Croatia Saved Us!

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine asked me if I was stressed out based on an email I sent her. She said I sounded a little uptight and shouldn’t be stressed out while on vacation.

I agree, you shouldn’t be stressed out on vacation. However, I’m not on vacation. I’m traveling. These are two totally different things, especially when you are traveling long term and with another person. In my case, that’s my husband.

Now, I want to get into how Croatia saved us and I want to tell you all about the wonderful reasons Croatia is now our favorite country, but I feel I need to clarify on this little “you can’t be stressed out!” statement first.

I would have to say the three most stressful things about traveling are:

a) Being with another person 24/7 for five months straight. You barely ever get time to yourself. When you’re tired or hungry or grumpy, they are the person you are going to take it out on and there are times when you have nothing to say because you have just spent the last 5,829 hours together. However, of all people, I am grateful that it’s my husband that I get to travel with because we keep each other laughing, he understands me the best of anyone else, we can be affectionate together and we don’t judge each other’s moods. But of course you still have your days where you want to rip someone’s head off and they are the closest ones standing next to you.

b) The physical stress. When you’re running, climbing stairs, and walking several kilometers a day with an extra 15 kgs on your back, you get tired and sore. Iain and I have bled, sweat and cried together and a lot of it stems from being just physically tired. We’ve had late nights (bed at 4am) early mornings (again, 4am) and sometimes one meal a day. I have lost count of the bruises I’ve had and have both lost and put on weight. So, yes, the physical stress can get our immune systems down and affect our moods. Changing cities every three days, repacking our backpacks, not having clean laundry and running for busses, trains and planes can definitely take it’s toll.

c) Watching your bank account quickly go to zero. This has got to be the most stressful of them all. You want to be able to do all the things you dreamed of, knowing that you might never get a chance to do them again and have no regrets. Unfortunately having no regrets in Europe is ridiculously expensive and we have been flustered and disheartened more than once seeing our entire life savings so far disappear in less than two months. That aside, we have no regrets and are going to continue to enjoy as many experiences as we can along the way. Iain just might have to sell his body a couple of times to fund us till the end ;)

Ok, that’s enough complaining about the stress of traveling. There are more, but I don’t want to spend anymore of your or my time talking about the negatives. Instead I want to tell you about how totally incredible and underrated Croatia is!

We have wanted to go sailing somewhere exotic for a long time and Croatia hit that target. I could write for the next hour about how beautiful, lively, exotic, peaceful, playful and remarkably perfect Croatia is, and it still wouldn’t do this country justice. You would just have to come here yourself to see!

What I will say is that the people are lovely, the islands are phenomenal to sail around, the sea is crystal clear (and very refreshing from the hot sun) and the prices reasonable. That, and the Gelato is super yummy (I tried banana chocolate chip, kiwi, and ferrero roche:)

While walking through the streets of the small but welcoming towns, you can hear classical piano coming from obscure windows somewhere in the distance that creates a haunting echo sound in the air. You can smell home made pizza or fresh fish and hear men singing together under the tress. The old stone buildings are around 1400 years old and you can see reminisce of Greek, Venetian and even Egyptian history around each corner.

I will come back here one day and spend even more time than before. It somehow feels quiet and peaceful while lively and exciting at the same time. Plus I got the best tan of my life within a week!

Our sailing trip saved us from the hectic travel schedule we have followed so far and the exhaustion we were starting to hit so frequently that our burnout was keeping us from enjoying ourselves as much as we had liked. Now we are fully rested again, well fed and leave with 26 new friends that became our family on the sea.

For me, this week has been the best week of our trip so far and one of the best weeks of my life. Croatia will be missed, but it will see me again with a big smile on my face, a book ready in hand and possibly a few new people to enjoy the experience with again.