Seven Valamar campsites among the 100 most sought-after in Europe, Lanterna fifth in the PiNCAMP ranking
Seven campsites from Valamar's portfolio have been included among the 100 most sought-after campsites in Europe according to the PiNCAMP Most Wanted 2026 ranking, which tracks interest among users from Germany. The best-ranked is Valamar Camping Lanterna in Istria, which took fifth place in the overall European ranking and thus remained the highest-ranked campsite from Croatia. Alongside Lanterna, the top 100 also includes Valamar Camping Istra, Camping Solaris, Camping Orsera, Valamar Camping Krk, Valamar Camping Ježevac and Valamar Camping Baška. The result is particularly significant because of the strength of the German market in Croatian tourism, but also because Croatia, with 23 campsites, is the third most represented country in the entire ranking, behind Germany and Italy. The ranking itself, however, does not represent a conventional quality assessment or the number of nights actually recorded, but shows how much attention individual campsites attracted among German PiNCAMP users during the first seven months of 2026.
Lanterna fifth in Europe and first among campsites from Croatia
According to official PiNCAMP data, Camping- und Ferienpark Wulfener Hals on the German island of Fehmarn retained first place in the Most Wanted 2026 ranking. Rosenfelder Strand Ostsee Camping, also from Germany, moved into second place, while Vela Blu Camping Village from Italy is third. Germany's Südsee-Camp took fourth place, immediately followed by Valamar Camping Lanterna. The campsite in Istria was fourth in the previous ranking, so this year it dropped by one place, but it is still the only campsite from Croatia among the ten most sought-after in Europe according to the interest of German portal users.
PiNCAMP also particularly highlights Lanterna because of its size. According to the portal's data, the campsite has more than 3,200 pitches and rental accommodation units, placing it among the largest camping resorts represented in Europe's Top 100. In the same analysis, PiNCAMP emphasizes that size alone is not decisive for entering the ranking: both very large resorts and campsites with only a few dozen accommodation units are among the most sought-after. This suggests that user interest depends on a combination of location, facilities, quality, price, availability and the overall destination experience, rather than capacity alone.
Valamar Camping Lanterna is located on the western coast of Istria, in the area between Poreč and Novigrad. It is a large camping complex that combines traditional pitches, mobile homes, glamping and a range of accompanying facilities. Visitors planning a longer stay in this part of the Adriatic may also find accommodation offers in Istria useful, especially if they combine their stay with visits to Poreč, Vrsar, Rovinj or the interior of the peninsula.
All seven Valamar campsites and their positions in the ranking
PiNCAMP's full ranking shows that the seven Valamar campsites are distributed from the very top to the final section of the Top 100. Their positions are:
- Valamar Camping Lanterna - 5th place in Europe
- Valamar Camping Istra - 21st place
- Camping Solaris - 35th place
- Camping Orsera - 63rd place
- Valamar Camping Krk - 68th place
- Valamar Camping Ježevac - 81st place
- Valamar Camping Baška - 94th place
Four of the seven campsites are located in Istria, and three on the island of Krk. Valamar Camping Istra is located in Funtana, Camping Solaris in the area of the Lanterna peninsula, while Camping Orsera is in Vrsar. On Krk, Valamar Camping Krk and Ježevac are located next to the town of Krk or in its immediate vicinity, while Valamar Camping Baška is in the southern part of the island, next to Baška. For travellers planning to explore several locations on the island, an overview of accommodation on the island of Krk is also practical, especially outside the main summer weeks when traffic and demand are spread across a broader part of the season.
Croatia has 23 campsites among Europe's Top 100
The result of Valamar's properties is part of the broader success of Croatian camping in this year's ranking. PiNCAMP states that among the 100 campsites most sought-after by German users, 39 are from Germany, 25 from Italy and 23 from Croatia. Together, these three countries therefore account for as many as 87 of the 100 campsites on the list. They are followed by Austria with five campsites, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland with two each, and Denmark and Slovenia with one representative each.
Viewed by region, Croatia's presence is even more pronounced. Istria has 11 campsites in Europe's Top 100, placing it third among the most represented camping regions, behind Germany's Baltic coast with 13 and Italy's Adriatic coast with 12 campsites. Kvarner has eight representatives, and Dalmatia four. Such a distribution shows that interest among German users is not concentrated solely on a few individual large resorts, but encompasses a wide range of campsites along the Croatian Adriatic coast.
In PiNCAMP's separate ranking of the most sought-after campsites in Croatia, Valamar Camping Lanterna also takes first place. It is followed by Camping Park Umag, Camping Polari and Camp Kovačine, while Valamar Camping Istra is fifth. Camping Solaris and other campsites in Istria and Dalmatia are also among the top ten. This further confirms the dominance of the northern Adriatic in searches by German campers, but also the competitiveness of a large number of different operators on the Croatian market.
What PiNCAMP Most Wanted actually measures
It is important to distinguish the Most Wanted ranking from a conventional selection of the best campsites. PiNCAMP produced the 2026 ranking based on page views generated by German users on the PiNCAMP.de portal from January 1 to July 31, 2026. Only campsites with at least four user reviews and an average rating of at least 7 out of 10 were taken into account. The ranking therefore primarily reflects digital interest and users' intention to explore a particular campsite, rather than directly showing the number of bookings, arrivals or overnight stays.
Such a methodology is also important for interpreting headlines about the "most popular campsites in Europe". It refers to popularity among German PiNCAMP users, not to a survey of all European tourists or a single official European camping ranking. PiNCAMP operates as a camping platform of the motoring clubs ADAC from Germany, ANWB from the Netherlands and TCS from Switzerland, and in its current information states that it covers approximately 15,000 campsites in Europe and records around 19 million visits annually across its portals and applications. The information accompanying this year's selection states that the database contains more than 14,500 campsites in 44 countries.
PiNCAMP also runs the ADAC campsite classification, which is based on a separate system of expert inspections and is not the same as Most Wanted. In this year's Top 100, as many as 73 percent of campsites have 4.5 or five ADAC stars, but the organizers emphasize that a high classification in itself does not guarantee a high position in searches. The average campsite on the list has 422 pitches and 195 rental units, but the range is extremely wide. This is precisely why Most Wanted should be viewed as an indicator of market interest, rather than as a substitute for an expert quality assessment.
The German market remains crucial for Croatian tourism
The significance of this ranking is additionally evident in official tourism data. According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, tourists from Germany remain the largest foreign market in terms of overnight stays recorded in Croatia. During the whole of 2025, they generated around 21 million overnight stays, or 24.6 percent of all overnight stays by foreign tourists in commercial accommodation, along with around three million arrivals. On average, they stayed 6.9 nights per arrival.
Data for 2026 also confirm their great importance, although results fluctuate from month to month. In June 2026, German tourists recorded 2.7 million overnight stays, representing 22.1 percent of all overnight stays by foreign guests in Croatia. They spent the most nights in Istria County, where around 1.4 million of their overnight stays were recorded, followed by Primorje-Gorski Kotar County with 523 thousand. At the same time, the Croatian Bureau of Statistics recorded a total of 3.4 million overnight stays at campsites and camping grounds in June, accounting for 25.1 percent of all overnight stays in commercial accommodation that month.
These figures show why the interest of German campers has direct market significance for Istria and Kvarner. Although the number of German overnight stays in June 2026 was lower than a year earlier, Germany remained by far the largest individual foreign market. In the first half of 2026, Croatia recorded, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, a total of 7.3 million tourist arrivals and almost 26 million overnight stays in commercial accommodation, around half a percent more than in the same period of the previous year. Campsites meanwhile remain one of the key forms of tourist accommodation on the coast.
High positions accompanied by other European recognitions
This year's Most Wanted result is not the only recognition that Valamar's campsites received in 2026. In January, the company announced that Valamar Camping Istra, Valamar Camping Lanterna, Valamar Camping Krk, Valamar Camping Ježevac and Valamar Camping Baška received the ADAC Superplatz 5* designation, the highest level in ADAC's campsite rating system. Five Valamar campsites also received the ANWB Top Camping 2026 designation, which the Dutch motoring club awards to campsites with the highest ratings under its own inspection system.
These recognitions should not be equated with the Most Wanted ranking, but together they provide a broader picture of the market position of individual properties. ADAC's classification is based on standardized expert criteria, while Most Wanted measures the interest of portal users. When a high expert rating and a high level of searches occur for the same campsites, this may indicate a combination of brand recognition, developed infrastructure and long-term interest from guests from major European markets.
Valamar states that its 2026 portfolio includes more than 11,500 camping accommodation units in properties it manages or owns. In the company's reports, the camping segment remains one of the important parts of the business, while the 2025/2026 investment cycle also includes investments in Lanterna, Istra, Marina, Ježevac and Krk. In recent years, the company has positioned some campsites towards the higher-end segment, with an expansion of mobile homes, glamping, larger pitches, swimming pool facilities, sports zones and other facilities within the resorts.
Valamar: the result confirms the international competitiveness of the camping segment
Commenting on this year's ranking, Valamar's Director of Camping Operations Bruno Radoš said: "We are proud that as many as seven Valamar campsites have been included among the 100 most sought-after campsites in Europe." He added that the company views the result as confirmation of its international competitiveness and continuous investments in the development of the camping segment and service quality.
For Valamar, the fact that the list includes more than just one leading property is particularly important. Lanterna is by far the highest-ranked, but the presence of six additional campsites shows that interest extends across multiple destinations and different types of camping offers. Istria accounts for the largest share of representation, while the properties on Krk confirm Kvarner's strong position on the German market.
At the same time, PiNCAMP's ranking also shows how competitive the European camping market is. Germany has increased the number of its campsites among the top 100, Italy remains exceptionally strong, and Croatia holds third position with 23 representatives. Valamar Camping Lanterna, despite moving from fourth to fifth place, remains at the very top of this market snapshot. More important for Croatian camping than a single position is the fact that Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia together account for almost a quarter of PiNCAMP's entire European Top 100 list for German users.
Sources:
- PiNCAMP for Business - official PiNCAMP Most Wanted 2026 ranking, methodology, European ranking and regional representation (link)
- PiNCAMP - overview of the most sought-after campsites in Croatia and positions of Croatian campsites in the 2026 ranking (link)
- Croatian Bureau of Statistics - tourist arrivals and overnight stays in commercial accommodation in June and the first half of 2026 (link)
- Croatian Bureau of Statistics - annual data on tourist arrivals and overnight stays for 2025, including results for the German market (link)
- Valamar Riviera - announcement on the ADAC Superplatz and ANWB Top Camping 2026 recognitions for Valamar campsites (link)
- Valamar Riviera - portfolio and financial reports with data on camping capacities and investments for 2026 (link)