Sites: Croatia

I am officially a Mrs.! We had an amazing wedding full of family, friends and love. I'll post more on that later, but for now... the best part post-marriage... the HONEYMOON!

We knew once we got married, we wanted to take a big honeymoon. We went back-and-forth between Tahiti, Italy, Hawaii, etc... Finally, we landed on Croatia. I know weird, right? NOT.AT.ALL. This country is AMAZING. If you're reading this, you probably already know that and are looking for advice on where to stay, what to eat, etc. Well, I'm hoping our trip can be helpful to you.

ITINERARY: We stayed in Croatia for almost 2 weeks (drove from the top, to bottom, back to the top). We started by flying into Zagreb from the US and rented a car. Zagreb was not our favorite city, mostly because we had such a hard time driving and had major culture shock on the first day... but it gets better! From there, we drove to Dubrovnik and spent a night there (note: not enough time, you need at least 2 days). From there we drove up to Split for a night and caught a catamaran the next day to Hvar Island. We stayed in Hvar for 4 days, it was so amazing. We had a stressful few months leading up to the wedding, and Hvar Island was just what we needed. Sun, fresh sea food, amazing wine and a swim up bar at our hotel ;) From Hvar, our next stop was in Zadar. We didn't have many expectations for Zadar but it was amazing! We stayed in the old town square at a nice little hotel where we could look out into the busy street from our room. We could walk to the beach and also sit on the pier to watch the sunset and listen to the waves roll in... more on that later. We spent 2 nights in Zadar. Lastly, we ended up in Rovinj where we spent our last 2 nights.
To top it off, my cousin and her family live in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. We intentionally had a 20 hour layover there so we could visit with family. It was the best ending to our trip!

As you plan for your Croatian trip, here are some tips:
Tip 1: Make sure to ask/book a sea view room. We made the mistake of not ensuring we had one in advance past Dubrovnik, and it was a little disappointing.
Tip 2: Book a hotel with breakfast included. The breakfasts buffets were amazing. We tended to eat later in the morning (partly because of the time change) and so didn't have to eat lunch most days (saved us some money! which we later used on wine...)
Tip 3: If you have a rental car, go to the supermarket and get bottles of Croatian wine. The exchange rate was really good, in our favor, so the wine is so cheap, but amazing!
Tip 4: take good walking shoes! You won't walk too much, if you don't want to (outside of Dubrovnik and Plitvice Lakes National Park) but in a lot of the old towns the streets are original stone which means they're super slippery now.
Tip 4: it's hot. We didn't have a day under 80 degrees and it rained for 2 minutes on our sunset cruise... take sunscreen, shorts and tanks. You may want a light rain jacket, but we didn't wear long sleeves the entire time.
Tip 5: get restaurant recommendations from the hotel staff/locals. We had the best luck this way - the ones we tried to google or look at travel books just didn't live up to the bar set by the new, smaller restaurants.

In an attempt to not make this post a picture overload... I think I'll split it up among a couple of posts. Lets start with Dubrovnik!

Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is about a 5 hour drive from Zagreb. It's a beautiful drive, but long. You have to go through another country to get there, Bosnia, and contrary to popular belief, I would say that's the probably best part of the drive. It's beautiful!

Any Game of Thrones fans out there? If so, Dubrovnik is "Kings Landing" - we think we found the stairs that is often shown in the show when the royalty addresses the town (i.e. the epic Cersei scene from season 5...) see pic below and judge for yourself :)

We stayed at the Radison Blu Resort & Spa, Dubrovnik Sun Gardens. Oh my gosh, this hotel was amazing! We only stayed for one night, which we instantly regretted... we needed to stay for a lot longer! We had an amazing sea view, and once we got back from walking the city walls, we enjoyed the spa briefly and then walked down to their restaurant, Cilantro, and listened to the 2 man band while eating fresh sea food and sipping on Croatian wine.

Here are a couple of views from our room, we were pressed for time that day, so unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures in during the day. But they had an amazing spa and pool area.

Picture from our drive into Dubrovnik

Pictures from our walk along the wall of old town:

As you walked, they had these amazing "peep holes"; a cool way to see the city and sea from a different view!

It was my mission to find GOT spots as we went through Dubrovnik, so what do you think? Is this the GOT stairs? We think so and I was super pumped to find it!

After our long walk around the city, we just sat back and enjoyed people watching with a cold beer. This was my honey's first exposure to prosciutto, it was a hit.

Stay tuned for more... Next Post: Split and Hvar

Love and Travel,

Lynn

Sites: Alaska! Denali, Seward and Anchorage - June 2014

We recently traveled to Alaska - I for work, my honey for fun. So I added a few days onto my work excursion so together, we could visit and enjoy the many beautiful things Alaska has to offer. Let me tell you, if you've never been to Alaska - GO! I will be bold enough to say, it's probably the most beautiful place on earth.

We started the trip with a visit to Seward where we embarked on a Halibut fishing adventure. The drive from Anchorage to Seward is one of the most beautiful drives I have been on. It makes you feel like you're on the edge of the world; the mountains and seas never end. It was amazing.

The most exciting part of the trip for me, was buying these bad ass rain overalls… I have literally wanted these forever!

I say this was the most exciting part, because right after this next picture was taken - I was bent over the edge of the boat… sea sick. On the upside, my honey caught some amazing fish and had the time of his life. So I choose to remember the trip looking like this:

Next, we went exploring around Anchorage and found a fun little hiking spot. We hiked for only a little bit after we realized neither of us knew what to do if we ran into a bear… but we fit in some pictures while enjoying the scenery… bear free.

The last few days of our trip, we drove up to Denali National Park. On the drive up, we were amazed at the sight of Mt. McKinley (a.k.a. Denali)  which we found out later, we were very lucky to see - only about 30% of visitors actually see the mountain. We saw it 2 days in a row which was amazing!

(not the best picture of us, but the mountain is gorgeous!)

We found a little friend along the way… she was beautiful!

Our hotel was in the middle of the mountain and I accidentally booked us a private cabin, which turned out to be really neat… my honey thought we were 'high rollers' which made the whole experience highly amusing. One day I might be brave enough to post the hilarious video he took, MTV Cribs style.

We drove around the small town and found this really neat brewery called the 49th State which had the most amazing Fish and Chips, made with fresh Alaskan Halibut. They also had pretty awesome beer. We ended up eating or having a beer here every night… we're so adventurous!

The next day we woke up early to do the 13 hour bus tour of Denali. It was really cool! We saw 8 or 9 bears (including some adorable baby cubs), a wolf, elk, moose and other Alaskan wildlife. Here are some pics from our tour...

We love the bus in this photo (driving down the path - about ½ way up), it shows how amazingly huge and vast Denali is.

having a little fun at the rest stop

20 hours and 37 minutes of sunlight is one of the most bizarre things we experienced in Alaska - it NEVER.GETS.DARK it's the weirdest thing ever.

We had an amazing time and can't wait to go back. This is another chapter in our adventure book and we're looking forward to sharing more on our online journal. BTW we're getting married - engaged on February 3, 2014. I'm excited to share all my ideas and our journey to the alter for our ultimate adventure - being husband and wife.

"As often as possible, go someplace you’ve never been before. Experience new places and new things. You might find yourself with someone or somewhere that makes you much happier than your previous circumstance. The Earth is so vast with unique and beautiful places, why wouldn’t you want to go explore them?"  - Dalai Lama

- L

Sites: Lake Michigan Shore Drive

Have you ever itched for a road trip? Head out to discover West Michigan. It is the perfect place that is close to home, but gives you that 'vacation' feel.

Last fall, I was in a photography class and one of the assignments was to pretend that you were on vacation and take 'tourist photos' of your home town. Not really sure how that was going to work, my honey, suggested a spontaneous road trip up the Lake Michigan coast to visit some of the light houses. No twisting my arm on that one.

Our first stop was South Haven, Michigan. It was cold and grey, but a beautiful day to take photos.

We then drove up to Holland, Michigan. What a cool town! 

Side Note: I didn't know before we got there, that my honey was offered a scholarship to go to school there...? wha? Although it would have been amazing, I'm so glad he didn't go. Because we met during undergrad at Western Michigan University ;)

So this blog post is a year late... But next time you're in the mood for a spontaneous road trip, I hope it's inspired you a little bit to explore Michigan. It's an amazing state with unlimited possibilities for a great time (and great photos!)

-L