This is part 3 of my annual trip series. My brother, Jake, and I started this travel tradition in 2016 and have continued it with a yearly trip ever since. Once per calendar year, we plan a trip together somewhere internationally that we've never been before. Below is a list of the five trips we’ve done up to this point. Our sixth annual trip is scheduled for December 2021 (Year 6). In this blog, we're focusing on Year 3, which took us to the Balkans (specifically Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Montenegro). Year 1 (2016): The Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver) Year 2 (2017): Cuba Year 3 (2018): The Balkans — Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro (and London!) Year 4 (2019): Luxembourg (and Paris!) Year 5 (2020): Africa (South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania) Year 6 (2021): Belize So, without further ado, let’s look at Year 3, which took place during my study abroad semester. Year 3 Background When I decided to go abroad during my junior year, it became the obvious time for the third iteration of our sibling trip. I planned to study abroad in London, the city where Jake also studied abroad during his junior year in college, so I knew that I would be in Europe already. We decided to visit a country that neither of us had visited. For me, this was fairly easy. I just had to plan my semester trips around whatever location we picked. For Jake, this was a bit harder. He already had an entire semester’s worth of travels under his belt. We knew we needed to be a bit more creative. During the summer of 2017, I came across a video that featured the underwater wine cellars of Croatia. While this isn’t the exact article that I read, it will give you a gist of the content. I was fascinated by the thought of combining a wine tour with scuba diving. As I wouldn’t even be 21 until September 2017, these were both new and exciting areas for me. I pitched the country of Croatia to Jake with this scuba diving experience as one of the main features. Our Itinerary Below are notes from our itinerary in Croatia and our other add-on countries that I captured in a lightly edited email to my parents during the week of our trip. April 7 (Zagreb) On Saturday, I woke up early to catch my flight to Zagreb, Croatia. I had a layover in Düsseldorf and experienced a couple of delays. I didn't end up seeing Jake until the early evening. He picked me up in the car we rented. We dropped everything off at the hotel and went to grab food. We saw some of the city on foot, but overall, there wasn’t that much to see. April 8 (Plitvice Lakes National Park) The next morning, we headed out to Plitvice Lakes National Park, which has the most beautiful waterfalls and turquoise water. I remember thinking it didn’t seem like the kind of place that would exist in the U.S. because the entire thing is covered with trails and wooden bridges with no rails. American National Parks are in no way that trusting, but it was packed full since it was a Sunday. It was absolutely breathtaking. April 9 (Split) We drove down to Split (the second-largest city in Croatia after Dubrovnik). We based a lot of how we were driving on where there were Starwood (hotel and resort company acquired by Marriott in 2016) locations. This was relevant because Jake worked for a company at the time that partnered with Starwood and thus had copious hotel points. This was an amazing hotel because it had a waterfront view of the city. Commence the eating of the delicious bread and olive oil. April 10 (Dubrovnik) Originally, we planned on heading to Hvar on Tuesday. Hvar is an island and is supposed to be great during the summer, which is the case for nearly everything (we were a few months early). So, we decided to forego Hvar because it was going to be incredibly complicated to get there with little reward. We decided to head to Dubrovnik early and hit some of those sites because we had our eyes on a spontaneous half-day wine tour to Bosnia and Herzegovina for the next day. We arrived in Dubrovnik around 2 to 3 PM. We headed out into the city and got some great shots of "King's Landing" from Game of Thrones and enjoyed some Adriatic seaside drinks after a quick dinner. April 11 (Bosnia & Herzegovina and Dubrovnik) On Wednesday, we woke up, grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed to Bosnia and Herzegovina! Our tour picked us up at the hotel, and it ended up just being us, even though it said online it could have been "small-group." Our tour guide was named Mela, and she is originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She ended up leaving during the Yugoslavia War in 1992 as a refugee. She left with her daughter and went to London, where she still spends half her time each year. The tour took us to four different locations: a local market with the freshest food I have ever tasted (highlights: sage honey, figs, strawberries, cheese kept in a sheepskin, and crema which was like cream cheese), a monastery where they make their own wine, a winery, and then a re
