I didn’t vote for Brexit for many far-reaching reasons which I’m not about to go into here for fear it’ll turn into a rant rather than a travel blog. One of these reasons is the travel restrictions we now have as non EU residents. Gone are the days when we can travel throughout the Union, free to remain wherever we choose, for work or pleasure and for as long as we want. We are now restricted to 90 days in any 6 month period within the Schengen zone as a whole. Because of the dates that our ferry journeys were booked for, our stay in Europe was due to last for a total of 94 days. Now that doesn’t seem like a very serious contravention of the rules I know, but it is a contravention nonetheless, and it seems (according to all the posts I have read) that you are potentially at the whim of the specific border entry/exit guard you encounter on leaving. Chances are that in most countries you would be absolutely fine and they wouldn’t really worry about overstaying for 4 days – I mean it’s not like we will have spent a year taking the proverbial by working illegally! However, let’s suppose for a minute that on the day we choose to leave, the specific border guard we encounter at the port in Santander has had a particularly awful day. Maybe his wife has just left him, taken his kids and run off with an illegal British overstayer. Maybe in that circumstance he decides to project his anger on me and give me whatever penalty is within his remit. These penalties are subjective, but can include large fines and even being banned from the Schengen Zone for periods of up to 2 years. 

Obviously all of this is highly unlikely, judging on previous experience they probably wouldn’t care at all, but do I really want to tempt fate and risk an EU ban for all of us? Probably not. So we have decided to play it safe and duck out of the Schengen area for 4 days to bring our total stay back down to a perfectly legal 90 days. The best way to do that is to have a little trip over the Slovenian border into Croatia. Croatia is already a part of the EU, but it isn’t due to join the Schengen zone until next year, so it works perfectly for our purposes, and with the added bonus that it’s coastline is beautiful and littered with fantastic campsites to take advantage of. We don’t have to drive too far, literally 10 miles into Croatia brings us to the town of Umag on the Istrian peninsula. The campsite we have chosen is part of the enormous Stella Maris resort, and is exactly what we wanted, essentially a 4 day holiday while on holiday! Time to relax and catch up on a bit of schoolwork and blogging. 

There is a huge pool, a treetop adventure park, an aqua assault course, mini golf, restaurants and bars etc, and the sea is only a five minute walk away. And the best part is that this is the cheapest campsite we have stayed in so far at just 25 euros a night for all 4 of us. We are planning to spend the next 3 days relaxing by the pool and paddling in the sea, and that is exactly what we do! We even managed to squeeze in a poolside massage, something my wife has been craving for weeks now.

Not much more to be said about our brief visit to Croatia really, we didn’t visit any historical sites or take in any culture, it was purely hedonistic (with a little bit of home school mixed in). So instead of boring you with another history lesson, I’ll just post a load of pictures of us enjoying ourselves. Enjoy!