A Weekend in Zagreb Made Me Wonder What Happened to the Spirit of Dubrovnik

I recently spent a weekend in Zagreb, and one evening I found myself standing on the main square, watching something that probably wouldn’t seem particularly unusual to someone who lives there, but for some reason it stayed with me long after I left.

There were hundreds of young people gathered together, singing Croatian hits at the top of their lungs, laughing, enjoying themselves and seemingly not giving too much thought to the fact that it was cold outside. Nobody appeared to be waiting for perfect conditions or asking whether it was warm enough to stand around for another hour. They were simply there, sharing the moment, and from the outside it looked like they were having a genuinely good time.

I stood there for a while, watching them, and at some point I started thinking about Dubrovnik.

Not because Zagreb is better than Dubrovnik, or because people there know how to have fun and we don’t. That would be an unfair conclusion to draw from one evening. But seeing that many young people gathering outdoors in the middle of a cold night made me wonder when we became so good at finding reasons not to do things.

And I don’t mean only going out at night. I mean something much broader, something that I have been thinking about for a while because of the work I do and the people I meet every season.

Has Dubrovnik’s popularity, and the fact that so much of our lives revolves around the tourist season, slowly changed the way we live in our own city?

I don’t have a simple answer, and I certainly don’t think everything was better in the past. Every generation has its own problems, and I know very well that living in Dubrovnik today is not the same as it was twenty or thirty years ago. But after twelve years of working with travellers and spending most of my working life outdoors, I sometimes feel that we have become a little too comfortable postponing the things that should make life enjoyable.

We are always waiting for something.

We are waiting for summer to arrive, but when it does, it is too hot and there are too many people everywhere. Then summer becomes exhausting because of the crowds, the traffic, the work and the constant feeling that the whole city is operating at maximum capacity. When the season finally ends, we tell ourselves that we need some rest, which is understandable, but before we know it, weeks and months have passed and we haven’t really done much with the time we supposedly have for ourselves.

When winter comes, it is too cold. When the wind blows, it is too windy. When the sun comes out, it is a beautiful day, but somehow there is still always something else to do.

And so we wait for a better moment.

The strange thing is that Dubrovnik gives us so many opportunities to spend time outdoors that I sometimes wonder whether we have become blind to them simply because they have always been here.

We live between the Adriatic Sea, the hills surrounding the city, the islands scattered along the coast and countless paths that lead to places with views that people travel thousands of kilometres to experience. We have the conditions for hiking, cycling, swimming, kayaking and paddleboarding practically on our doorstep, and yet many of us spend surprisingly little of our free time enjoying them.

Of course, I am not saying that everyone should be outdoors every day or that sitting at home is somehow a failure. People work hard, families have responsibilities, and after a demanding summer season, some of us genuinely need time to do absolutely nothing. I understand that better than most because outdoor tourism is my job, and even when you love what you do, turning your passion into work can make you appreciate a quiet day off more than you would expect.

Still, I think there is a difference between choosing to rest because you need it and slowly getting used to avoiding almost anything that requires a little effort.

And maybe that difference is worth thinking about.

When your own city becomes your workplace

One thing I have noticed over the years is how differently people experience Dubrovnik depending on whether they live here or are visiting for a few days.

For a tourist, a simple walk along the coast can become one of the highlights of the holiday. They might wake up early, rent a bike, book a hiking tour or spend a few hours kayaking around the coastline because they want to make the most of their time here. They have come specifically to experience the place, and they are often willing to try things they wouldn’t normally do at home.

For a local, the same surroundings can become part of the everyday background. We pass the sea on the way to work, see the hills from our windows and drive past roads leading to beautiful places without giving them much thought. We know they are there, so we assume we can always explore them another time.

I see this contrast regularly through my work with DU Outdoors. I guide people who have travelled from different countries to experience outdoor activities in Dubrovnik, and many of them arrive with a level of enthusiasm that makes me realise how much we take for granted. They are excited about getting on a kayak, exploring the coastline from a paddleboard or discovering hiking trails outside the Old Town, while some local people haven’t considered doing those things for years, if ever.

That contrast is one of the reasons I started thinking more seriously about outdoor life here, not only as a tourism product but as something that could be a much bigger part of our local culture.

Because the truth is that we don’t need to sell ourselves the idea of Dubrovnik. We already live here. We don’t need to organise a holiday or save up for flights to experience the coastline, the hills or the islands. In many cases, all we need to do is decide to go outside.

Yet we sometimes behave as though enjoying our surroundings requires the same planning as travelling abroad.

Has the tourist season taken more than our time?

I think Dubrovnik’s tourism success has brought us many good things, and I would never pretend otherwise. Tourism provides jobs, supports local businesses and has helped create opportunities that simply wouldn’t exist on the same scale without visitors. My own business is a direct example of that, because DU Outdoors would not be what it is today without people coming here looking for hiking, cycling, kayaking and paddleboarding experiences.

I am grateful for that, and I think it is important to say so.

But I also wonder whether living in a city that becomes so heavily occupied by tourism for several months each year has changed our relationship with our own free time. When so much of the year revolves around work, guests, traffic, reservations and the practical challenges of living in a popular destination, perhaps we gradually start treating the rest of our time as something we need to recover from rather than something we can actively enjoy.

Maybe we become more selective about going out because we know how crowded everything can get in summer. Maybe we lose the habit of exploring our surroundings because during the season we are too busy working, and after the season we are too tired to do anything. Perhaps some people simply associate the outdoors with the tourists they spend all summer serving, rather than with their own personal enjoyment.

These are only my observations, and I know that not everyone will recognise themselves in them. Still, I think it is worth asking whether our relationship with tourism has changed not only how we work, but also how we spend our lives when we are not working.

Because if we spend half the year wishing the season would end and the other half recovering from it, when exactly are we supposed to enjoy the place we call home?

Maybe it is not about the weather after all

This brings me back to something I have written about before: the number of reasons we find for not being active, even though we live in a place that offers almost endless possibilities for outdoor activities.

I have heard them all. It is too hot for hiking in Dubrovnik, there is too much wind for kayaking, the sun is too strong for cycling, the sea is too cold for swimming, and the trail is too steep to be enjoyable. Sometimes there are too many tourists, sometimes there is nobody around and it feels like there is nothing to do.

I understand that weather matters, especially here, where summer temperatures can be intense and the wind can change the conditions on the sea quite quickly. Nobody should ignore safety just to prove a point. But there is a difference between respecting the conditions and using them as a permanent reason to stay inside.

The people I meet on outdoor tours often remind me of this. They don’t necessarily have better weather than we do at home, and they certainly don’t always have perfect conditions during their holidays. They simply tend to be more willing to make something happen with the day they have.

Sometimes we go hiking under a cloudy sky and end up with some of the best views of the trip. Sometimes a cycling route becomes the highlight of someone’s holiday because they get to see villages and landscapes they would never have discovered from a car. And sometimes a kayaking or paddleboarding tour gives people a completely different perspective on Dubrovnik, one they would never get by spending the entire day walking through the Old Town.

Of course, the conditions have to be right for each activity, and the sea is not something to underestimate. But when the weather is suitable, there is usually no shortage of ways to enjoy the outdoors around here.

I sometimes wonder whether what we lack is not opportunity, but the habit of making use of it.

And habits are difficult to change because they rarely feel like decisions. We simply repeat the same routine until it becomes normal, and eventually the idea of doing something different starts to feel like an effort.

What if we brought a little more of that energy home?

I am not suggesting that Dubrovnik should become Zagreb, or that we need hundreds of people singing on the Stradun in the middle of winter to prove that our city still has a pulse. Every place has its own character, and there are things about life in Dubrovnik that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

But I would love to see a little more spontaneity in the way we live here, especially when it comes to spending time outside.

Imagine if more local people decided to go for a hike on a Saturday morning instead of waiting for the perfect weekend. Imagine if a group of friends occasionally chose cycling around the Dubrovnik countryside instead of meeting only for coffee, or if families made a habit of taking their children to the sea, into the hills or along a walking trail whenever they had the chance.

It doesn’t have to be anything ambitious. Nobody needs to buy expensive equipment, train for months or turn every free afternoon into a fitness challenge. Sometimes it is enough to choose a different way to spend a few hours, particularly if that choice becomes a regular part of life rather than something we do once and then forget about.

I would especially like to see more middle-aged and older locals taking part in outdoor activities, because movement becomes even more important as we get older. I would love to see more grandparents joining a relaxed hike, more local families discovering the trails around Dubrovnik and more people realising that you don’t have to be young, particularly fit or experienced to enjoy being outside.

And for those who have children or grandchildren, I think there is something important to consider. We live in a time when screens can occupy almost every spare minute, and telling younger generations to spend more time outdoors is not always going to make much difference if they never see the adults around them doing it.

Perhaps the best thing we can do is invite them along and show them that there is a world beyond the phone, without turning it into another lecture about how things were better when we were young.

Take them swimming. Go for a walk together. Explore a trail you have never visited. Get on a bike or spend an afternoon by the sea. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and it certainly doesn’t have to look impressive on social media.

It just has to happen often enough to become normal.

Why I am writing about this as an outdoor guide

Some people might wonder why a person who runs an outdoor tourism business is writing about local habits instead of simply promoting his tours. The answer is that, after twelve years in this line of work, I have started to see outdoor activities as something that can offer much more than a good holiday experience.

Yes, I want visitors to discover the area, find our website when they search for outdoor activities in Dubrovnik, and join us for hiking, cycling, kayaking or paddleboarding. That is my business, and I am proud of what we have built.

But I also think it would be a shame if all these opportunities existed mainly for people who come here for a few days, while the people who live here all year rarely made use of them.

I would love DU Outdoors to welcome more local people, including those who have never joined an organised outdoor tour because they assume these activities are only for tourists or for people who are already very fit. They are not. Depending on the route and conditions, there are plenty of ways to get started at a comfortable pace, learn something about your surroundings and enjoy being active without turning it into a competition.

Maybe one day we will have more local families joining our tours simply because they want to explore their own backyard. Maybe we will see more older residents coming along for a hike, not because they want to cross something off a bucket list, but because they enjoy the company, the fresh air and the feeling of having done something good for themselves.

That would mean a lot to me.

And if someone reading this decides to spend a little less time waiting for the right moment and a little more time actually doing something, then perhaps writing about this was worthwhile.

I don’t know whether tourism has changed the spirit of Dubrovnik, or whether this is simply part of a wider change in how people live today. It would be too easy to blame everything on one thing, and I don’t think the answer is that simple.

But I do think we should occasionally stop and ask ourselves whether the life we have built is leaving us enough room to enjoy the place where we live.

That evening in Zagreb, I saw a few hundred young people standing in the cold, singing and enjoying themselves without needing much of a reason. Maybe it was just an ordinary night for them, but it reminded me that sometimes enjoying life starts with something very simple: getting out of the house and being willing to take part.

Dubrovnik has the sea, the hills, the islands and more outdoor possibilities than many places could ever offer. We have a growing outdoor tourism scene, people who know the area and businesses ready to help visitors and locals discover it in different ways.

Maybe the next step is not to build more, advertise more or wait for another tourist season.

Maybe it is simply for more of us to go outside.

And not only when the weather is perfect.

— Teo

DU Outdoors

Hiking • Cycling • Kayaking • Paddleboarding in Dubrovnik