How to Visit Orava Castle Without a Car (+ Insider Tips)

Visiting Orava Castle without a car is not only doable, but also very easy—if you know the right tips.

As Slovak locals, who are also car-free travellers, we’ll tell you exactly how to get to Orava Castle, sharing insider tips we discovered during our own visit to this stunning castle.

Forget the hassle of renting a car; whether you’re travelling to Orava Castle from Bratislava or Košice, you can get there using trains (and on a budget!).

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Here’s a little bit about our journey, if you are new here! If you know us, feel free to skip this part.

After leaving our old life in Scotland in March 2022 (it rains too much there), we travelled full-time for almost 2 years. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, it was. If you think that carrying overpacked backpacks in 45°C heat around streets that aren’t even on Google Maps is fancy. And that’s just 1% of all the fun we had! 😆

During the 2 years we volunteered in Italy and Bulgaria (free travel while learning new skills, anyone?), explored other amazing European countries and backpacked Southeast Asia. Btw, even our secret wedding was more of an expedition than a wedding. 😅

And, of course, we researched and planned everything ourselves, because you gotta keep the budget low, right? If you are like us, you’ve come to the right place, because we want to share all the useful travel tips and info with you!

Excited? Good. Let’s get into it so you can go on your own epic adventures too!

Can you get to Orava Castle without a car?

We’ve already covered this in the intro, but yes, you can absolutely get to Orava Castle without a car.

Many cool places in Slovakia are reachable by public transport, which is great for car-free people like us!

Admittedly, there are some parts of the country that could use an improvement in infrastructure – the most infamous is the centre of Slovakia, which is pretty much inaccessible, unless you are willing to change transport 5 times and spend 12 hours doing a journey that would take 2.5 hours in a car.

Speaking of time, is Orava Castle doable on a day trip, if you’re doing a city holiday in Bratislava?

Can you visit Orava Castle from Bratislava on a day trip?

If you’re planning a trip to Slovakia’s capital city, Bratislava, you might be wondering whether you can cover Orava Castle during your visit too.

We get it – Bratislava is pretty small. We even have a post talking about how to cover the city in just one day, following our fun and easy itinerary.

And we would definitely recommend you explore beyond – there are so many cool places outside of Bratislava that most travellers miss out on!

But visiting Orava Castle from Bratislava on a day trip is not a great idea.

It takes just under 4 hours to get there by train, so you would spend the whole day just travelling.

Even if you did hire a car, it would still take you under 3 hours to drive to Orava Castle from Bratislava, which is way too long.

Especially when there are beautiful places, including a stunning castle, much much closer to the city!

If you happen to be visiting Košice, Slovakia’s second biggest city, in the east of the country, it’s a similar story. It will take you around 4 hours by train or 2.5 hours by car to get to Orava Castle, so again, not worth doing it as a day trip.

Btw, if you decide to hire a car in the end, make sure you don’t overpay. Here is a helpful widget that will let you compare car rental prices in Bratislava (you can change the pick-up location):

Best place to stay to visit Orava Castle without a car

Since we’ve concluded that doing Orava Castle without a car on a day trip from Bratislava or Košice is a crazy idea (and that’s coming from us, who do crazy stuff all the time, like travelling for 57 hours to see 2 gigs or getting married in total secret), what should you do instead?

We would recommend doing what we did: breaking up the long train journey and staying closer to the castle, at least for one night.

When we visited Orava Castle, we stayed in Dolný Kubín.

You can stay elsewhere – there are many picturesque places in the area, but if you’re doing the trip without a car, Dolný Kubín might be the best base.

Why?

Because it’s the biggest town of Orava region, meaning:

• It has good transport connections.
• You can find big supermarkets there (Lidl, Kaufland, Tesco, Billa – in order of how expensive they are, starting with the cheapest).
• The town has all the services you might need, like pharmacies, restaurants, cafes, bars etc.
• You’ll have a bigger choice of everything, so you’re more likely to find accommodation that suits your needs and budget, or a restaurant that caters to your dietary restrictions.
• There’s more to do in the area without a car, so even if you stay for 2 days, you won’t be bored. (We’ll give you more tips later in the post!)

If you’re spending time checking out the map of Slovakia, you might notice another bigger town that seems like a good place to base yourself in, especially during summer – Námestovo.

This is a popular destination, because Námestovo sits right at the massive water reservoir Orava.

The reason we’re not recommending staying in Námestovo?

It doesn’t have any train connections!

Meaning not only would you have to take two trains, for example from Bratislava or Košice, to another nearby town, but then also take a bus to Námestovo.

Dolný Kubín saves you that extra faff, and if you pick a good hotel, with a pool, you can still go swimming without having to brave the cold waters of the Orava Dam.

How to visit Orava Castle without a car?

To show you how you can visit Orava Castle without a car easily, we’ll use Bratislava as the place you’re travelling from and Dolný Kubín as your base.

1. Use the official Slovak railway website to check your options.
2. Search for Bratislava to Dolný Kubín.
3. You’ll see a list of trains, with one transfer in Kraľovany. While surrounded by pretty nature, Kraľovany is a tiny village with nothing to do, so just walk to the right platform once you get there, and wait for your next connection.
4. Buy a ticket on the website. This is the easiest and cheapest way to get your train tickets. There is also an app version of the website, if you prefer.
5. Make sure to also add a seat reservation to your ticket. These are the trains crossing the whole country, so they tend to be almost always busy. Unless you fancy standing for 3 hours, get the seat reservation. It’s only €1 extra.
6. You can only reserve a seat on the train to Kraľovany. From Kraľovany to Dolný Kubín, you’ll be taking a small, slow train with unreserved seating.
7. On the longer train, some carriages usually have compulsory seat reservations. These are marked with yellow signs on the doors. If you don’t have a seat reservation, you cannot sit in these carriages even if there are free seats (you will be asked to leave by the ticket inspector).
8. While there is usually a restaurant car and/or trolley service on the longer train (so not the Kraľovany to Dolný Kubín one), it’s a good idea to bring your own snacks. Make sure to pop into a supermarket before boarding the train (this is why we recommend staying in Dolný Kubín – handy for the way back, as 3 big supermarkets are just a few minutes away from the train station).

If you have any questions about visiting Orava Castle without a car, give us a shout on our Instagram.

And if you need more help planning your Slovak adventures, book a call with us – we’ll bring all our local knowledge and unhinged tips and hacks that we’re known for!

Visiting Orava Castle from Dolný Kubín

We’ll share what else you can do once you’re in Dolný Kubín, but when you want to visit Orava Castle without a car?

Here is what to do:

• Use the same railway website to check timetables and buy a ticket.
• The station you’re looking for is Oravský Podzámok.
• This is the village where Orava Castle is located – just a few minutes walk from the small train station.
• Be careful, there are two similar stops: Oravský Podzámok and Oravský Podzámok zastávka. The second one is further away from Orava Castle, so don’t miss your stop!
• This is the same, small, slow train that goes from Kraľovany to Dolný Kubín – you’ll be continuing on the same track, just going further up north to Oravský Podzámok, so again, there is no option to reserve a seat (and no way to buy snacks, so don’t board hungry or thirsty!).
• The trains are not very frequent, so do time your trip well.

Bonus tip: sit on the left, facing the direction of the train (when heading to Oravský Podzámok), if you want to see Orava Castle as you approach the village! If you don’t want spoilers, though, make sure to sit on the right.

If you’re visiting Orava Castle without a car from a place in Slovakia that isn’t served by trains, use this website to check schedules of local buses.

You will have to buy a ticket directly from the bus driver though, so have offline Google Translate ready, just in case your data isn’t working.

Pro tip: trains in Slovakia have ticket inspectors meaning 99% of the time, your ticket will be checked. Don’t risk getting a fine (the shame!) and make sure you always have a valid ticket when travelling. Btw, this also applies to public transport in Bratislava – it’s a common mistake travellers make (and yes, people do judge!)

What to do if you’re staying in Dolný Kubín when visiting Orava Castle

We know you’re smart, so you can see why staying in Dolný Kubín when visiting Orava Castle without a car is a good idea.

We don’t want you being bored there, though, so here are some extra tips from our own holiday to keep you entertained:

• We stayed at Hotel Park in Dolný Kubín. It has a pool and spa, which is ideal especially when visiting in summer (we went in the middle of August, for Mirka’s birthday, and were super happy when we could cool down in the pool after the whole day of sweating on train and at Orava Castle!). Just make sure to check out Slovakia’s spa rules.
• The hotel is located right next to a small park, which, when we visited in summer, had events for kids (including a library gazebo!) and it even has a peacock aviary (featuring a white peacock!).
• Another cool thing next to the Hotel Park? A beautiful wooden colonnade bridge that looks straight out of Harry Potter!
• Ready for one more? Again, right next to the hotel, there’s an ice cream parlour that has 330 flavours! Not all at the same time, of course, they get rotated each day, even throughout the day actually, if a flavour runs out, so you can always find something new there! And the flavours are super quirky too, for example we had dark nougat + Ceylon cinnamon + rice puffs in white chocolate. Yep, that’s one flavour that Mirka had! Daniel had dark chocolate + chilli + raspberry – that one was really spicy!
• If ice cream isn’t your thing (weirdo. We’re definitely judging. 🙄😆), pop over to Moja Kaviarnička for delicious cakes or Cabana Coffee for good quality coffee or matcha.
• Want to see more of the beautiful Orava region without going far? Take a short walk (although remember, it is uphill) to Panoráma mesta Dolný Kubín (25 min walk from Hotel Park) or a longer walk to Vysielač Brezovec (40 min walk from the hotel) for views of the town and the rolling green hills.
• The main attraction of Dolný Kubín is Kubínska hoľa peak/mountain, which offers not just views, but also sports, such as skiing, paragliding or mountain trikes. We have to admit, we didn’t visit Kubínska hoľa, because, as far as we can tell, you need a car or a taxi to get to the bottom of the mountain (before taking a chairlift or hiking up).

When exploring the nature of Orava, do keep in mind that Slovakia has bears and yes, they do live in this part of the country too.

You can read all about the dangers to watch out for in Slovakia here.

Don’t forget this when visiting Orava Castle without a car

Speaking of safety in Slovakia, make sure you have good travel insurance when visiting the country.

If you’re looking for a great company with low prices, check out True Traveller.

We chose them from a list of 23 different providers when we went full-time travelling, because they offered cool features and their prices were unbeatable.

And then it turned out their customer service is also amazing, so we have no regrets!

Now that you know how to visit Orava Castle without a car, the question is: will you see the famous Nosferatu vampire there?

If you do, please let us know!