There are days when travelling with kids feels like an elaborate logistical exercise involving bags, towels, sunscreen, water bottles and repeated enquiries about whether anybody needs the toilet.

And then occasionally there are days when it all comes together.

Our day aboard the Burin wooden boat was one of those days.

We spent the day cruising between Croatian islands, jumped from a traditional wooden boat into absurdly clear water, ate lunch at sea, wandered the tiny island of Silba with ice creams and finished the afternoon swimming in another bay that looked more like a very expensive swimming pool.

I also managed to lose both my sunglasses and our family’s only pair of swimming goggles within about twenty minutes.

More on that shortly.

By the time we sailed back towards Pag in the evening, all four of us had agreed on something fairly unusual for a family of four:

This was some of the best swimming we’d ever experienced.

Our trip with Burin was complimentary. They didn’t tell us what to write and all opinions and mildly embarrassing aquatic incidents are entirely our own.

if you are looking to join this trip, you can check prices and availability here.

Finding Burin in Povljana

Our trip departed at 10:30am from Povljana on Pag Island.

We drove down towards the marina and found a parking area just before it, around 50 metres from the boat. We even managed to get the car underneath some shade, which in a Croatian summer feels considerably more significant than it sounds.

From there we walked down to Burin.

It was busy on our trip. Not uncomfortably so, but enough that you may be  sharing tables with other families, so ideally just take what you need for the day.

If you’re travelling with a baby or toddler, I’d also check with Burin before turning up with a pushchair.

A little history of Burin

Part of the appeal of the trip is that Burin isn’t simply a modern excursion boat taking passengers from one swimming stop to another.

The vessel was built in 1953, giving the day a genuine connection to the Adriatic’s traditional wooden-boat heritage. Rather than feeling like a floating platform designed purely for tourists, Burin has the character of a traditional wooden vessel: timber, open decks, shared tables and the gentle movement of a boat that has clearly spent a long time at sea.

That history changes the atmosphere.

You aren’t just travelling between Croatian islands; you’re doing it aboard a piece of the region’s maritime past. The boat has been adapted for day trips, of course, but it still feels recognisably like a traditional Adriatic vessel, which is one reason the slower pace feels so appropriate.

Sailing out into the Adriatic

Once everyone was aboard, we headed away from Povljana and out between the islands.

The full itinerary was straightforward but made for a long, relaxed day: departure from Povljana at 10:30am, roughly an hour and a half of cruising before the first swimming stop, around an hour in the water, lunch while sailing towards Silba, approximately two hours to explore the island, and then the return journey to Povljana, arriving back at around 7:30pm.

And this is where the appeal of Burin started to make sense.

There are faster and more modern ways to travel across the sea, obviously.

But there’s something wonderfully appropriate about slowly making your way through the Croatian islands aboard a big wooden boat.

The water became increasingly ridiculous.

Turquoise gave way to deep blue, but it remained so clear that we could often see the seabed beneath us.

Coming from New Zealand, this took some adjustment.

Seeing the bottom beneath a large boat normally triggers a fairly instinctive thought:

Should we really be here?

In Croatia, apparently, yes. The water is just that clear.

At one point we noticed movement beside the boat.

Dolphins.

Or, more accurately, tantalising bits of dolphins.

They never came properly out of the water. A few people caught glimpses and our oldest daughter saw one briefly surface, while the rest of us stared intensely at patches of Adriatic where a dolphin had been approximately three seconds earlier.

Still, it was pretty exciting.

Coffee, aperitifs and the first swimming stop

Water and juice were available throughout the trip, with jugs and cups for passengers to help themselves.

The crew also came around with coffee and an aperitif after we’d departed, and put out bowls of biscuits.

There’s a bar aboard too, selling beer, wine, cocktails and other drinks.

After roughly an hour and a half of cruising, we reached our first swimming stop.

This was also when we discovered that we’d misunderstood one fairly important detail.

We’d read about stopping near a sandy beach.

In my head, this apparently meant that Burin would somehow deposit us neatly onto said beach.

It doesn’t.

You swim.

Fortunately we’d all put our swimming gear on underneath our clothes.

The boat stopped in several metres of astonishingly clear water. You could climb down the ladder or simply jump off the boat and swim towards shore.

So we did.

This water…

I’m struggling slightly to describe the swimming without resorting to the sort of language normally found in holiday brochures.

But it really was extraordinary.

We’d brought goggles, and once you put your face underwater you could see right underneath Burin, down through metres of clear blue water towards the bottom.

The Adriatic is also noticeably buoyant.

You can float around on the surface remarkably easily, which is fantastic for snorkelling.

It’s less helpful when you’re desperately trying to swim downwards.

Which, as it happens, I shortly needed to do.

The sunglasses incident

Three days earlier, at Faaker See in Austria, I’d jumped from a pontoon with my daughter and lost my sunglasses.

I’d finally bought replacements on our day trip to Zadar, as surprisingly the campground store and local supermarket didn’t seem to stock any.

I had owned them for approximately three days.

While swimming ashore from Burin, I put them in my pocket.

This was a mistake.

Eventually I swam back to the boat, reached into my pocket and discovered that my sunglasses had decided to remain somewhere in the Adriatic.

So I put on our goggles and swam all the way back towards shore looking for them.

Nothing.

My daughter was understandably impressed.

“Not again, Dad.”

Quite.

I began swimming back towards the boat, taking a slightly different route, when something caught my eye.

There, perhaps three metres beneath me, were my sunglasses.

Against the odds, I managed to dive down and retrieve them.

This felt like an enormous victory.

For about ten minutes.

Back aboard Burin, my daughter announced that she wanted me to jump off the boat with her.

I put my newly recovered sunglasses safely on the table.

I put the goggles on my head.

We jumped.

The goggles fell off.

Unlike the sunglasses, they didn’t stop at three metres.

They sank all the way to the bottom, perhaps five or six metres below us.

This presented a problem because:

1. They were the only goggles we’d brought.
2. I hadn’t dived that deep in years.
3. I had apparently already contributed enough personal belongings to the Adriatic for one afternoon.

Before I could do much about it, another passenger dived down, reached the bottom and came back up holding our goggles.

Whoever you were: thank you.

I spent the remainder of the swim holding onto my possessions with considerably greater determination.

What we’d bring next time

Despite my efforts to turn it into an underwater lost-property department, we had around an hour to swim and it was fantastic.

You can stay around the boat or swim towards shore. When it’s time to leave, the crew sounds the horn and everyone makes their way back aboard.

There are a few things we learned that would make the trip easier.

Wear your swimming gear underneath your clothes. There’s limited space aboard for everyone to disappear off and get changed.

Bring a dry bag. If you want to swim ashore with a phone, money or other things that need to remain dry, this would be extremely useful.

Bring goggles or snorkelling gear. Seriously. The visibility is too good not to.

Pack quick-dry towels rather than enormous beach towels.

And if you own an action camera, bring it.

Standing there looking underneath Burin through crystal-clear water, watching the kids jump from the boat, I realised this was not the day to have half-charged equipment (that’s another story!).

Our phone then went flat partway through the trip, just to reinforce the point.

Lunch at sea

After everyone had climbed back aboard, we set sail again and lunch was served on the way to Silba.

Earlier we’d been asked to choose between meat, fish and vegetarian meals. We ordered two meat and two fish so the four of us could share.

Our meat option was grilled chicken. The fish came whole, simply seasoned, with sliced cucumber on the side.

The fish was particularly good, and perhaps even better than we’d expected from a boat lunch. The chicken was perfectly fine too, and everything was fresh, straightforward and satisfying.

What surprised us was that the food appeared to be cooked right there aboard Burin. We could smell it grilling as we sailed, and it seemed to be coming straight from the boat’s compact kitchen rather than arriving as pre-prepared catering at one of the stops. Watching the crew prepare and cook lunch in that little galley made the meal feel even more connected to the trip.

Everything was served simply on disposable plates with basic cutlery.

My wife was sitting towards the front of the boat, where the breeze occasionally attempted to redistribute the napkins and cutlery around the Adriatic, but otherwise lunch did exactly what it needed to do.

It fed four hungry people.

In fact, apart from ice creams later, none of us needed anything else to eat for the rest of the trip.

Two hours on Silba

Our next stop was Silba.

We had around two hours to explore, which was enough to wander through the village without needing any particular plan.

It was seriously hot, so we bought ice creams and walked through the little streets with them.

Silba has cafés, gelato, small shops and old buildings, along with the Toreta tower, which you can climb for panoramic views across the island.

But eventually we found ourselves heading towards the water again.

This proved to be an excellent decision.

Somehow the water got even better

We found a beautiful little bay with a bar nearby, got changed and went straight back into the sea.

If the first swimming stop had been spectacular, this wasn’t exactly a downgrade.

The water was turquoise and almost absurdly clear.

You could swim well away from shore, look down and still see the bottom.

With goggles on we could watch fish beneath us and simply float around.

It looked like a swimming pool.

A very large swimming pool with fish in it.

We stayed slightly longer than was sensible.

Eventually we realised that we had a boat to catch.

We were also out of drinking water.

We’d drunk plenty throughout the day, but it was hot and our bottles were empty again, so we stopped near Cafe del Mar and bought three bottles of extremely cold sparkling water to take away.

We didn’t stay there or eat and drink at the venue, so we can’t really comment on what it offers. But if you’re heading for Cafe del Mar, it looked like a great place to hang out, and the water in the bay there was just amazing. We never did work out the official name of the bay, but searching for Cafe del Mar on Google Maps should get you to the right spot.

Few things in life have tasted better.

Then we began the slightly frantic journey back towards Burin.

This would have been a particularly unfortunate boat to miss.

Thankfully, we didn’t.

Sailing home

Once everyone was back aboard, we left Silba and started the journey towards Povljana.

Another aperitif was offered. The bar remained open.

And we didn’t have anything left to organise.

No driving. No directions. No deciding which beach to visit next.

Just sit there.

At different points we stood right at the front of Burin or leaned over the side watching the water.

The sun was getting lower by the time we approached Pag, throwing that warm late-afternoon light across the sea.

After a day of swimming, walking around Silba and trying not to lose any more equipment, it was a pretty wonderful way to finish.

The people behind Burin

The crew were another part of what made the day.

It didn’t feel like a big anonymous tour operation.

They were driving the boat, preparing and serving food, pouring drinks and looking after everyone throughout the day. If you wanted something from the bar, someone was always happy to help.

We chatted with them after arriving back in Povljana and got the impression that Burin is very much a family affair, with other family members helping out around the boat.

That small, personal atmosphere suited the trip.

Was it crowded?

We shared our table with other passengers, which was great as we met a couple of locals and got to hear of other people’s experiences on the island .

It’s a popular boat excursion during the Croatian summer, and once everyone was swimming, exploring Silba or standing around the deck, it mattered considerably less.

I’d simply go expecting a sociable, shared boat trip rather than a spacious private cruise. That isn’t a criticism so much as something worth knowing in advance, and I suspect many boat trips like this are similarly full during the summer.

Is Burin good with kids?

Our two certainly thought so.

Think about the day from a child’s perspective.

You spend hours aboard a big wooden boat.

You might spot dolphins.

You jump into the sea from the boat.

You snorkel.

You swim to a beach.

You eat lunch while sailing between Croatian islands.

You arrive on an island, eat gelato and explore.

Then you find another incredible beach and go swimming again.

And eventually you sail home as the sun starts dropping towards the horizon.

That’s a fairly difficult day to improve upon.

Would we recommend the Burin boat trip?

Absolutely.

There are things we’d do differently next time.

We’d bring a dry bag. We’d have snorkelling gear for everyone. We’d bring an action camera and a fully charged power bank.

I’d also make a concerted effort to retain possession of my sunglasses.

But those are details.

The important part is that all four of us loved the trip.

We’ve travelled and swum in some beautiful places, but both swimming stops on this day were exceptional.

When we talked about it afterwards, we all reached the same conclusion:

They were some of the best places we’d ever swum.

And sometimes that’s what makes a great family travel experience.

Not everything has to be perfect. Lunch doesn’t need to be gourmet. You don’t need dolphins performing alongside the boat. You don’t even need to successfully retain all the equipment you started the day with.

You just need one of those days when everybody gets back tired, salty and happy.

Check out pricing and availability on this amazing trip at get your guide .

For us, Burin was exactly that.