Travel spearfishing in the Mediterranean is one of the easiest, most rewarding ways to start hunting underwater — warm, clear, forgiving water, shore dives a short walk from your apartment, and fish that aren't impossibly deep. This guide is the map: how to plan a Croatia or Greece trip, choose a budget speargun under €100, understand the gear, fly with it, buy locally if you'd rather travel light, and pack it all for a two-week stay without blowing your baggage allowance.
We wrote it for the diver who can already hold a breath and drop a few metres but has never strung a trip together — the person standing in front of a wall of spearguns with a €100 budget and a 23 kg bag limit, wondering where to even begin. If you're completely new to the sport, start with our complete beginner's guide to spearfishing first, then come back here for the travel-specific decisions.
Planning a Mediterranean Spearfishing Trip
Croatia and Greece are the two best entry points in Europe. Both give you long stretches of rocky coastline, water that runs 22–26°C in summer, and visibility that regularly hits 15–25 metres. The fish you'll realistically target as a beginner — bream, wrasse, the occasional mullet or small bream school — live in 2–10 metres of water over rock and seagrass, exactly where a person doing relaxed two-to-three-minute breath-holds can hunt comfortably.
Before you book anything, settle three questions: where you're diving, whether you'll bring gear or buy it there, and whether the area you've chosen is legal to spearfish. The legal piece is non-negotiable and country-specific — we cover the permits, seasons and protected zones in detail in our guide to spearfishing in Croatia versus Greece. Read it before you pay for a single piece of gear, because a marine protected area on your doorstep can quietly turn a great-looking bay into a no-go.
Choosing a Budget Speargun Under €100
You do not need an expensive gun to catch fish on a Mediterranean holiday. A €60–90 sling gun will land everything a beginner realistically shoots. The classic shortlist is the Cressi Apache, the Salvimar Wild and Wild Pro, and entry models from Mares, Beuchat and Seac — all of which sit comfortably under €100 and all of which work.
For a Med trip, a 75–90 cm gun is the sweet spot: short enough to be nimble in rocks and caves, long enough to reach open-water fish. We break down every model, the real street prices, and which length to buy in our dedicated guide to the best budget speargun under €100. If you're still deciding between a gun and something even simpler, our comparison of pole spear versus speargun for beginners is worth a read before you spend.
Gun Size vs Shaft Length: What to Know
Here's the single most common surprise for first-time buyers, and the one that wrecks travel plans: a speargun's advertised size is the barrel length, not the shaft. A "75 cm" gun ships with a shaft closer to 110–115 cm, because the spear protrudes well past the muzzle. So the gun you bought to fit your 90 cm baggage limit arrives as a package that's far longer than the number on the box.
This matters enormously when you fly, and it's why "travel shafts" and break-down guns exist. We explain the whole relationship — how to read the specs, how to match length to the water you're diving, and how to avoid the sizing trap — in speargun size vs shaft length, explained. Understanding it before you buy saves you from the airport-counter heartbreak of a bag that won't close.
Pole Spears: The Simplest Way to Travel
If all of the above sounds like a lot of faff for a two-week trip, there's a genuinely simpler answer: a travel pole spear. A three-piece break-down pole spear from JBL or Gatku packs down to under 90 cm, fits inside a normal suitcase, needs no bands to maintain, and teaches you more about stalking and ambush than a speargun ever will. For a beginner catching "anything" on holiday, it's often the smartest first purchase.
The trade-off is range and power — a pole spear is a close-quarters tool. But in the shallow Med rock where you'll spend most of your time, that's exactly the game. Our round-up of the best travel pole spears for spearfishing trips covers the models that pack small, plus how to choose length and tip type. Pair it with a no-hype beginner gear kit list and you've got a complete, plane-friendly setup.
Flying With Your Spearfishing Gear
Spearguns and pole spears must travel in checked luggage — never carry-on. The good news is that flying with a speargun is routine once you know the rules: pack the shaft and gun in a rigid or semi-rigid case, declare nothing exotic (it's sporting goods, not a weapon, in most EU jurisdictions), and keep your lead weights out of the equation by buying them at the destination.
The details — checked-bag rules, the best travel cases like the Sport Tube, how to protect shafts and tips, and the airline and destination quirks that catch people out — are all in our step-by-step guide to flying with a speargun. Read it before you pack, because the difference between a smooth check-in and a confiscated shaft is usually just knowing the right wording and the right case.
Buying Gear Locally in Croatia and Greece
You don't have to bring everything. Both Croatia and Greece have excellent, well-stocked dive shops where you can buy — or sometimes rent — a gun, a wetsuit, weights and fins on arrival. In Greece, Athens has long-established shops with deep stock; in Croatia, Split and the coastal towns are well covered. Buying locally means no fragile gear in your hold luggage and a shop owner who can tell you exactly what's biting and where.
It's also often cheaper than you'd expect, and it supports people who know the water far better than any guidebook. We list the specific trusted shops, what they stock, and the buy-ahead-versus-buy-on-arrival maths in our guide to where to buy spearfishing gear in Croatia and Greece. If you're flying with hand luggage only, buying on arrival can turn the whole trip logistics-free.
What to Pack for a Two-Week Trip
Two weeks is long enough that you'll want spares, consumables and a proper safety kit — but short enough that everything still has to fit in one checked bag. The core list is small: mask, snorkel, fins, a thin (1.5–3 mm) warm-water wetsuit, weight belt, gloves, a knife, a float and float line, and your gun or pole spear. Add spare bands, a spare shaft tip, and a basic dive watch and you're covered.
The trick is fitting it within airline limits, which is mostly about leaving the lead behind and packing smart. Our full spearfishing packing list for a two-week trip lays it all out as a checklist, including the warm-water wetsuit and weighting choices that matter in the Med. And because breath-hold is the engine of everything you do down there, it's worth spending a little pre-trip time learning how to hold your breath longer for spearfishing before you go.
Put those seven pieces together — destination, gun, sizing, pole-spear option, flying, buying locally, and packing — and you have a complete plan for a first Mediterranean spearfishing trip that catches fish without breaking your budget or your baggage allowance.
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