One Night in Dubrovnik: The Hotel That Wasn't

A stay at 'La Vita e Bella' showcases a property investor's complete lack of regard for ethics, guest safety, or experience.

Entryway to a La Vita e Bella “hotel” in Dubrovnik, Croatia, listed as a guesthouse on Expedia. Enjoy this part of the experience in the pitch dark on your own.

Disclosure: Midlife Nomads often refers and links to websites, apps, and products/services I actually use. Sometimes, I receive compensation if readers sign up or make a purchase. A girl’s gotta eat – and travel!

I wanted to have something fun and light to share with you, coming off the high of a week spent almost not working and in the company of a group of exceptional women.

However, the last 36 hours of that trip brought some (mostly minor) travel annoyances:

• a slightly delayed Vueling flight… no biggie (and in fact, it was a nice in-flight experience aside from that)

• losing my AirPods Pro (since located, but in another country 🫤)

• and being robbed of €23.52 in groceries by a dishonest courier service (I tried Glovo since my preferred service, Wolt, wasn’t available in my current location… never again).

Even before any of those shenanigans, I had a ridiculously disappointing and unsafe experience with a “hotel” called La Vita e Bella in beautiful Old Town Dubrovnik, the stunning historic district made uber-famous as one of the settings for Game of Thrones.

Dubrovnik was the final port of call and disembarkation point for our OneWeekEachYear adventure, and several of us chose to spend an extra night in the historic city.

Old Town Dubrovnik: The Rector's Palace Museum; the iconic Jesuit Stairs overrun with tourists; the Franciscan Church and Monastery as seen from the upper floors of the Rupe Ethnographic Museum. Photos: Miranda Miller, 2024.

I don’t know the area, and we were only here for one night. I also fully understand that Dubrovnik, like many other European cities, is experiencing a massive and problematic influx of tourists. So I chose the perceived safety and slightly more-ethically-acceptable-though-certainly-not-perfect hotel booking versus contributing to the city’s short-term rental market woes.

Unfortunately, unscrupulous property investors seem to have circumvented the crackdown on short-term rentals by masquerading as hotels.

Full subscribers, enjoy this cautionary travel tale about the hotel that wasn’t, and I hope you find the associated safety tips and my Dubrovnik trip recommendations helpful.