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Happy Healthy Families

Our managing director and his family jetted off to Croatia for a week-long adventure and felt healthier than ever. Read on to find out why.

'Paddling back from the mainland to the island of Lopud across a calm, turquoise sea bathed in late afternoon sunshine, I don’t think I’d ever felt healthier. We’d rounded off our spectacular ‘seafood symphony’ lunch with a couple of lazy hours taking turns with all the kids to leap off the quayside and then climb back up for more leaping or lazing in a perfect 30 degrees of summer sunshine. A few of the parents and children had wandered to some nearby gardens. A few were snorkelling nearby. Everyone looked tanned, happy and healthy. It would have been quite an extraordinary feat of effort to find anything to whinge about…

After leaping and lazing, we reunited with our kayaks and got back into the semi-routine and rhythm of what we had now become accustomed to. A good meal (breakfasts, lunches and dinners were all guilt-free, exercise-earned banquets) would nearly always be followed by some informal briefing and planning; safety gear was donned, sun-screen rubbed in and sun hats crammed on heads. Then a bit of ‘who’s paddling with who’ and off we go, back onto the blue, clear waters of the Adriatic for another foray to an island or a headland on the Dalmatian Coast and a walk, a bike ride or a paddle-board. There was an endless supply of stashed equipment that was carefully planned and planted to be there waiting for us near a suitable lagoon, a bay or a tiny fishing village and yet another great restaurant waiting for us.

Most of us adventure-seekers-turned-parents who had come to Croatia with Dubrovnik in our minds and perhaps a hope that with the mix of activities there’d be something for everyone in the family to enjoy and look forward to. Old Dubrovnik, the islands and the activities all came up trumps, but the thing we took away wasn’t a trophy or a list of ticked boxes. It was a feeling of vitality and bountiful healthiness – kayak, swim, eat, drink, bike, walk, paddle, snooze, bathe, paddle, breathe…

So, paddling back towards our island base, I put a spurt of power on and found myself in a bit of a race with a shy 14-year-old who’d come out of his shell and blossomed over the week, a five-year-old who always egged his Dad on to do most of the work, and a son and daughter who looked happier and healthier than I’d seen for a long time.

My advice. Go to Croatia, get active and go soon before it gets over-run. It’s a tonic for the soul and for families wanting more than just a beach holiday.'

Inspired? Let us take you there…

Venture to Croatia next May Half Term or Summer holidays on our Active Dalmatia trip.

Please phone us on 01962 302062 for more information.