Julie Stafford first visited Dubrovnik in 2006. She needed a safe destination to heal from overwhelming grief, having just lost her husband, to mesothelioma (asbestos cancer). He was the love of her life for more than thirty years. Suddenly Julie found herself alone and needing to rebuild her life.

 

Dubrovnik planted a seed  some 16 years prior when the nightly television news played live footage of the ‘Siege of Dubrovnik’ in Australian homes. Bombs were being dropped on one of the greatest examples of European history. Lives and livelihoods were decimated in minutes of foul strikes. The anguished faces of women and children haunted Julie well after she turned her television off. Dubrovnik’s isolation in fighting its enemy, undertaken by civilians (those who mostly lived and worked within the Old City Walls)  affected Julie deeply, even though she had no ties to this country or to its people so very far away from where she lived in Australia.

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It would be a sequence of unlikely coincidences that turned up the volume of Dubrovnik’s voice in Julie's heart, in 2006. Since her first visit, Julie has returned every summer. She has stayed inside and outside the Old City. She's travelled inland and along the coast roads (north and south) as well as sailed from the south to the north, above Split. Such was Dubrovnik's impact on Julie, she has travelled back every summer since that first summer.

 

Julie says, "My lessons in this beautiful city have been many. Dubrovnik is a perfect destination for the solo woman traveller. It’s not just the most perfect place to hang out if you love summer and all the expected things that come with a Mediterranean summer. It’s the unexpected things that always happen in Dubrovnik that have me coming back each year. Plus its a perfect landing  place to launch yourself further into the depths of Croatia, both inland and to the many hundreds of islands - each with their own unique history and the raw, stunning landscapes and stories of a grand history. The people of Dubrovnik healed their wounds from a difficult period in history, and they’ve taught me how to heal from grief tand move on too. 

 

Dubrovnik taught me that you don't travel to destinations by chance, destinations call you when you’re ready to know their lessons. Sometimes, those destinations plant seeds, deep inside you, so that when the time comes for you to travel there you’ll know without question or reservation to pack a suitcase and buy a ticket, even though you know no one there; you don’t speak the language; you’re not even sure if the country is still at war or even if it’s a safe place for a woman to be travelling solo."