Croatia recommendations please

[negunslean]

Looking to go for between 10 & 14 days at beginning of July with DH and 2 teenage DS. We don’t particularly like lying in sun, prefer to meander about site seeing. We will start in or around Dubrovnik and finish at Plitvice and will hire a car.
Would really like to know what areas you have lived and how many days in each as we like to move about , thank you

Split is lovely for a day trip or a few days. It's where Game of Thrones was filmed if your family watched that, and looks spectacular.
From there, it is easy to get ferries to beautiful islands and also one that goes to and from Dubrovnik.
On the islands there is bike and kayak hire.

I would start at Cavtat which is really lovely and easy to catch boat over to Dubrovnik (or local bus)...you can also explore a few of the Islands from here and also Montenegro (Just be careful that there are long queues at the border which is only about 15mins from Cavtat). I would then travel on to Ston (famous wall) then a little further around the coast where you can get ferry over to Korcula from Orebic-Domince (a mini Dubrovnik), from Korcula you can get a ferry to Split which stops at Hvar (but non of the ferries take cars now). The only option would be to catch the small car ferry from Korcula back Orebic-Domince and drive further round to Split and onto Plitvice. There are lots of other lovely places further north like Labin/Rovinj and parks of Slovenia.

A day trip to the island of lokrum is a good way to get away from Dubrovnik which gets horribly crowded. Good for snorkelling and a walk around the typical Mediterranean scrub and pine vegetation covered island.
We’ve stayed on Mljet island which is about 3 hours from Dubrovnik, very peaceful and undeveloped,, not much to “ do “ except walks swimming and snorkelling. If you are into wine I understand there are good wine tours around the Dubrovnik area.

We stayed in Baska Voda and loved it.

Plitvice was stunning, even on a cloudy day. We loved Zagreb but that's a bit far out of your way. Loved Croatia.