My co-author and frequent collaborator, Cameron Hewitt, is well-traveled, smart, and insightful. And, while he and I are in perfect sync in our travel styles and priorities, he gives voice to the next generation of "Rick Steves travelers." Join me in enjoying his reports right here. —Rick

Mostar: Bosnia with Training Wheels

Bosnia-Herzegovina is a fantastic country, and easily one of Europe’s most underrated destinations. Stunning natural wonders, incredibly warm and engaging people, riveting history (both old and recent), delicious cuisine — check, check, check, and check.

Because of its recent heritage of war, its rough-around-the-edges infrastructure, and its vivid Muslim culture, Bosnia can be jarring to some visitors. For that reason, I view the city of Mostar — within a short drive of Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian Coast — as a wading pool for Bosnia. Dip your toe in. If you like it, there’s so much more to see.

 

Cameron-Bosnia-Mostar-Market

It seems unlikely that Epcot will ever open a “Bosnia” pavilion. But if they did, it would look a lot like the old center of Mostar. It is, in a word, cute. The ankle-wrecking, smoothly rounded cobbles twist through a vibrant bazaar atmosphere. Visitors often remark, “It’s like being back in Turkey!” And sure enough, Mostar was an Ottoman market town for most of its history. But it’s not Turkish…it’s Bosnian.

 

Cameron-Bosnia-Mostar-Bridge View 1

In the Old Town, all roads lead to the iconic Old Bridge — the icon of the city, built by Süleyman the Magnificent, destroyed in the wars of the 1990s, and since rebuilt. Down at the riverbank below, you enjoy the best views in town…and, if it’s hot (like it was today), you can cool off your toes in the frigid Neretva River.

 

Cameron-Bosnia-Mostar-Divers

Crossing the Old Bridge, you’ll trip over chunky marble “steps” that are spaced just far apart enough to guarantee stumbling. Even an agile cat would stagger like a drunk along here. The two guys in the foreground are Mostar’s divers. They’re taking a break, but in a moment they’ll hop up on the railing and carry on until they drum up enough tips to make it worth their effort to do a swan dive seven stories down into the water below. As my local friend and I were walking across this bridge, intently watching our feet to avoid tripping, suddenly we heard a loud splash…and realized we’d just missed the show.

 

Cameron-Bosnia-Mostar-Muslim Family

Both in Mostar and in Sarajevo, I noticed lots and lots of tourists from the Middle East. This carries on Bosnia’s rich heritage as a meeting place between East and West. Just as Americans go to Mostar because it offers an enticing peek at Islam in a familiar European package, people from the Middle East enjoy it as a comfortably Muslim destination that’s also exotically European.

 

Cameron-Bosnia-Mostar-Islamski Centar

During communist Yugoslavia, religion was discouraged, and most people did not openly practice their faith (whether Islam, Catholicism, or Orthodox Christianity). But since the fall of the Iron Curtain, it’s been interesting to see the rebound of various faiths across Central and Eastern Europe. In Russia, the Church is so influential that the former KGB chief Vladimir Putin claims he was, secretly, deeply religious all along. In Romania, a newfound faithfulness fills atmospheric, centuries-old Orthodox churches that were, for decades, considered tourist sites rather than holy ones. And across Bosnia, you find many new mosques, libraries, madrassas, and cultural centers, many of them funded by donors from wealthy Middle Eastern countries.

 

Cameron-Bosia-Mostar-Main Drag

At the edge of Mostar’s fantastyland of an Old Town, the cobbles abruptly end. Most tourists U-turn, head back to their day-tour bus, and hit the souvenir stands that caught their eye during their short visit here. But that’s a shame — if you keep going, you enter Mostar’s ragtag pedestrian shopping street, where locals (and mopeds) outnumber tourists. This is where the real people of Mostar gather to drink coffee and listen to a mix of loud music: American pop and souped-up “turbo folk” music (imagine a Balkan-flavored techno mariachi music).

 

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Mostar provides a case study in how easy (and cheap) it is to stay in touch if you’re comfortable with basic cell phone technology. I carry an unlocked phone with me. (You probably already own several, in a junk drawer somewhere in your house.) Even though I’m only in Bosnia for four days on this trip, I bought a SIM card that I can stick in a slot in my phone to have access to very cheap domestic calls (20 cents per minute) rather than my cell phone provider’s exorbitant roaming charges ($1.79 per minute). The SIM card cost $3, included that much credit, and took literally seconds to purchase and insert into my phone. I only made two calls the whole time I was in Bosnia (to confirm my Sarajevo hotel and to make a dinner reservation). And yet, given the pricey per-minute roaming costs, buying my own SIM card still saved me money. For the full scoop on SIM cards, check out our Travel Skills article on that topic.

Rick Steves Guidebooks — Making the World Better, One Trip at a Time

You’ve already met just a few of my favorite people from Dubrovnik — from the Peros to Jadranka, Sasha, and Pepo. But that’s just a small sampling of the hundreds of amazing people I feel lucky to recommend in our Rick Steves Croatia & Slovenia guidebook. As a guidebook writer, I see it as my role to be an intermediary: put good travelers in the hands of great local contacts…then get out of the way. And Roberto de Lorenzo and his mother Marija embody that ideal like nobody else.

Roberto and Marija live in an old palazzo high in Dubrovnik’s Old Town. They’ve converted some of the building into apartments for travelers, including two units that each has access to an entirely private garden. If you’ve been to Dubrovnik, you’ll appreciate how impossibly rare it is to have a garden of any kind — much less a private one — within the City Walls. You can even have the restaurant next door send a waiter over to take your order. Private dining in your own private garden, in the heart of Croatia’s finest town…all this can be yours for around $100 a night.

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Roberto

I have every confidence that Roberto and Marija’s place is great, and I know our readers will love it. But it works both ways. When I visited Roberto today, he was bursting with enthusiasm, telling me, “You have no idea how many people’s lives your books improve. Thanks to the Rick Steves book, I took my mother to the United States. And now I have become an ambassador for the USA to all of my friends.”

Roberto explained. Like all good B&B owners, he’s really hit it off with many of his guests. One couple invited Roberto and his mom to visit them in Pennington, New Jersey. For months, he declined what he assumed was a polite, but possibly insincere, invitation. But they were persistent. And finally Roberto — realizing that this may be his mom’s only chance to go stateside — decided to take them up on it.

Roberto Marija USA

On their two-week trip this summer, Roberto and Marija also visited New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania Amish country. And they had a blast. It was a revelation. “Coming from a Mediterranean city, I expected New York to feel busy and impersonal and cold,” Roberto told me. “But quite the contrary: People are so friendly, and there is a real sense of community. It could be a Mediterranean city itself.”

For her part, Marija was especially reluctant to make her first trip to the USA. But it was a life-changing experience for her. Marija told me, “I’m in my 70s, so it’s not easy at this age. But I fell in love…with the States.”

When they first arrived in New York, they stepped out of what Roberto calls “Pennsylvania Station” and saw a pair of real-life NYPD cops. In Croatia, police are often seen as intimidating authority figures. But Roberto was so excited to be there that he couldn’t resist — so he asked one of them if he could take a picture with them. She broke into a big smile and said, “That would make my day.” Roberto showed me the picture on his phone:

Roberto in NYC

Since he’s been back home, Roberto tells me, he’s been showing that picture to anyone and everyone. To him, it sums up the power of travel: You can meet — and snap selfies with — people you’d never dream of. He says that one picture has challenged some of his friends’ assumptions about New York, and the USA in general. And now they’re considering trips of their own.

“What I want you to understand,” he said, slowing down for emphasis, “is that all of this is because of your book. Yes, you put travelers in touch with hotels. But it can be even more than that. If it weren’t for the Rick Steves book, I would never have met those guests. They would never have invited me to the United States. And I would not be telling everyone I know what a wonderful place your country is.”

While this all may seem immodest, it’s a gratifying reminder that the Rick Steves travel philosophy is just that: not just guidebooks, tours, rucksacks, and practical advice — but a worldview that, in ways small and big, can broaden and improve people’s lives. It certainly brightened the day of one New York cop who didn’t quite know what to make of those two effusive Croatians…but loved every minute of it.

Why Dubrovnik Makes Me Happy

Yesterday I got cranky. But today, I want to share some of my favorite aspects of Dubrovnik, in the form of some particularly pretty pictures.

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Happy Laundry

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Happy Laundry 2

I see laundry drying in the streets as the fluttering flag of the local community — as if to say, “We still live here!”

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Happy Lane1

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In my guidebook’s introduction to the town, I called it a “fun jumble of quiet, cobbled back lanes.” A friend of mine visited and said that Dubrovnik seemed more crowded than that. So on this trip, I made a point to check out whether you really could escape the crowds. Sure enough, yep — quiet back lanes still there. So for the new edition, I’m adding this line: “If you haven’t discovered your own secluded, laundry-draped back lanes all to yourself…then you haven’t looked hard enough.”

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Happy Restaurant

Dubrovnik is simply a joy to explore. Around each corner, little surprise lanes hide inviting restaurant tables.

Why Dubrovnik Makes Me Cranky

In my last few posts, I’ve been laying it on a little thick singing the glories of Dubrovnik. Yes, it’s a wonderful place. But even wonderful places have their dark side. And I’ve been doing this work long enough that I get cranky sometimes. Here are a few things on this visit that stuck in my craw.

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Cranky Recommendation

Many years ago, there was a hot new restaurant in Dubrovnik. Everyone loved it — including me. So I recommended it in our Rick Steves Eastern Europe guidebook. Less than one year later, I heard that it had gone steeply downhill, a victim of its own success (a sadly common tale in Dubrovnik). And, after having a bad meal there myself, I took it right back out of the book for the next edition. Today, more than seven years since it appeared in the book, the restauranteur still has the gall to post this blurb from my original write-up on their poster. I have fantasies of scrawling “NO LONGER RECOMMENDED!” across the Rick Steves logo. Do you think I’d be within my rights to attack it with a Sharpie?

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Cranky Foundry

Poor Đivo. He’s an ambitious young archaeology scholar who got a plum job: showing visitors around a slick new museum about the old medieval foundry tucked at the foot of Dubrovnik’s walls. But…nobody comes. It’s tucked way up at the top of town, impossible to find, literally underneath Dubrovnik’s basketball court. And the city doesn’t promote it at all. In fact, due to a mistranslation, the only English leaflet about the site identifies it not as a “Foundry” but as a “Forgery.” (I wish I were kidding.) Đivo — who sits on the corner out front hoping to snag passersby to tour the museum — has been keeping track of visitors. And, with about 1.5 million people coming to Dubrovnik this year, so far he’s sold a grand total of…812 tickets. (He’s hoping to hit a thousand.) For every person who shows up wanting to tour the museum, there are ten who stumble in here looking for bathrooms or the access to the walls. If you’re in town and want to make Đivo’s life a little bit better — and learn some genuinely interesting facts about medieval metallurgy — just hike up to the very top corner of town, directly below the tallest Minčeta Tower. Then walk across the sports court to the poorly marked door. When you get there, tell him Cameron sent you.

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Cranky Selfie

This photography shop — I imagine no longer making much money selling disposable cameras — has come up with a clever new spin on their business, which plays perfectly into our increasingly narcissistic age. While I hear a lot of grumbling about the “selfie stick” fad from other travelers, I haven’t had any negative run-ins with them myself…yet.

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Cranky Cart

The reality of living in a traffic-free city is that routine deliveries are a pain. Every so often, you see little carts like this one parting the sea of tourists as it makes its way slowly up the main drag. Sturdy young men load up hand trucks with deliveries and huff them up several flights of steep stairs. Apparently this was particularly challenging for the Game of Thrones crew, who had to physically carry up each and every lighting rig, piece of camera equipment, costume, prop, and bowl of green M&Ms for Peter Dinklage. (OK, that last one was a joke.)

 

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Cranky Candy

Dubrovnik is selling out. There are now five — count ’em five! — “Pirate Candy” shops in the historic Old Town. Big barrels overflowing with overpriced bulk candy are strategically located through town — like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs — designed to wear down the parents of sugar-starved children. The scuttlebutt is that it’s a chain based in Prague (of course it is) that has now spread like a virus to another one of Europe’s most beautiful (and most overrun) cities. Many locals mentioned this specific development as a bridge too far in the commercialization of their hometown. Boycott Pirate Candy!

Am I being overly negative? You bet. But don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll look on the sunny side of Dubrovnik.

Connecting with the People of Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is just about the only place in my guidebook research work where I have to budget extra time simply to socialize. From B&B owners, to local tour guides, to the guy who runs the town’s best wine bar, everyone loves to catch up. Despite the city’s fame and glitz, deep in its soul, it’s still a tight-knit community… and I’m honored to be one of the gang.

But you don’t have to come here frequently to be a part of Dubrovnik. One thing that  distinguishes the “Rick Steves travel philosophy” is people-to-people connections. And I recommend plenty of wonderful people in the Dubrovnik chapter of my Rick Steves Croatia & Slovenia guidebook. They’d love to meet you — and I’m happy to introduce you.

For example, there’s Jadranka Benussi, who rents apartments at her home on the hillside just outside of Dubrovnik’s Old Town. Climbing a steep stepped lane from the congested main street, you emerge into a chirpy garden terrace with views over red rooftops, medieval forts, and the shimmering Adriatic. Anytime I’m in town, I have to block off an hour or so to come visit Jadranka and update her details for the guidebook — and, of course, to relax in her garden and enjoy her company.

Today Jadranka asked me how old Rick was. Turns out he’s the same age as her husband, Milan. “That explains it,” she said. She reminded me that when Rick (then age 50) first listed her place in our guidebook, he described Jadranka and Milan as “a young professional couple.” The next year, I (then age 30) came to update Jadranka’s listing, and when the new edition came out, she noticed that the description changed to “a middle-aged professional couple.” “I’m just hoping you don’t decide to send somebody in their 20s,” she joked. “I’m not ready to be ‘an old professional couple’ yet.”

Cameron-Croatia-Dubronvik-Sasha

Sasha, a gregarious Aussie with Croatian roots, runs DiVino Wine Bar, tucked a half-block off Dubrovnik’s main drag. Sasha has an infectious passion for Croatian wines. On this trip, I enjoyed catching up with him at one of his sidewalk tables. We dug into a huge platter of Dalmatian antipasti — little wedges of pungent, hard cheese; salami, prosciutto (called pršut here), and air-cured beef tenderloin; and marinated sun-dried tomatoes and olives. He showed me his latest creation: a small, sweet, and tangy red pepper, stuffed with anchovy paste and marinated. To avoid dripping oil everywhere, you eat it in one explosive gulp. Delicious. As we were chatting, the guy who provides some of his produce happened to walk by and admired his own handiwork.

Marc Van Bloemen, who runs one of Dubrovnik’s longest-standing little guest houses, is of Canadian and English descent. But he’s lived here most of his life, speaks fluent Croatian, and strikes me as more local than many locals. I see Marc as Dubrovnik’s conscience — he’s the guy you can count on to organize when something smells corrupt. I think he should run for mayor… but he’s probably already burned too many bridges for that.

Cameron Croatia Dubrovnik Connecting

Jon and Sanja are a Canadian-Croatian couple who opened Dubrovnik’s first and best independent hostel many years ago, about the time I first came here. Back then, their hostel’s little food counter was the only place in town  (and probably in all of Croatia) where you could get a decent burrito. I’ve enjoyed watching their evolution as ambitious young business owners in a country where ambition and vision aren’t always welcome. Their party hostel, with all of its noise complaints, was replaced first with a tamer hostel high on the hill, and now by a plush B&B in the heart of town — effectively catering to the same clientele who crashed here as backpackers, but now want a more refined experience. We had a great lunch of grilled fish, and I got to meet a new arrival, Alex, who’s also trying to find her niche in Dubrovnik. Her new business — making custom, high-quality picnics for beachgoers, hikers, and side-trippers — seems like it’ll be a hit.

When it’s time to leave town, I ask Pepo, a private driver, if he’ll take me to my next destination. I met Pepo purely by chance many years ago, liked him, and recommended him in our book. Since then, he’s taken hundreds of Rick Steves readers on day-trips.

Trying to reconcile the many different viewpoints that have sat in his passenger seat, Pepo quizzes me about the presidential race. (“So what’s your take on that Bernie Sanders?”) Turns out Pepo listens to NPR at breakfast and reads the New York Times. He may be better informed about American politics than some of his American clients. And yet, he explains that he enjoys just listening to the opinions of his clients, without sharing his own, or passing judgement. “You’re very wise,” I say. “I’m not wise!” he shoots back. “I’ve just talked to a million people.” (But isn’t that the same thing?)

Pepo took up arms to defend his hometown during the siege of Dubrovnik in the 1990s. Years ago, he drove me to the abandoned, half-destroyed fortress high on the hill above town. He showed me the Saturday Night Fever-style, light-up disco floor from the time when this was a popular nightspot. And then, as a grotesque contrast, he took me to the rooftop and told me about his experience during the war: trying to hold onto this fortress with just a few other local boys — knowing that the whole town was counting on them to weather the shells and bullets and preserve Dubrovnik’s freedom.

On this trip, when I update his details for the book, Pepo suggests that maybe it’s time to retire his description as “a veteran of the recent war.” He says that people just aren’t that focused on the war anymore, and — while he’s still happy to share his experiences with curious travelers — he wouldn’t mind moving on, too. (I see this as a very positive change.)

I ask Pepo why it is that, in Dubrovnik more than anywhere else in Croatia — and maybe in all of Europe — I find it so easy to build connections with people. He thinks it’s a product of their unique history. Like Venice, Dubrovnik was an independent city-state. Unlike Venice, it was almost completely surrounded by potentially hostile Ottomans. The community of Dubrovnik became adept at welcoming outsiders and building positive relationships. With this approach, trade increased and tributes decreased. Then, as their town was blown to bits during the war in the 1990s, people though they’d never have visitors here again. So, as throughout their history, they’ve worked hard to be good ambassadors for their city. And it has paid off.

“It’s too bad that so many people come to Dubrovnik in a hurry,” I say. “Cruise passengers in town for just a few hours will probably never see that intimate, community side of Dubrovnik that I get to enjoy so much.”

“Not necessarily,” Pepo says. “People in Dubrovnik want to connect. But they have to see that you want it, too. If you’re rushing through town, they’ll get out of your way. But if they notice you relaxing, lingering, and enjoying, they’ll want to join you. It is possible.”

Based on my experience, Pepo is right on. So this is our challenge to you: If you’re going to Dubrovnik, even for just a few hours, make a point to slow down. Linger. Nurse a coffee. Sit on the church steps. Be open to the people. And you might just make a new friend.

Cameron-Croatia-Dubrovnik-Church Steps