Hi, I'm Anja.

I am a writer and one of the photographers behind The Mint Story blog. I created this space to share my travel and food stories, both from home and abroad. I like to travel slowly, observing local every day, tasting local food, making improvised stops and skipping places where there is a line of tourists involved (I will, however, queue patiently for good food). Travel to me is much more than ticking the check boxes of places I’ve been to, and my favorite travel memories are the ones when we allowed ourselves to take things slowly and just go with the flow.

I grew up in Zagreb, where I studied Art History and Spanish Language and Literature. Now I live in my favorite Croatian region- Istria, with my husband Luka, who happens to be the other photographer for this blog (and a more professional one, too). As I get to know it better, Istria grows closer and closer to my heart, and I realize that you don’t have to travel far to see and taste some pretty good things. I started the blog series Secret Istria to reveal the lesser known parts of the region I love so much.

Besides Istria, my favorite parts of the world are Italy and Japan, and most of our travel plans revolve around one or another of these countries. My goal is to explore each region of Italy, slowly, and with Japan, to explore lesser-known regions because, as it turned out, as farther away we went from the tourist hot spots, as kinder the people were, as peculiar the experiences.

In the near future, I’d love to marvel at the nature of Iceland and Scotland, drink beer in the Czech Republic, take a road trip down the US West Coast, try the street food in South Korea, wake up in a Morrocan riad, drive the dusty roads of the Spanish countryside and then stop for some tapas, have a foggy morning walk in Brittany and listen to the sound of wind and waves at the island of Ouessant. Those are, at least, some of the things I’d love to do.

Thank you for visiting this space, and if you have any questions or just want to say hi I’d love to hear from you!

Anja

Photo by my husband Luka.