Our first adventure: Croatia for seven days

We’re back from our first adventure, a road trip through Croatia, and we had an amazing time! So many of our friends from the U.S. have already visited Croatia and loved their trips so we had high expectations and a great list of recommendations going into our vacation. The good news was that our high expectations were vastly exceeded during our short stay. Croatia is a beautiful country with kind people, good food and delicious wine. Pretty much all you need for a successful holiday!

We learned a lot on this trip about driving through the Balkans. With cell service spotty in the region, we thought we could navigate our drive through Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and finally into Croatia with printed Google maps. We were sadly mistaken! On our way to Croatia, we met new friends for lunch in Podgorica, Montenegro, who not only saved our trip but also our marriage by recommending an app made by Garmin called Navigon Europe. The app does not rely on cell service to work, it instead uses the internal GPS in your iPhone. It was lifesaving and we cannot thank The Adventuring Armstrong’s enough for their clutch recommendation. For anyone road tripping through Europe (especially the Balkans) you must get this app immediately! It’s expensive (in typical Evan fashion he flinched at the price) but is 100% worth a lifetime of wedded bliss. =)

For anyone interested, you can access our 7 day Croatia itinerary here with notes from our trip. Thank you to all of our friends for your recommendations on what to see and where to eat! We plan to return to Croatia in the near future to visit Zadar, Plitvice Lakes National Park and Zagreb. All places we did not have time to visit, but have heard amazing things.