Running Away to Home: Our Family's Journey to Croatia in Search of Who We Are, Where We Came From, and What Really Matters

A middle class, Midwestern family in search of meaning uproot themselves and move to their ancestral village in Croatia

Jennifer Wilson, her architect husband, and their two kids lived the typical soccer-and-ballet practice life in the most middle-American of places: Des Moines, Iowa. They overindulged themselves and their kids, and as a family they were losing each other in the rush of work, school, and activities. One day, Jen and her husband looked at each other - both holding their Starbucks as they headed out to their SUV parked in the center lot while the kids complained that the store didn't have their favorite soda - and asked themselves: "Is this the American dream? Because if it is, it sort of sucks." Jim and Jen had always dreamed of taking a family sabbatical in another country, so when they lost half their savings in the stock-market crash, it seemed like just a crazy enough time to do it. The family packed up and left the troubled landscape of contemporary America for the Croatian mountain village of Mrkopalj: land of Jennifer's ancestors. It was a village that seemed hermetically sealed for the last 100 years, with a population of 800 (mostly drunken) residents and a herd of sheep milling around the post office. For several months, they lived like locals, from milking the neighbor's cows to desperately seeking the village recipe for bootleg liquor. As the Wilson Hoff family struggled to stay sane (and warm), what they found was much deeper and bigger than themselves.