Family Hotel Adria Biograd na Moru: Our All-Inclusive Family Getaway

Family Hotel Adria Biograd na Moru: Our All-Inclusive Family Getaway

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Last weekend, we stayed for one night (and a little bit more) at Family Hotel Adria in Biograd na Moru. Part of Rudan Hotels & Camps, Family Hotel Adria is a four-star all-inclusive family hotel that reopened in July 2026 after an extensive renovation. Surrounded by pine trees and only around 300 metres from Soline Beach, it now has a new concept built around family holidays, with indoor and outdoor pools, Kids and Mini Clubs, entertainment, sports facilities and plenty for both children and adults to do.

What we really wanted was to rest, find somewhere Lana could have fun, and not make a single decision. That’s why the all-inclusive option sounded fabulous. Looking for parking, checking menus and deciding where to eat can be fun, in fact, that’s part of exploring and discovering new places. But sometimes, with a tired and hungry four-year-old, it can get a little chaotic. Instead, for one day (and a little bit more), we wanted to sit by the pool, play, eat good food and not worry about anything.

A room actually designed with kids in mind

The room is really comfortable and clearly designed with children in mind. There’s a cot available, a sofa bed and additional beds that pull out from the main bed. There are also kids’ amenities, a little colouring book and pencils, a step stool so they can reach the sink, and a toilet seat adapter. There are even little details in the decoration, like a very cute picture with fish above the bed. You might think, “And what difference does that make?” Well, when you’re getting ready and your husband starts counting fish with your daughter, it makes quite a big difference. There are children’s TV channels too, which also comes in very handy when you want to take a shower and need them happily entertained for a few minutes.

All-inclusive really means not having to think much

We arrived just in time for the afternoon snack, so naturally, we went to eat something. There were doughnuts, cookies, pretzels, fries, nuggets, hot dogs and fruit, plus juice and soft drink machines that Lana absolutely loved. She could serve herself whenever she wanted, which made her feel very independent. There was also coffee, beer and wine. The official all-inclusive offer includes buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner, an afternoon snack and drinks throughout the day, so once you understand the schedule, you really don’t have to think about food very much. And that was precisely what we wanted.

Pools, slides and a LOT to do

There are three pools: two outdoor pools and one indoor pool. One of the outdoor pools also has a shallow area ideal for younger children. At the pool bar, we could get alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, slushies, ice cream, draft beer, sangria and wine. The queues were never particularly long, although I would recommend getting to the pool early because finding a sun lounger becomes a little more difficult later in the day. What I really loved, besides having waterslides for different ages, is that the pools have different depths too. It’s one of those details that makes being there with a small child much easier. Dinner had plenty of variety, and there’s a Kids Corner where children can choose what they want. There were soups — Lana loves soup, so she was very happy about that — pizza, and a dessert bar with cakes and fruit. After dinner, we went to the playroom for movie night. There are arcade games, a PlayStation room, ball pits, archery, a racing simulator and honestly so many things to do that we stayed until it closed at 11 pm. There are also spaces and activities for different ages, sports facilities and a sauna. The hotel has dedicated Mini and Kids Clubs, plus a baby corner for children up to four and activities for older kids and teenagers.

Breakfast in bed

The next morning, they sent breakfast to our room and Lana was VERY happy about it. The breakfast buffet itself has tons of options too and, again, there’s something for everyone. You can go into full holiday mode and eat whatever you feel like, or you can still stick to your usual habits, there are plenty of choices either way. Yes, the dining room can get a little noisy, of course. But as my mum always says, happy children make noise. For lunch, we decided to sit outside, which was much quieter.

Would we go back?

Absolutely. We genuinely had such a good time. Lana was happy, we actually got to relax, and for a little family escape from Split it felt incredibly easy. Biograd na Moru is close enough that this doesn’t need to become a huge trip or something you plan months in advance. The hotel is also only around 300 metres from Soline Beach, although, to be completely honest, there was so much happening at the hotel that we were perfectly happy staying there and enjoying everything. It was our first time experiencing the newly renovated Family Hotel Adria and we would definitely come back whenever we feel like switching off for a day or two. Sometimes exploring means seeing as much as possible. And sometimes it means finding somewhere where, for a little while, nobody has to decide what’s for dinner.

  

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International Business in Croatia: Creating Local Impact at Innovate Split

International Business in Croatia: Creating Local Impact at Innovate Split

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On September 11, I’ll be moderating International Business in Croatia: Creating Local Impact at Innovate Split, a panel I had the pleasure of putting together with FBOA Split-Dalmatia.

The conversation will bring together Geoff Bratton, Sara Dyson, John Rogosić, Kit Pepper and Jennifer Gilman to talk about building businesses in Croatia, becoming part of the local ecosystem, and creating meaningful impact beyond business itself.

A big thank you to Lana for trusting me to put this panel together, and to the amazing Tech Park Split team for making it happen.

Joining the panel are:

Geoff Bratton, President of FBOA
Geoff is President of the Foreign Business Owners Association and co-owner of Fig Restaurants and Stardog, supporting international entrepreneurs and strengthening Croatia’s business ecosystem.

Sara Dyson, Founder & Consultant of Expat in Croatia
Sara helps entrepreneurs, digital nomads and international professionals successfully build their lives and businesses in Croatia.

John Rogošić, Founder & Principal of Split International School
John is advancing internationally focused education through innovation, robotics and modern learning approaches.

Kit Pepper, Founder of Cheers Wine Group
Kit promotes Croatian wine and wine tourism while connecting local producers with international audiences through education and storytelling.

Jennifer Gilman, Founder of New Way Health Coach
Jennifer is a Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach helping professionals prevent burnout and build long-term resilience through science-based wellness strategies.

See you at Innovate Split on September 11 🤍

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Sailing the Dalmatian Coast with The Anchor Croatia

Sailing the Dalmatian Coast with The Anchor Croatia

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A few days ago, Dani Vladović invited us to spend the day sailing with The Anchor Croatia. We left Split in the morning and spent the day along the Dalmatian coast: swimming, taking far too many photos, talking, listening to music, drinking Aperols on deck and, eventually, stopping for drinks before heading home.

The setting was beautiful, obviously. But the group Dani brought together made the day particularly fun. Sarah, behind Move with Sarah, is a Canadian creator based in Split whose work revolves around movement, wellness and mental health. Margo, behind Graceful Margo, is a Ukrainian creator living in Split. Her videos document life here and have that wonderful ability to make you want to discover places you’ve probably walked past a hundred times. She also makes some seriously good TikToks. We were joined by Michelle Rosel, a British singer-songwriter and multidisciplinary artist who has performed internationally and is also behind Sound Circle Croatia. At some point during the afternoon, a ukulele appeared and Michelle started singing on deck, which is a fairly difficult moment for the Croatian coast to compete with.

And then there was Dani Vladović, the person responsible for putting all of us on the same boat in the first place. Dani is the founder of Solis Social, a social media marketing agency working with tourism, wellness and lifestyle brands through social media, email, storytelling and strategy. The Anchor Croatia is one of the brands she works with, and this trip was a very good example of something she does particularly well: bringing the right people together. Dani is excellent at what she does, and spending the day with a small group of women working across content, music, wellness, tourism and creativity made for some very good conversations.

The Anchor Croatia offers private sailing experiences along the Dalmatian coast, and one of the things I loved was how personal the whole day felt. Our skipper knew the area incredibly well, helped us decide where to go, took us to the Blue Lagoon, cooked for us and recommended places along the way. He even joined us for a swim. It felt less like following a fixed tourist itinerary and more like discovering the coast with someone local who genuinely knows it — and, importantly, we felt completely safe and taken care of throughout the day.

There were cameras everywhere. We photographed each other, swapped ideas, talked about work and life in Croatia, swam, sang, ate, drank and spent a very disproportionate amount of time finding the right light. I came home with hundreds of photographs. Here are a few of them.

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Una publicación compartida de Flor Nieto (@flornietoblog)

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Lifestyle Photography in Split: A Morning with Jennifer Gilman

Lifestyle Photography in Split: A Morning with Jennifer Gilman

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I recently spent a morning photographing Jennifer Gilman in Split for a lifestyle session.

We moved through different settings and situations, creating portraits, working shots, details and more relaxed everyday images. I really enjoy this kind of session because it gives us time to try things, change locations and create a varied collection of photographs that can later work across social media, websites, press and other projects.

Jennifer and I also work together through SHE – Women Wellness Exchange, so getting to spend a morning together with her on the other side of my camera was especially fun. Here are a few of my favourites from the session. You can also follow her here, and see more 🫶

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The art of collecting ideas

The art of collecting ideas

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Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon has become one of those books that almost everyone recommends to people who work in creative fields. It's short, easy to read, full of illustrations and handwritten notes, but underneath the playful format there's a surprisingly practical way of thinking about creative work. I read it in literally 30 minutes. 

The title is intentionally provocative. Kleon isn't suggesting that artists should copy each other. His point is that nobody creates in isolation. Every creative person is shaped by the books they read, the films they watch, the music they return to, the conversations they remember and the people whose work makes them curious.

One of the ideas I liked most is that every artist should build their own collection of influences. He even suggests creating your own "genealogy": tracing the people whose work led you to discover someone else, and then someone else again. Instead of trying to consume everything, the book encourages you to become selective.

I kept thinking about how much of our education happens outside formal education. The writers we discover by accident, the magazines we collect, the albums we listen to for years, the essays we bookmark and return to. Those references quietly become part of how we think. Also is something that always truly amazes me how we are always, and of course, influence by a very specific context, which is basically our own life, experiences, mentors, and people we know along the way. 

The idea of building your own genealogy reminded me of something more common in literature than in marketing. Writers have always talked openly about influences. Borges wrote about Kafka. Patti Smith writes about Rimbaud. Joan Didion about Hemingway. Nobody expected them to invent themselves from scratch.

Another recurring idea is simple: make the work you wish existed. If there's a book you want to read but nobody has written it yet, write it. If there's a publication, a project or a business you wish someone would create, maybe that's your project. It's practical advice because it shifts the focus away from trends. Instead of asking what people want, it asks what you're genuinely looking for.

The book also argues for spending less time in front of screens. Not because technology is the enemy, but because creative work needs other kinds of input too. Reading on paper, walking, making things with your hands or simply allowing yourself to be bored all become part of the process. Also to make analogic work, write in paper, doing something that you can actually touch. 

One chapter that surprised me is about geography. Kleon pushes back against the idea that creative work only happens in certain cities. The internet makes it possible to learn from almost anywhere, while your local environment gives you something that no one else has.

There's also an entire chapter about being nice. It sounds almost obvious, but it's advice that rarely appears in books about creativity. His point is that creative communities are small, reputations travel quickly, and people remember generosity just as much as talent. It's one of the most practical chapters in the book.

Another section celebrates ordinary life. Having a stable routine, paying your bills, building healthy relationships and protecting time to work might not sound particularly artistic, but they're the conditions that allow creative work to continue over the long term.

Finally, Kleon writes about limitations. Instead of seeing constraints as obstacles, he treats them as creative tools. Working with limited resources often forces better decisions than having unlimited options. It's a perspective that appears throughout the book and probably explains why so many independent artists identify with it.

Steal Like an Artist isn't really a manual about originality. It's a reminder that creative work grows from curiosity, careful observation and years of collecting ideas. The book simply gives those habits a name.

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The quiet rebellion of keeping a blog

The quiet rebellion of keeping a blog

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Years ago, I gave a TEDx talk called On the Internet / In Real Life. It was about social media, although what interested me wasn't the platforms themselves. I was fascinated by the way they were changing our relationship with information and with one another. I spoke about the responsibility we have as users to choose what we consume instead of accepting whatever appears in front of us, about understanding that every platform creates its own version of reality, and about the idea of the prosumer: the moment when we stopped simply consuming media and became producers ourselves.

Looking back, it's striking how familiar those questions still feel. The technology has changed dramatically. Algorithms have become astonishingly precise, artificial intelligence can generate photographs of people who never existed, and entire conversations now unfold between humans and machines. What hasn't changed is the need to decide where we place our attention. Every day we choose what deserves our time, what we believe, what we ignore and what we carry with us once we close the screen. Lately, while rereading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, I found myself thinking about that conversation again.

Woolf argued that, for a woman to write, she needed money and a room of her own. Not because walls magically produce better ideas, but because every writer needs a place where thoughts can exist before they're interrupted by the world. I don't think she could have imagined blogs, search engines or social media, but I suspect she would have recognised the feeling.

Every time I discover that someone still keeps a blog, I become immediately curious. Some of my favourite bloggers are from Argentina. Others live in Berlin, London or New York. Some have become creators with audiences that reach millions of people every month. Others still write quietly for a few hundred readers, publishing posts about the novel on their bedside table, the café they found during the weekend, the flowers growing on their balcony or whatever happened on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. I visit all of them with exactly the same curiosity.

There's something deeply personal about reading a blog. Every website slowly develops its own atmosphere. After a while, you begin to recognise the books someone keeps returning to, the music they're listening to, the cities they love, the photographs they choose to publish and the way they observe the world. You don't simply read isolated articles. You become familiar with a person's way of thinking. I still love that. Perhaps because I grew up reading blogs. Perhaps because I studied journalism. Or perhaps because I've always been more interested in people than in content.

I work in marketing, and I genuinely enjoy social media. It's one of the most fascinating communication tools we've ever created. I've built businesses through it, helped brands grow, discovered writers, artists and photographers I probably would never have encountered otherwise. Social media has introduced me to people who later became friends. But my relationship with writing has always happened somewhere else.

When I sit down to write an article, I don't think about trends or formats. I don't wonder whether an idea would perform better as a Reel or a carousel. The article simply becomes an excuse to spend an afternoon thinking about something that caught my attention. Sometimes it's Walter Benjamin. Sometimes Truman Capote. Sometimes it's Croatia, Patagonia, branding, music or a conversation I had over coffee. The writing itself is enough.

I started my first blog in 2010 and the second one in 2012, because I wanted somewhere to write about concerts, books, interviews and everything that fascinated me. I shared every article on Facebook because that's simply what we all did back then. Eventually more than a million people visited it. Years later, I collaborated with brands and discovered that something I had started for fun could also become professionally valuable. None of those things explain why I kept writing. Writing did.

Looking back, I realise that what I miss most about the early internet isn't necessarily the design or the platforms. It's the feeling that people were making things because they genuinely wanted to make them. They weren't thinking about engagement, optimisation or personal branding. They were simply following their curiosity and leaving traces of it online. That spirit still exists. You just have to know where to look.

Owning a website has always made sense to me. Platforms evolve, algorithms change and formats disappear. A blog stays where you left it, quietly becoming an archive of your interests, your work, your photographs and your writing. Sometimes I look at articles I published fifteen years ago and smile. Sometimes I disagree with them. Sometimes I wonder who that younger version of myself was. They're all still there. I like that.

There's also something reassuring about knowing that people arrive intentionally. Nobody accidentally spends ten minutes reading an essay on someone else's website. They decide to visit. They decide to stay. They decide that another person's thoughts are worth part of their afternoon. That feels increasingly rare. Maybe that's why I still get excited every time someone tells me they have a blog. It feels a little like being invited into their favourite room.

Virginia Woolf imagined a room where women could think and write without constantly asking permission to exist. Sixteen years after publishing my first article, I still find myself returning to my own small corner of the internet for exactly the same reason. Not because I have to. Simply because I still enjoy being there.

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Learning Out Loud

Learning Out Loud

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One of my favourite jobs I've ever had was being a marketing professor. Before moving to Croatia, before speaking at events or mentoring startups, I spent two years teaching. I loved it. Not because I enjoy standing in front of a room. I actually don't like that part and always want to run away. I'm quite introverted but I always try do deal with it. What I love is sharing ideas. Finding a way to explain something that suddenly clicks for someone else. Watching people leave with a different perspective than the one they arrived with. That's still one of my favourite parts of my work.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to join Katerina Lazari, founder of FindYourCoach, at an Innovate Meetup organised by Tech Park Split. 

I've worked with Katerina before through coaching sessions, and she's one of those people who asks the kind of questions that stay with you long after the conversation ends. Listening to her speak that afternoon, I found myself taking mental notes just like everyone else in the room. That's probably why I keep saying yes to these opportunities. I genuinely enjoy being in rooms where people are willing to share what they've learned. If something I've experienced can save someone else a few months—or a few mistakes—then it's worth talking about. And if I leave having learned something too, even better.

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On Aura in the Age of AI

On Aura in the Age of AI

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Every generation believes it is living through an unprecedented technological revolution. Every generation it is living through an unprecedented technological revolution. Ours happens to be AI. As the conversation grows more and more, I find myself returning to a text written almost a century ago: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin.

I first read it as a Communication student. At the time, it felt like one of those books that every student is expected to know. We discussed photography, cinema, mass culture and the democratization of art. Like many texts encountered at university, it remained somewhere in the background of my thinking, waiting for a different moment in life to become relevant. Re-reading it now feels completely different.

Benjamin could not have imagined ChatGPT, Midjourney or the countless generative systems that produce images, music and text within seconds. Yet one of his central ideas has unexpectedly found its way back into contemporary culture, not through academic journals but through TikTok, Instagram and everyday conversations. The word is aura.

Benjamin described aura as the unique presence of an artwork, something rooted not only in originality but also in its history, context and irreproducibility. Mechanical reproduction altered our relationship with art because it detached the work from the circumstances that made it singular. A photograph of a painting allows infinitely more people to experience it, but it is not the same experience as standing before the original. For decades, this idea remained largely confined to discussions of art history and media theory. Today, "aura" has become part of internet vocabulary.

People say a photograph has aura. A café has aura. An outfit has aura. Someone walks into a room and has aura. Equally, they complain that something has "no aura" at all. The meaning has shifted, yet something essential has survived. People seem remarkably capable of sensing when something feels genuinely inhabited by a person and when it feels assembled from interchangeable parts. This is where I think Benjamin becomes unexpectedly useful.

The most interesting consequence of generative AI is not that it produces convincing text or images. We already know that it can. What fascinates me is something else entirely. The more accessible these tools become, the more homogeneous large parts of the internet begin to sound. Spend enough time on LinkedIn and certain rhythms become impossible to ignore. The same sentence structures. The same emotional cadence. The same conclusions carefully designed to maximise engagement. Even before AI, platforms rewarded imitation. Now they make imitation almost frictionless.

Ironically, the technology itself is not the problem. I use artificial intelligence almost every day. It has become part of my research process, my brainstorming, sometimes even my editing. The question is not whether we should use these tools. That debate feels increasingly uninteresting. The question is what we choose to outsource. When we delegate grammar, we gain time. When we delegate research, we gain efficiency. But when we delegate observation, taste, judgement, contradiction and voice, something more difficult to define begins to disappear.

Perhaps this is why so much content feels strangely anonymous despite being attached to highly visible personal brands. Everyone is publishing. Fewer people feel unmistakably present. The paradox is almost Benjaminian. Never before has it been easier to produce. Never before has originality become so dependent on what cannot be automated.

At the same time, I find myself re-reading another thinker from my years studying communication: Guy Debord. In The Society of the Spectacle, Debord argued that modern life increasingly replaces lived experience with representations of experience. Together with McLuhan's notion that the medium reshapes the message, these ideas seem less like historical curiosities and more like descriptions of the digital environment we inhabit every day.

Perhaps this is why the contemporary obsession with aura feels so revealing. I don't think younger generations are unknowingly quoting Walter Benjamin. I think they are naming a feeling. A growing intuition that, despite infinite content, infinite productivity and infinite visibility, something singular is becoming increasingly rare. Maybe the challenge of creating in the age of artificial intelligence is not protecting ourselves from the technology. Maybe it is protecting the part of ourselves that technology cannot manufacture. Not because it is more authentic in some romantic sense, but because it remains irreducibly, recognisably ours.

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