4) Visit the 700-year-old St John the Baptist Church, one of the finest examples of Slovenian medieval architecture

If you don’t have a car or don’t want to drive to Lake Bohinj, you can also join one of several group tours from Ljubljana (most of which also include a stop in Lake Bled):

Suggested Day Trip Combinations

We covered a lot of different day-trip options and, fortunately, many of them can be combined together to minimize the amount of day trips you need to take if you want to see the majority of the destinations listed above.

Lake Bohinj has so many things to do that it can keep you busy for several days, much like the area around Lake Bled. But if you have limited time, visiting Lake Bohinj could be combined with Škofja Loka (1-3 hours) on a day trip from Ljubljana, whereas Lake Bled can be combined with a visit to Vintgar Gorge.

Finally, you can combine any of the Skojcan Caves (2-4 hours), Postojna Cave (2-3 hours) and Predjama (1- 2 hours) Castle together since they are all located in the same geographical region. These attractions are also close to the Primorska Wine Region described above.

Velika Planina (2-4 hours) is the only place in this guide that is northeast of Ljubljana, thus making it less ideal to combine with other destinations listed above.

Photography Gear

If you like our photography, you might be interested in some of the gear we use to shoot our travel and hiking destinations.

Camera Body – Nikon Z 6ii Fx-series Mirrorless Body
Main Lens – NIKON 24-120mm F/4G ED VR AF-S
Zoom Lens – Sigma 745-306 150-600mm f/5-6.3
Polarizing filters – Urth Circular Polarizing (CPL)
Camera Tripod – K&F Concept 64-inch Camera Tripod
Mini-tripod – Lammcou Flexible Camera Tripod
Camera/hiking backpack – Vanguard Alta Rise 48 Backpack
Universal Travel Adapter – VYLEE Universal International Power Travel Plug

Other Travel Essentials

Travel Insurance
SafetyWing is a travel insurance company that offers comprehensive coverage for travellers. Includes Medical Insurance and Travel Insurance. Primarily geared towards long-term travellers, digital nomads, and expats.

e-Sim cards
Airalo is the world’s first and largest eSIM store with eSIM plans for 200+ countries and regions worldwide. With Airalo eSIMs, travellers can get connected the moment they land at their destination and avoid nasty data roaming charges
eSIMS are a sustainable alternative to single-use SIM cards – they are 100% digital, require less energy to produce and be re-used rather than disposed of.

Car Rentals
Discover Cars is our go-to website for car rentals. We almost always find our preferred rate there.

Transfer from Airport
Welcome Pickups is our favourite private transfer service, which you can pre-book at a fixed price. Currently available in 220 cities all over the world (mostly in Europe, but with several major cities in Asia, the Middle East and the US).

Kiwitaxi is another private transfer service – we haven’t tried it yet, but it’s currently available in a few more countries (102 as of 2024).

Hotels and Accommodations (coming soon)

Photography Prints

If you found this blog useful, you can help support our blog by purchasing low-cost digital prints. Printed physical prints are also available for purchase.