Once upon a time I’d agreed with my sister that I’d visit Florida with her after our trip to Arizona. The plan had been to go in 2018, but the Star Wars land at Disney World was not yet open. I needed a way to delay this by at least another year. I’d been considering doing a half marathon in Dubrovnik so suddenly a trip to Croatia sounded like a good idea - maybe it could be timed just right so I could race too.

Eventually we decided we’d need to visit later in the year to give my sister more time to save. It meant I’d miss the race, which wasn’t a problem; but we’d also be going during peak-tourist season, during the warmest part of the year.

Organising a self-guided tour of Croatia shouldn’t be that difficult, but we decided it’d be better to get a company to do this for us. It did make it a little more expensive than it really should have been, but I was happy to accept that in return for having a company to fall back on whilst my sister was about. Though they were less than helpful most of the time.

The plan would be to visit multiple cities, a number of islands in the area, and to finish in Slovenia - our parents had been there before either of us were born. After seeing some of their slides from around Bled we decided it’d be a nice idea to try and photograph the exterior of the hotel they’d stayed in to see if it had changed at all.

All we needed to book ourselves was a bus to Ljubljana, and a hotel there too. The hotel booking was as easy as ever, but the bus not so much. At the time I looked it wasn’t possible to pre-book until a month before travelling, however on the day that was exactly one month until we’d need it, the bus was already fully booked!

We had choices though, we could take the train - though this seemed to be fully booked too. Or we could use either a local bus or a taxi. Whilst researching taxi journeys I found a private transfer company that offered to take us from Bled to Ljubljana for €65. Ten times the price of a local bus, but for piece of mind we’d make it there, it was worth it.

Both of us decided we’d pack lightly and use backpacks for checked luggage. It’d make the transfers easier, and there’s always stuff that you pack that aren’t needed. We just needed to be sensible. Yeah, right.

To make sure we could make the most of each day I used the spreadsheet I’d been developing once more to plan a list of sights, complete with their addresses. This combined with offline maps should hopefully be all we’d need.