OH THE PEOPLE YOU MEET with Michaela Guzy in Croatia

In this episode of our award-winning docu-series, "OH THE PEOPLE YOU MEET with Michaela Guzy", sustainable travel and human connection expert, and founder of OhThePeopleYouMeet, invites us to meet a cast of carefully curated REAL local hosts from Croatia.

Depending on your background, be it age, homeland or lifestyle, you may very well have a different perspective of the country than the person sitting next to you. If you are a history buff, this is your Mecca. Game of Thrones junkie? Well why not learn about all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites featured in the series with a super sexy Hollywood plot woven over your history lesson? Adventurer? Hope you have a lot of time to get out into nature and explore this geographically diverse dragon shaped country. Foodie? Bring expandable pants, because the food + wine is out of this world. If Yacht Week is more your thing, well that co-exists here too. Before we take you on the journey of a lifetime to meet some of the most inspiring real people inhabiting the planet today, it's important to understand a bit about where they are coming from when they open their home to you.

What is today known as Croatia, is a melting pot of cultural influences and traditions seeded in a very deep past. After joining the journey in this episode, you will also soon realize that these folks are made of pretty tough stuff.

Croatia has a Mediterranean climate, 6,278 km of coastline, 1,244 islands and is the second largest archipelago in the world. The population of the country is only 3.872 million people, with the Croatian diaspora numbers estimated to be more than four million Croats living outside of Croatia.

On a personal note, Michaela has always had a soft spot for Croatian people. Her grandfather “Buzz’s” plane was shot down over Yugoslavia during WWII. He was navigating a B-24 on a mission to Bucharest only to be shot out of the sky. Buzz’s parachute didn’t open on first pull, but luckily opened manually. He was found by Croats, wearing his loafers as he opted out of his boots that day.

For six weeks, her grandmother received telegrams reporting Buzz MIA and presumed dead. Little did she know that the Croatians were secretly helping Michaela's grandfather crawl back to safety through an underground system to protect him from being discovered by the Nazis. He was lucky to sleep in barns and hide in family homes. It is thanks to the generosity and compassion of perfect strangers who put their own lives in danger to help her grandfather and other Allied Air Force Officers that my family even exists today.

So whether you are tracing your roots, or visiting the locations of your favorite TV series, indulging in the gastronomy and world class wine, or getting out to explore the epic nature and 6,278 km of coastal adventures - what will forever transform you is no doubt the people you meet.