Sintra sits 25 km northwest of Lisbon and the things to do in Sintra stretch far beyond the postcard image of one colorful palace. Most visitors arrive at 10 AM, queue for Pena Palace and leave by 3 PM having covered less than a third of what this UNESCO World Heritage town actually holds. The … Read more

Most travelers book a hotel in Lisbon and spend the next three days realizing they picked the wrong neighborhood. The city looks compact on a map and it is but staying in Alfama feels nothing like staying in Chiado and neither feels like Príncipe Real. Lisbon is built on seven hills and which hill you … Read more

Most people who plan the trip from Lisbon to Cascais think they are going to spend a day on a beach. They come back having walked clifftops above crashing Atlantic waves, eaten grilled dourada in a family restaurant where the menu is handwritten in Portuguese and discovered a town that once housed Portuguese royalty every … Read more

Lisbon is one of the best-positioned capital cities in Europe for leaving it behind. Within 90 minutes in any direction you reach a UNESCO World Heritage palace town, a Roman-walled medieval city, Atlantic surf beaches and a peninsula with dolphins visible from shore. Most visitors spend their entire trip inside the city and miss the … Read more

The waterfall you came to see is real but so is the crowd of 4,000 people who show up after 10 AM to see it with you. Skradinski Buk drops 45.7 meters through 17 travertine steps into pools so green they look filtered and the boardwalk puts you close enough to feel the spray on … Read more

Most people treat the Split to Plitvice Lakes trip as a checkbox to get there, take photos and come back. That mindset costs you the best parts of the park. Plitvice Lakes National Park sits 240 km north of Split in the Dinaric karst highlands at 367 meters elevation. It holds 16 interconnected lakes, 90 … Read more

Hvar sits 50 kilometers southwest of Split across open Adriatic water but the distance is not what trips people up the route options. Type “Split to Hvar” into any search engine and you will find conflicting information: one hour, two hours, car ferry, catamaran, Stari Grad, Hvar Town. Most travelers arrive at Split harbor already … Read more

Most tourists who arrive in Zadar spend two days exploring the Old Town, snap a photo at the Sea Organ, then board a bus to Dubrovnik without ever stepping foot in Croatia’s most extraordinary national park. The Plitvice Lakes sit just 155 kilometers from Zadar close enough for a long day trip but rewarding enough … Read more

Zadar does not try to impress you the way Dubrovnik does. There are no cable cars, no Instagram queues, no entrance fee to walk the main street. What you get instead is a Roman forum that still has its original columns standing, a coastline that literally produces music from the wind and an Old Town … Read more