Croatia travel writer, expert and entrepreneur, Jeanne Oliver - Episode 7

Michelle Maurer:

Welcome to the kimkim podcast. My name is Michelle, and I am a kimkim travel expert specializing in trips in Croatia, Hawaii, and Japan. On today's podcast, we're chatting with Jeanne Oliver, who has been writing about Croatia since about 1996. She wrote the first guidebook in English to Croatia for Lonely Planet in 1999, and the following editions after that. She's now based in France, where she runs her site Croatia Traveler, which started in 2005, where she gives itineraries, sights to see, ferry schedules, accommodation recommendations, basically everything you need to know about Croatia.

Jeanne, it's nice to have you on the podcast today. Thank you again for joining us here.

Jeanne Oliver:

It's great to be here.

Michelle Maurer:

I found your website, Croatia Traveler, while researching things to do in Croatia. Your site contains a lot of great information on the country. Can you give us a little background about yourself and how you came to write about Croatia.

Jeanne Oliver:

Well, there was really ... As so many things are, it was a product of luck and happenstance and being in the right place at the right time. It was the first country that I visited for Lonely Planet. I wanted to be a guidebook writer. It was kind of my dream, because I had always loved traveling so much. It just seemed like a dream job, so I applied to Lonely Planet and through the usual process, I got accepted. They asked me what I would like to write about, so I said, "Well, I like beaches and islands." At the time, I was living in Paris. Beaches and islands sounded really good in the cold Parisian winter. I said, "I like beaches and islands and Mediterranean." I said, "Maybe Greece, someplace like that."

They said, "Well, we already have people covering Greece, but maybe you'd like to cover Croatia. It has the Dalmatian coast." I literally had to go and look it up on the map. I had heard of Croatia, of course, 1990s it was very much in the news, because of the war, but somehow amid all of the horror stories, I had missed the fact that there was this long and beautiful coastline with islands. Once I did find it on the map, I said, "Sure, I'll go." That was how it started. I think really, because it was right after the war, which ended in 1995, I think there were not a lot of travel writers really clamoring to go and cover Croatia, but I said "Sure, I'm game," and that's how it started.

Once I was there, in 1996, when I arrived, the country was still digging out from the war. It was still very ... It was peaceful, there was no danger whatsoever, but it was very much not the tourist destination that it is now. People did not really have tourism on their mind. They had recovery on their mind. There were still refugees in a lot of the hotels along the coast. Even if they wanted to have a tourist business, there kind of wasn't a place to put tourists. People were still traumatized, really, by what they had gone through. That was not when I ... That was in 1996, and it wasn't for a book, it was the chapter for Lonely Planet's Eastern Europe book. It was just a chapter on Croatia. I covered a lot of the hot spots of the country, Zagreb, Istria, down the Dalmatian coast, Zadar, Split, Dubrovnik. I got a little overview of the country then.

Even with all of the problems, there was really no doubt in my mind that it was going to really develop as a tourist destination. I wrote the chapter, and as soon as that was over, I started pressing Lonely Planet to write a book on it. I said, you know, "It's going to be big, and we should write a book, and I should do it." That was how that started.

Michelle Maurer:

Great. I love that background. How have you seen tourism industry in Croatia changing? I know you mentioned a little bit about it, and now it's become such a hot spot to travel to, especially for families and young travelers. Has the type of traveler changed?

Jeanne Oliver:

Well, yes, I think so. The tourist board in Croatia has always been very proactive, very professional, and very determined to build that as a business, as a cornerstone for their new country. They knew that economically, it was going to be very important, so they were very helpful in putting the book together, helped me out a great deal with that, and continued to really focus on the destinations and upgrade the quality of their work.

When I first started covering Croatia, I was there in 1996, one of the things that really annoyed me was their brochures, which I found really sexist. Every single brochure seemed to have a woman in a bikini in the brochure. I thought, you know, this is 1990s, we have to progress past this. Sure enough, they really did, and became very, very professional in their approach and in their promotion of the country.

It's changed in the sense that, obviously, there's a great deal more tourists now, but they still have, in many places, a problem of a very short season. This is something that over the years, that I was writing for Lonely Planet and going back there, the tourist board would, local tourist boards and the national ones, would talk about that. They wanted to have more than just July and August. They really, really wanted to extend the season. It's tough to do, actually. Not too many places have managed to have all year round tourism. It is really, still, very much a sun and sea destination. It's not the Caribbean, so winters are not really that great. You can't really hang out on the beach, most of the time, in the winters there. It's a problem that they're continuing to work on.

I think Croatia off-season, actually, is pretty terrific. I think any time from April to November, it's really a pleasant time to visit Croatia. Actually, even in the winter, too, there's a lot to do. There's the big city, Zagreb, which I love, which is always something to do and see. Split. These cities really do have a lot going on, even in the winter.

I think that in terms of the kind of travelers who are attracted to Croatia, obviously one big difference is cruise ship passengers, which have really, they've really descended upon Dubrovnik. It's a major stop now on Mediterranean cruises. That's changed. There's some cruise ship passengers in other places, as well, Split, I believe, and maybe a couple back in [Kortula 00:09:10], there's some cruise ships, but it's mainly Dubrovnik. That's one change in the type of traveler that goes to Croatia.

I think that it's also become very trendy, particularly the island of Hvar, which is such a beautiful island. That's really branded itself as the new San Tropez because of its great nightlife. There's a lot of very chic nightclubs there, and they have a harbor that yachts, yacht people really like to go to. I think every island has kind of a different ambiance. For Hvar, theirs is chic, nightlife. I think Kortula is more traditional culture. Then you have the northern islands, like Cres, which is kind of wild and untamed island. I think each island has its own flavor. Each one has its own, I think, particular acolytes, people that just love it.

Michelle Maurer:

What would you say is your favorite island?

Jeanne Oliver:

You know, people ask me that so often, and it's just really hard to know what to say. It depends, really, on what I'm after and the time of year. I think, certainly, for nightlife, Hvar is really very beautiful. I like the northern Adriatic islands, also. I think Cres is really interesting because it really hasn't been developed that much, and there's some interesting wildlife there. [Mali Losinj 00:11:05], as well. This is a very beautiful island, a little far from Split, but that also has some wild and untamed places. Maybe for just sheer beauty, I would probably have to say [Mljet 00:11:23] and the national park. It's hard to beat Mljet, because it is a national park and it's undeveloped and so forested, and has inland lakes. I would never say no to Mljet. That's for sure.

Michelle Maurer:

I would love to go someday. How did you start Croatia Traveler? Living in France, how do you keep relevant with the things changing?

Jeanne Oliver:

I started Croatia Traveler because I was really excited about the possibilities of moving online. It became clear that people were using the internet to research and plan their trips, and I really wanted to be a part of that. I think it gives you the flexibility to offer a lot more information than you can in a guidebook, when you always have to be kind of worried about page counts. When you're online, you know, you can kind of go to town on whatever subject interests you. It doesn't have to fit within the confines or the financial constraints of publishing a paperback book. Also, moving online allows you to keep the information really updated and really fresh. It's a big disadvantage of guidebooks, actually, not Lonely Planet or any guidebook, really, can afford to completely upgrade, update an edition every year. That's really not feasible, but online, I can do that. As soon as there's a new ferry route, or as soon as there's a new flight or major hotel upgrade, I can put that online right away so people can really get the freshest possible information. That's very attractive.

Creatively, it's also quite appealing, too, to be in charge of your own project. The design, the pictures, the writing, the information, the technology. It's quite exciting to have complete control over the project. Those are the things that really did kind of prompt me to move online.

I keep it updated because I do visit Croatia every year. I am keeping up on everything that's going on. I have a whole variety of sources that I go through every day to make sure that I get the latest possible information, really keep abreast of what's going on so I can publish the information on my website, my blog, my newsletter, that people are really getting the very latest information on Croatia. I do go back there every year to freshen it up, because nothing can replace just being on the ground, being on site and seeing what's going on, getting your own fresh impressions.

Michelle Maurer:

Yeah, you've been able to run a site for this long and keep it relevant, and people go to it for all of their information, which is not easy work. What are some of the challenges of running your site?

Jeanne Oliver:

One of the other things that I do is not just travel to Croatia, because I know Croatia now, so I know how to get around, I know what the story is. I like to visit countries that I don't know, to encounter them the first time and to see the kind of information that a visitor needs when they are encountering a truly foreign country. It seems paradoxical, but sometimes traveling outside of Croatia to a whole other country gives me a lot of ideas for how I can keep my site most relevant and most helpful to visitors. It keeps it fresh. When I go to Croatia, I see it very differently, because I've been there a couple of dozen times now. I see it very differently from somebody to whom everything is new. To keep it fresh, I try to at least encounter other countries the first time. You'd be surprised. It really, it does kind of carry over. That is one challenge. I think it's a challenge a lot of guidebook writers have, too. I noticed in writing books, as well, you can get to know a destination so well that it's hard to see it through fresh eyes. That's one challenge.

The challenge for Croatia, too, now, is that there's so much out there. It is a country that is offering so much to visitors that keeping on top of the information is a challenge, and presenting it.

Also, people's expectations of what a website can and should do are always changing. That's a challenge. People are using mobile devices now much more to access information on smartphones and tablets. The site has to be attractive and usable on the whole wide variety of devices. That's been a big change in the last couple of years. The movement to mobile has been massive. People interact with the site in a completely different way, and that has to be dealt with. Their expectations are different, and their navigation patterns are different. It's forced me to adopt a design for mobile users.

Michelle Maurer:

Interesting. Okay. A last few questions. If you were to recommend a one-week trip to Croatia for first-time travelers in order to get a good sense of the country, where would you recommend going?

Jeanne Oliver:

It depends very much, of course, on where people are flying into and out of, and that kind of thing. I would say the favorite trip that I did in Croatia was a gulet cruise, a small boat cruise, small motor boat cruise that really took in a lot of islands. The particular cruise that I did handled northern Dalmatia down to the Kornati Islands, the national park. It was a one week cruise, and for me, it really was a revelation because I was able to see islands that are inaccessible unless you have your own boat. The whole beauty of the Croatian archipelago really unfolded before me. Personally, I think that that's really a very lovely way to see Croatia, is to take a cruise that starts in ... If you do a cruise from Split to Dubrovnik that stops in various places. Again, I'm talking about small boat cruises, where there's like maybe fifteen to twenty people on the boat. I find that really, really pleasant. Some places, such as the Kornati Islands National Park, are really inaccessible unless you do have your own boat. I think that that's a great way to see it.

For a land trip, I think that somehow being able to tie in Istria and southern Dalmatia, you get to really see the best that Croatia has to offer. If you can fly in to Pula, in Istria, and fly out of Dubrovnik, I think that then you can spend a couple of days seeing Istria, maybe based in Rovinj and visiting the interior of Istria. Then, you can take a flight during the summer from Pula to Split, spend a few days in Split, taking day trips to the islands of Brac and Hvar, now accessible in the summer by day trip from Split. Then finally ending up in Dubrovnik to see the pearl of the Adriatic and also use it as a base to see some of the beautiful islands around Dubrovnik. You can take a day trip now from Dubrovnik to Kortula. I think with a bit of planning, it's now possible during the summer, because there's so many more flights and so many more fast boats going places, that you can really see the entire country.

Michelle Maurer:

I agree, it's definitely ... It's big enough, but small enough to be able to see all of Croatia, and to see the islands with a mix of adventure and hiking, inland, and that's a really unique country in that way.

Jeanne Oliver:

Yes, it is a unique country. It really has a tremendous amount to offer for foodies and wine lovers. The food and wine is fantastic. For adventure lovers, for hikers and cyclers, there is a great number of itineraries that you to some of the beautiful outdoors places in Croatia. As well as culture and history buffs, I think Zagreb is a really interesting town, a lot going on, especially on the arts scene. Then you have the Roman ruins in Pula and Split. There's really a tremendous amount to take in in Croatia. With my site, I try to add to and expand upon all of the possibilities, to encourage people to really take advantage of all that Croatia has to offer.

For people that want to go into depth and have something to take with them while they're on the ground, I also have published several Kindle e-books, Dalmatia, Split to Dubrovnik, which covers in great depth the whole area between Split and Dubrovnik with the beautiful islands, Bracj and Vis, Kortula and Hvar. It's nice to have with you, because you have walking tours and historical, cultural information right there. The content is drawn from my website, but repurposed for an e-book, and it's meant to be something that you would have while you're on your trip, to enhance your appreciation of it. I also have an e-book on Zagreb as well, because I'm always trying to encourage people to spend more time in Zagreb. I think it's such a fascinating city, and there's so many great day trips to do from Zagreb as well, in the interior, up in the north, which is not that visited. Hrvatska, Zagorje, is beautiful rolling hills. The Baroque city of Varazdin, also interesting to visit. Plitvice Lakes also makes a lovely day trip from Zagreb. There's castles. I try to encourage people to hang around Zagreb a little before running down to the beautiful coastline.

Michelle Maurer:

I agree. All right. One last question. Since this is a travel podcast, and to throw it on you, you've traveled so much around the world ... What is your most memorable travel experience that you've had?

Jeanne Oliver:

Anywhere?

Michelle Maurer:

Anywhere in the world.

Jeanne Oliver:

Okay. I think probably my most memorable travel experience would have been in the early 80s. I went up the Amazon in a small boat, very small, a motor boat with about eight other people. We started in Leticia on the corner of Peru and Colombia, and went up a tributary through the Amazon, not on the river itself, because that's really quite massive and wide, but the tributary to visit tribes that are ... I wouldn't say unvisited, but very rarely visited. That was ... Slept in hammocks by the river. That was really, really exciting, actually. That was a really exciting and unusual trip.

Michelle Maurer:

Wow. Amazing. Thank you, Jeanne, again, for joining us.

Jeanne Oliver:

You're very welcome. It was my pleasure.

Michelle Maurer:

It was great to hear all about your experience in Croatia.

Just a reminder to everyone to check out kimkim.com when you plan your next trip. We are recording a podcast once a week covering everything on travel, interviewing people in the travel industry. Thanks again, Jeanne, and talk to you soon.

Jeanne Oliver:

Thank you, Michelle. It was my pleasure.