The Universal Language: Two Weeks Living Like Locals on Vis
The ferry to Vis was long gone by the time we arrived in Split, tired from an extra day in Italy and running exactly as loose a schedule as you'd expect from us. So we did what any reasonable person would do: booked a room inside the city's ancient palace walls, got gelato, and decided to call it an adventure.
The gelato habit had started in Italy, as it tends to do. Croatia did nothing to slow it down. We may have gone overboard. We are not sorry.
Split's old town — the Diocletian's Palace, a 4th-century Roman emperor's retirement home turned living neighborhood — is one of those places that defies description. Narrow marble lanes, laundry strung between 1,700-year-old stones, cats asleep on ancient columns. We got hopelessly lost and found ourselves not minding at all. Then we boarded the next ferry to our real destination: the island of Vis.
"What was a pile of rocks is now a ‘castle’ — a real, actual, beautiful apartment castle that Miki and Audrey built with their amazing vision."
I've known Miki since 2010 when he lived in South Africa. We lost touch the way people do, and then reconnected to find him completely transformed — moved to this tiny, extraordinary Croatian island with his partner Audrey and their four-year-old daughter Masha, and turned an unlivable ruin into a stunning stone airbnb. What was a pile of rocks is now a castle — a real, actual, beautiful apartment castle that they built with their amazing vision.
Miki and Masha were away our first few days, so Audrey stepped in as guide, companion, and immediate best friend. She got us on bikes and scooters before we'd even fully unpacked and introduced us to the rhythms of island life.
The beaches, the water, and the gelato
If you've never been to Croatia, here's something nobody quite warns you about: there is almost no sand. Nearly every beach along the Dalmatian coast is made of smooth, small rocks — polished by centuries of Adriatic tide into beautiful rounded pebbles. Getting in requires a certain commitment. But once you're in the water, all is forgiven. Of course Evan managed like a champ. Me, I wore my sandals.
The Adriatic Sea is approximately 40% saltier than the open ocean, which does something remarkable to both the color and the physics of swimming in it. The clarity is almost surreal. The buoyancy is something you have to experience to believe (Evan still sunk) — you don't really swim in the Adriatic so much as float in it, suspended in this brilliant, warm, impossibly blue sea. Every swim felt like a full-body reset. (Again, Evan still sunk).
And after every swim: gelato. Swim. Float. Emerge from the salty blue. Gelato. It became the unbreakable structure of our days and we'd recommend it as a life philosophy.
Soccer/futbol — the universal language
I've always believed that soccer — futbol — is the universal language. Not just a sport, not just a game, but a thread that runs through every culture and country and connects strangers in an instant. Croatia confirmed this so many times over that by the end of the trip it had become something of a running theme, and a deeply moving one.
We played so much soccer on this trip. Walking the ancient cobblestone streets of Split and Vis and Hvar with the boys and a ball — it happened every single time. Strangers would see the boys with the ball and that was it. No shared language needed, no introduction required. Someone would just step up with a smile and want to pass. Locals, kids, old men sitting outside cafes, teenagers on their way somewhere else — it didn't matter. The ball was the invitation and everyone accepted it.
"A ball rolling down a 1,700-year-old cobblestone street, passed between people who don't share a single word. That's futbol. That's the whole thing."
And then we found the tournament. One afternoon we wandered past the local soccer field on Vis and found island kids from all over the Adriatic competing with a seriousness and pure joy that stopped us cold. We sat down for one game and came back three days in a row. Of course we did. We couldn't help it. Soccer is life — everywhere in the world, in every language, at every age. The World Cup cannot come soon enough.
Scooters, Stiniva, festivals, and Hvar
Evan and I took a scooter one morning to the trailhead for Stiniva — frequently called the most beautiful beach in Europe. The hike down through the cliffs is steep enough to feel earned, and then you round a corner and understand: a tiny cove of pale smooth stones ringed by towering rock walls, the Adriatic so clear and salty it practically holds you up.
One day the whole group made the trip back to Split for the No Ego Festival — it was so fun to see how chill things are outside the US. No one is stressed, no one is chasing their kids around, there’s legit no where else to be. Around every corner is just a reminder that life is meant to be lived - not rushed through.
Another day: a ferry to Hvar. We climbed to the old fortress at the top of the hill — legs burning, views completely worth it — then wandered back down to the rocky beaches below. More of that extraordinary salty buoyancy. More gelato on the harbor. We came home happy and thoroughly exhausted.
The cats, the kids, and the good stuff
No account of Vis is complete without the cats — everywhere, technically strays, practically community members. Tux. Steve. Smokey. Winky. Nutella. We had a whole circuit. We watched Hook one evening with the kids and decided on the spot to be Lost Boys for Halloween. We made tacos on Cinco de Mayo. We had meals that deserved their own paragraphs. We ate a quantity of gelato that probably should have consequences but somehow didn't.
"Soccer in the streets every single day. That's the trip right there."
By the end of two weeks, Miki and Audrey had turned us into locals. We knew where to perch on the waters edge for the best swimming and sun bathing, which ferry to take and when, which cat would be waiting at which corner — and which streets were best for a casual kickabout with whoever happened to walk by.
Go to Vis. Pass the ball with strangers on cobblestone streets. Watch the island kids play. Float in that salty, impossibly blue water. Take the ferry to Hvar. Learn the cats' names or make them up like we did. And for the love of everything — get the gelato every time.