Dubrovnik Has Everything for Outdoor Life. So Why Aren’t We Using It?
There is something I have been thinking about for quite some time, especially after spending so many years working outdoors and meeting people from all over the world.
Dubrovnik has an incredible potential for outdoor life and outdoor tourism. We have the sea right in front of us, mountains behind us, islands around us, countless walking paths, viewpoints, quiet roads, rocky trails, forests, cliffs and places where you can spend an entire day outside without ever feeling like you are in a big tourist destination.
People travel from the other side of Europe, and from the other side of the world, just to spend a few active days in Dubrovnik, like hiking or cycling around the area, kayaking along the coast or getting on a paddleboard and seeing the city from the sea.
And then you look around at home and sometimes wonder why we don’t use all of this a little more ourselves.
I am not saying this because I think Dubrovnik locals are lazy. I know how hard people work here, and I know that life is not always easy. But I do think we have developed a strange relationship with being outdoors, especially as we get older. There is always a reason not to go. If it is July, it is too hot. If there is a little wind, it is too windy. If the sun is shining, it is too strong. If there are clouds, the weather is not nice enough. If the trail goes uphill, someone will immediately mention that it is too steep. And if it is August, the excuse is usually that there are too many people everywhere anyway.
Sometimes I honestly think we could have perfect weather, no tourists, an empty trail and a beautiful sunset, and someone would still say, “Ma dobro, možemo drugi put.”
And that is probably the part that interests me the most.
Because the opportunities are literally around us.
You don’t need to drive three hours somewhere to find a mountain. You don’t need to book a wellness retreat to be close to the sea. You don’t need an expensive piece of equipment to start walking, cycling or swimming. Dubrovnik is surrounded by places where you can move your body, get some fresh air and spend a few hours outside without making a big project out of it.
Look at the hills around us.
Look at the islands.
Look at the coastline.
Look at the roads and old paths that connect villages and smaller places around Dubrovnik.
We have so many possibilities for stuff like hiking, cycling, kayaking or paddleboarding, that sometimes I feel we have become so used to them that we no longer notice what we actually have.
Maybe that is the problem with growing up somewhere beautiful. You stop seeing it.
A visitor arrives in Dubrovnik, walks up a trail with a huge smile on their face, takes fifty photos and tells me how lucky we are to live here.
Meanwhile, someone who has lived here for fifty years might say that they haven’t been up there since they were young.
I have seen this many times while working with guests.
People come here specifically because they want to be active. They want to hike Dubrovnik, explore the coastline, cycle through the countryside, kayak around the islands or spend a few hours paddleboarding instead of sitting in a hotel.
For many of them, being active while travelling is not even something they have to think about. It is simply part of the holiday. And honestly, I would love to see more of that attitude among us locals. Especially among people in their fifties, sixties and beyond.
Not because everyone suddenly needs to become an athlete. Quite the opposite. I am not talking about running marathons or climbing mountains every weekend. I am talking about something much simpler: moving.
Going for a proper walk instead of driving somewhere that is ten minutes away. Taking the time to go swimming. Walking up a hill without treating it like punishment. Getting on a bike occasionally, maybe to get groceries or to get to work. Going for a hike with friends. Taking the grandchildren outside instead of automatically handing them another screen.
That last part is becoming more important every year.
We are raising children in a world where almost everything can be done indoors. They can play with friends without leaving the house, watch sports without going outside, explore places through a screen and spend hours sitting without even noticing it. And I don’t blame the kids for that.
They are growing up in the world we created for them.
That is why I think the example we give them matters much more than the advice we give them.
If they see their parents and grandparents spending all their free time sitting inside, complaining about the weather and waiting for the perfect day to do something, that is what becomes normal.
But if they see us putting on our shoes and going for a walk even when it is not perfect, going swimming, taking the bike, going into the hills or simply choosing to spend a few hours outside, they learn something completely different.
They learn that being active is just part of life.
Maybe this is also where we, as a local outdoor business, have a small responsibility.
DU Outdoors exists largely because visitors have shown us that there is a real demand for this kind of experience. Tourists have helped create an outdoor tourism scene in Dubrovnik that simply did not exist in the same way before.
So, honestly, thank you!
Without visitors coming here wanting to hike, cycle, kayak and paddleboard, there probably wouldn’t be nearly as much outdoor infrastructure, knowledge and offer as there is today.
But I would love to see the day when more of our guests are locals.
I would love to see a group of Dubrovnik pensioners joining one of our hikes, not because they are trying to prove anything to anyone, but simply because they want to spend a Saturday morning outside.
I would love to see more local families choosing a hike instead of another afternoon indoors.
I would love to see grandparents bringing their grandchildren outdoors and showing them places around Dubrovnik that they might otherwise only ever see in photographs.
And I would especially love to see people who have spent decades living here rediscovering their own surroundings.
Because there are still plenty of places in and around Dubrovnik that even locals have never properly explored.
I know this because I keep discovering them myself.
After twelve years of working as a guide, I still have days when I am somewhere outdoors around Dubrovnik and think, “How is it possible that I have lived here all my life and I don’t come here more often?”
That is the strange thing about Dubrovnik.
We are surrounded by things people spend their holidays and a lot of money trying to experience, but because they have always been here, we sometimes treat them as if they are nothing special.
The mountain will still be there tomorrow.
The sea will still be there next week.
The trail will still be there next month.
And somehow, that makes it very easy to keep postponing it.
I don’t expect this blog post to suddenly change the habits of Dubrovnik.
Maybe it won’t change anything at all.
But if someone reading this thinks, “You know what, I haven’t been outside properly in a while,” and decides to call a friend, put on some shoes and go for a walk this weekend, then I will consider it worth writing.
And if that person brings their child or grandchild along, even better.
Because I genuinely believe that movement is one of the simplest things we can give ourselves as we get older. We don’t need to become athletes, and we certainly don’t need to compete with anyone. We just need to keep moving and keep finding reasons to get outside.
We are lucky enough to live in Dubrovnik.
Maybe it is time we started acting like it.
— Teo
DU Outdoors
