We are in Croatia! Our plan for the next three weeks

I can’t believe it, but our six weeks in Italy have come to an end, and we are off to Croatia! We had a blast in Italia, exploring different cities, staying in a bunch of agriturismos (one, two, and three) and just living Italian life. By the time our month and a half was complete we had driven over 3,300 kilometers (or 2,000 miles). Well, by “we” I really mean Damian, so thanks husband!

I still have a bunch of posts that I’m working on from our last ten days in Italy (Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome, Parma, etc.), but wanted to jump this post to the front of the queue so we could get any recommendations you all have, since we’ve made it to Croatia, yay! To be honest this is the new country on this trip that I was most excited about, and even after just a couple hours here I know it is going to be epic.

Tell me a little more about Croatia

So, I didn’t know that much about Croatia before I started researching it for our trip. I knew that it was (supposedly) a beautiful country, and that everyone who has ever visited loves it. I also knew it had some gorgeous waterscapes, and all those things together were enough to have me seriously interested.

Croatia is an Eastern European country of four million people and ~55,000 square miles. Croatia has a pretty unique shape in that (I think) it has a higher proportion of coastline than you would expect for its size. I don’t know much about Croatian history, but props to whichever ruler(s) made that happen!

You can see the layout of Croatia below. To the left (fine, west) is the Adriatic Sea, and on the other side of the Adriatic Sea is the east coast of Italy. The countries that share significant borders with Croatia are Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.

Croatia is not part of the Schengen zone (a lifesaver for us) and uses the Kuna as its currency (about 6.3 kuna to one U.S. dollar). The GDP of the entire country is only about $60 billion (smaller than the value of many companies!) and per capita GDP is ~$15,000.

Tourism is the primary economic vehicle for the country, especially given the natural beauty of its lands. We learned today that tourism is responsible for 35% of the GDP in Croatia, 35%! That number is closer to 7% for most countries. Recently, Game of Thrones and Star Wars have been filmed here, boosting tourism, and I think Croatia’s second place finish in the World Cup will help as well.

Finally, Croatia did get caught in some political turmoil in the late 20^th century, as part of the Yugoslavian conflict (again, I am not a history buff so please offer me some leeway here). The war in the early 1990s damaged much of the country, but it is amazing how safe it is now, how much has been repaired and how quickly the Croatian people have moved forward. I think partially because the country relies so heavily on tourism, Croatia pushed to make these moves quicker than some other countries may have.

The plan for Croatia

Ok, ok, ok, enough history. So what are we going to do here? Well, we have three weeks allocated to spend in Croatia, and really wanted to make sure to continue prioritizing slow travel. The back half of Italy was really fast paced and we both are feeling the burnout from that. In fact, sadly, Damian is fighting some sort of bug/virus for the last few days – he’s got a bad tummy and has basically been sleeping for 48 hours straight. Poor guy!

We also wanted to focus on doing all the beach-y and nature-y things. From what I’ve read, Croatia reminds me somewhat of New Zealand, with lots of gorgeous scenery and landscapes to explore (and adventure in). So, our plan also revolves around taking full advantage of that! Here’s our plan:

What’s on the list

• Two major cities (teal circles): ~7 days
  • Dubrovnik: A stunning walled city on the water
  • Zagreb: The capital city, with a funky vibe
• One island (teal triangle): ~7 days
  • Hvar: Even though this is a party/yuppie hotspot (not really our thang), we’ll be staying off the beaten path and spending our time finding and exploring unknown beaches … we considered splitting this time between two islands but for our mental and physical sanity we just need to stay put in one place (with a nice pool)
• Two national parks (teal squares): ~7 days
  • Krka National Park: Waterfalls you can swim in and canyoning adventures
  • Plitvice National Park: More gorgeous waterfalls (but no swimming) and hikes with beautiful vistas

What’s not on the list

As we did in Italy, we made the choice to skip out on a few places to keep our travel pace manageable. We aren’t doing any islands besides Hvar (though we probably will rent a little boat of our own and do a day trip or two), we aren’t doing Split (another cute seaside town, though we will see its airport to pick up our car!) and we aren’t doing Zadar and Pula (two other significant cities in Croatia).

From all the research I’ve done, this is just the tip of the iceberg for what we aren’t doing (Mljet, for example, looks amazing), but it just means we will have to come back.

Up first!

We start in Dubrovnik! We based our itinerary a bit based on direct flights out of Rome and Dubrovnik was the easiest. We’ve only been here a few hours, but the stunning drive along the coast to our apartment already whet our appetite and has us salivating for more. I started exploring Old Town while Damian was resting and it is just so cute and filled with so much character. I can’t wait to see more of this amazing city over the next few days!