If Korcula was the sleepy little sister island, Hvar is the glitzy high-rolling big sister, where the yachting crowd comes to see and be seen. On Hvar, you might go for a morning stroll and be so mesmerized by the scenery, that you’re still in the same spot at sunset! The Hula Hula Bar offers comfy lounge chairs for a pittance, with a view to die for. I stopped for a breakfast orange juice, stayed for a salad for lunch, and found myself...

One of the advantages of long-term travel is that less than perfect weather doesn’t throw you into a frenzy of frustration – you have several days to hang around (6 in my case on the island of Korcula) so good weather is likely to find you at some point. You can relax and enjoy the moment, raindrops and all, and the bottle-green sea-glass color of the ocean makes a lovely contrast with the gray of the sky. If all of your photos were...

With over 1000 islands off the coast of Croatia, I thought I’d give you a little series of posts on a few of my favorites. Since they all have such different personalities, this may help you choose where to spend your time, should you put Croatia on your bucket list. Let’s start with Mljet (pronounced Meeyet – in Croatia, J’s are pronounced like Y’s), which means “honey” and is the greenest island on...

Paradise can be had for a song in Thailand, just head south… After 10 days at a bare-bones silent meditation retreat, I needed to recover, meaning a beach, a cold beer and a hammock! Sabine, a woman from Germany that I met at the retreat, had reserved a little island bungalow on Koh Phangan for $16 a night and invited me to share for a few nights. $8 a night for paradise, how could I turn that down?! Having heard about the wild full and...