25 Reasons You Should NEVER Visit Croatia

It was one of the quickest articles I have ever written.

Less than 25 minutes from start to finish. 

And – full disclosure – beer was involved. 

A client had asked me to write an article called 25 Reasons NEVER to Visit Croatia, a provocative title, with the clickbaity twist giving 25 reasons why Croatia was in fact an amazing place to visit.

After an afternoon on the Weissbier in Munich, I pulled out a cold one from the fridge and got to work, writing down the first 25 reasons that came into my head. 

The client was pleased and – it seemed – so were his readers, as he reported a million clicks in the first 24 hours.  It was EVERYWHERE!

I went back into the studio recently to record more videos for my new YouTube channel, Paul Bradbury Croatia Expert, and I thought it would be fun to make a video version of the original article. 

So here it is, the latest from the Fat Vlogger. Are you coming to Croatia this summer?

Video credits to 45 Degrees Sailing https://www.youtube.com/@45DegreesSailing and Mario Romulic.

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Want to learn more about the realities of living in this flawed but majestic country? Our new book, Croatia, a Survival Guide for Foreigners is now available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Croatia-Survival-Kit-Foreigners-2023/dp/9535033808

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Video produced by Igor Vuk of Wolf Media.

For your daily dose of Croatia, check out https://www.total-croatia-news.com

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Have you ever written an article in 20 minutes that got one million views within 24 hours nor had I until one rather drunken evening in Munich about seven or eight years ago when I had a commitment to a client to write a an article called 25 reasons never to visit

Croatia the concept of the article was to do something provocative with the title and to come up with reasons never to visit which actually were positive things and I just literally had grabbed a beer from the fridge after coming back from the pub and I just put down the

First 25 things came to my head and the next day he published it on his portal and then the whole internet was set a set of blaze it was in every single news portal it got International it was everybody was sharing it every tourist board was sharing it with the exception

Of our friends the Croatian National Tourist Board when people shared it on their Facebook page they actually deleted it one million hits in just over 24 hours so um let me eight years later quickly run through what those 25 reasons were so the idea was to be a bit provocative I a

Lot of people commented saying what kind of idiot are you saying never come to Croatia so here are my 25 reasons you should never visit Croatia number one the buildings are falling down because you have things like the Pula Arena you have so much Rich Roman Heritage and

UNESCO Heritage here that it’s really worth exploring number two the planes have no wheels back then we had seaplanes uh the the Heather avioni which was a service for European Coastal Airlines that came into Croatia in 2014 and it was actually the first seaplane service in modern European aviation

History and while it worked it was absolutely fantastic uh number three their buses look really funny this is a country of a thousand one hundred islands and the best way of traveling in the season is by ferry and just the number of Ferry connections you can have are absolutely fantastic number

Four the taxis look really funny because here you have incredible speedboat connections and this is an absolutely fantastic way to start your holiday with a speed boat transfer from the airport to your favorite island number five the food looks funny have you ever been to edible Dormouse Festival some of the

Seafood here is really really really really interesting but it’s all fantastically tasty and it’s fantastically fresh and there are stuff here that is unbelievable that you will never taste back home number six the wine is unpronounceable how the hell do you pronounce grko and some of the grape varieties are

Totally unpronounceable but forget the labels have a glass have another glass then look at the labels again and they’ll become a lot more pronounceable the wines are a fantastic 130 indigenous grape varieties including the original Zinfandel which comes from just outside cash teller by split airport they dress

Really funny this is a incredible country of diversity of culture and tradition pretty much every single Village in this country has their own traditional dress their own traditional holiday all the young people still today are part of that tradition the best time to experience this is in September in

Vincotti there’s a thing called Binky yeseni and all the Villages of slavonia come together in their traditional dress different generations with their music with iraqia it’s an incredible celebration of tradition that doesn’t really exist for example in the UK number eight their music has no instruments you won’t be long in

Dalmatia before you’re sitting in the evening in a restaurant and somebody starts singing The Clapper music of Southern Dalmatia is UNESCO protected and it is a fantastically wonderful romantic sort of addition to your Dalmatian holiday they talk a lot about olives a lot and if you live on a

Dalmatian Island for 13 years as I do I’ve had a lot of conversations about olives but the reason is that olive oil is absolutely fantastic it’s some of the best olive oil in the world before I move to Croatia I probably only had about half a liter of olive oil in my

Life and now if I get through a week without with less than half a liter it’s been a bad week it’s an incredibly important part of this very very beautiful lifestyle and diet number 10. all their towns are made of stone because go along it’s just stone stone

Stone stone nothing has changed for centuries beautiful number 11. they eat octopus octopus for me coming from Manchester was like the food of the devil and as soon as I came to Croatia all I could see on the menu was this thing called an octopus salad

And one day my friend my creation friend just just try it and it was octopus with capers with onions with lettuce I tried it and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tried and it’s the one thing I try and encourage other people

Coming to visit for the first time to try because it’s one of the best starters in the world ever they have the weirdest food festivals it’s a truism about Croatia that if it grows somebody will have a festival to celebrate it so during my time here I’ve been to the

Poiada the edible Dormouse Festival yes they really do eat dorm ice I’ve been to the father bean festival in castella where I’ve had things like fava bean ice cream I’ve been to the Lavender Festival where again I’ve had lavender ice cream as well and up and down the country if

It’s chestnuts if it’s potatoes if it’s peaches there is a festival that will be celebrated they’re usually extremely good fun the last one I went to was the Bickley which was red wine and goat milk Festival in verguratz try it coffee takes an hour it’s impossible to sit with a crowd if

You’re in a hurry and have a coffee because for them having the coffee is the most important part of the day it’s somewhere where they just sit relax talk complain and then play with their coffee for about an hour or so no chance to have a really quick coffee here they

Don’t understand the need to be on time if you live in Dalmatia time is absolutely relative and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been to meetings on time at 10 o’clock after 10 years of living here I then realized that a 10 o’clock meeting is somewhere between 10

15 and 10 20 maybe even 10 30. all you have to do is embrace the vibe and life will be fine there is almost no sand on the beaches imagine coming to a country where there’s no sandy beaches this is something that we’re just not used to

But once you come here and you see the clarity of the water and you get into the culture of pebbly beaches and and rock beaches it’s a revelation but it takes time to adjust but it’s worth it summer is too hot because you have to go

To the beach all day winter is too cold because you have these incredible Vistas you go to someone like plit bits or lakes in Winter it is magical it’s a place that has four distinct seasons of the year and if you go in winter when you have all the waterfalls or icicles

It’s just absolutely sensational so much culture they have a UNESCO world heritage site list that could fill a football team this country a tiny country of four million people has no less than 11 UNESCO world heritage sites number 19 their fish have to swim three times imagine how hard that is for being

A fish so first of all as fish will swim in water and then as it’s put on the grill it will swim in olive oil and lastly wash down with a wonderful glass of wine so a Dalmatian fish will swim three times in the ocean in the olive oil and in the

Wine there is nothing better than a grilled fish straight from the Adriatic fantastic number 20 the Spanish word Manana comes from the Croatian word pomalo there is nothing that happens in a hurry here and if you’re one of those people that wants to get things done in

A hurry you can either learn to adapt or go home the locals think they’re the best at everything they think they have the best beaches in the world actually they do they think they have the best sea in the world actually swimming around the Adriatic it’s not bad they think they have the

Best lifestyle in the world and when I’ve lived here for a few years and I just see how contented people are just sitting around just chilling all day I can’t can’t quite deny that that is actually probably the case and the last thing really is uh after a week of

Coming to Croatia on holiday you really don’t want to go home what kind of place is that to visit