We picked Croatia as our destination because my grandparents lived there before coming to America. It is a beautiful country and the prospect of doing some genealogy searching made it the right place for us.
We like to find the 'hidden gems' when we travel and not follow the crowd. My favorite place was Velika Planina in Slovenia. It took some effort to actually get to the settlement, but 100% worth it. We also loved driving the Julian Alps and visiting Pag, Croatia.
Jelena arranged a rental car for us, and we drove from Zagreb to Slovenia and then down the coast to Dubrovnik. Everything at our own pace. If we saw something interesting we stopped. No tour group schedules to follow, no feeling like were were part of a herd. I enjoyed the safety of knowing that Jelena was just a phone call away should we run into any problems.