In a small town in Denmark

-In which country and city are you living now?

We are now living in Split, Croatia.

-Are you living alone or with your family?

I am here with my wife and our two daughters who are 6 and 9 years old.

-How long have you been living in Croatia?

We started our first business here back in 2004, but actually did not move the whole family down here before the end of 2005.

-What is your age?

38

-When did you come up with the idea of living in Croatia?

Coming from a Nordic country, I think you automatically have a dream of trying to live in a place where it is a bit warmer

As Croatia, from a job point of view, seamed quite interesting, we decided to give it a shot, and combine the hot weather dream with the dream of setting up or own business.

-Was it hard to get a visa or a work permit?

Yes there was a bit of bureaucracy to overcome, but luckily I had great help from one of my employees, who still works for me today.

-Was it difficult for you to get medical insurance before you went there or when you first arrived?

No, after I got working and staying permit, I also got medical insurance. As a foreigner I pay around 50 Euro a month for that.

-How do you make your living in Croatia? Do you have any type of income generated?

Before we started, we made a complete business case and plan for what we wanted to do here; of course, nothing ever turns out to be exactly the same, as you had planned. Our initial year of business was horrible, but we learned a lot, so now we make our living from our own businesses.

-Do you speak the local language and do you think it's important to speak the local language?

I understand some of the language, but it is really a tough one to learn when you also have to run a business, but I am trying so I am sure in a year or so I will be able to speak a bit. My daughters by the way speak the language fluently.

-Do you miss home and family sometimes?

Of course you always miss the family from time to time, but actually I see my family more than 90% of my school friends who are living in same country as their families.

And good thing is you actually go and stay with the family when you are back home, you are not just visiting them for  Sunday coffee, as you would, if you lived close to the family.

-Do you have other plans for the future?

We generally spend as much time as possible travelling inside the country as you can see on our blog. For the time being we do our travel here in Croatia as we still have much to see.

From a business point of view we have lots of projects running. Lately we just launched a VoIP service for the local market, http://www.gratistalk.com/ which we will try to establish on the market. A second big project is that our vacation house rental portal http://www.solitum.hr/ currently is undergoing a major remake and should be ready for a re-launch by the end of this summer.

-What about housing, have you bought, or are you renting a home? How much do you pay for it?

We have rented a flat with an amazing view on the island of Brac. We pay around 6 Euro a m2.

-What is the cost of living in Croatia?

Imported goods are a bit expensive here, but locally produced stuff on the other hand is cheap.

Overall I would guess cost of living is 40% less than in my native country.

For people with the low incomes (400 Euro month) every thing is expensive, without their families they would hardly be able to manage.

-What do you think about the Croatians? 

I have been an expat the last 15 years in several countries, and the locals here are not much different than I have experienced elsewhere.

The majority of the people are extremely nice and actually proud that you picked their country to live in, but you always have some black sheep in between, who think they can rip you off because you are a foreigner, but you learn fast to detect the latter group.

-What are the positive and negative aspects of living in Croatia?

For us, the perfect thing here is that we can combine our dream of running our own businesses and at the same time living in a warm place.

The negative is that the hospital system is not of the same standard as we are used to.

-Do you have any tips for our readers about living in Croatia?

If you set up a business, be patient and work a lot, then you have good chance of succeeding.

-Do you have any favorite Web sites or blogs about Croatia?

We do quite a bit of blogging about Croatia, not only in English http://www.croatia-expert.com/ but also in German http://www.alleskroatien.com/, Italian http://www.vacanzecroazia24.com/ and 4 more languages: Danish, Swedish, French and Croatian.