Thank you to Conde Nast Traveler and your readers for helping us select the perfect trip planner for a recent trip to Croatia in July 2012. From reading previous reviews on Conde Nast Traveler, we contacted Wanda Radetti at Tasteful Croatian Journeys to enquire about a custom journey to Croatia. We are 3 well-traveled women in our 50’s/60’s who are always interested in the unique and different. We also prefer to work with native travel planners for whatever region of the world we’re heading to. From the reviews in Conde Nast Traveler, Tasteful Croatian Journeys sounded perfect. And it was. Wanda instantly understood the exact type of trip/traveling we prefer. With just a couple of phone calls and a few emails, she had designed a trip that sounded perfect and covered much more than we expected. We traveled for 19 days throughout Croatia and into Slovenia and Northern Italy. Every hotel perfectly matched the style I told Wanda we preferred, our guides and drivers were all professional, friendly and (best of all) fun. We didn’t feel we were listening to a history lecture on tours, we felt like we were seeing a new place with new local friends. Tasteful Croatian Journeys designed a good mix of short 2 hour guided city walks with longer day trips throughout our journey. On Wanda’s recommendation we had a charter sailboat for 6 days of our journey and it was absolutely fabulous! (and something we hadn’t even considered before talking to her). We started our journey in Split where we met up with our boat, then sailed down the Dalmation coast to Dubrovnik, where we very reluctantly debarked. The boat was luxuriously comfortable for 3 guests and the Captain (Sebastian) and First Mate (Gaspar) were a delight. The motto of our trip from them was “As You Wish My Ladies” – they made sure our every wish was delivered… from isolated swimming coves, to wonderful small restaurants and even a spa stop. We hated to leave the boat, but the rest of our trip was just as good. Every stop was beautiful, clean and charming in its own fashion – just as Wanda had promised. We visited Dubrovnik, Montenegro, Zagreb and Lovran in Croatia; Lake Bled in Slovenia and Trieste in Italy. We can’t pick a favorite part, because we loved every stop. The trip designed for us was a perfect “taste” of several different areas. Just enough to entice us to want to return and see more. We’re all very experienced travelers and we know the work, coordination and effort that goes into making a trip like this appear “seamless.” We appreciated that our days were effortless only because there was a lot of effort behind the scenes by the team at Tasteful Croatian Journeys. From the perfect selection of hotels, restaurant recommendations, tours, guides, drivers and even Wanda’s own concerned local Croatian Concierge checking on us just to make sure we were fine during the trip – Wanda Radetti and her team at Tasteful Croatian Journeys could not get higher marks from us. The trip was a dream from start to finish. We’re looking forward to future travel with Tasteful Croatian Journeys!

Pamela Solvang – TX
August 6, 2012 – Condé Nast Traveler