As a sort of a nerd since elementary school, Danijela Cirovic enrolled in Philosophy Studies at Belgrade University.
(“You studied the ‘pure’ Philosophy?”, they often ask me.
“The purest”, I say, as if it could be any other sort.)
She improved her language skills and passed English for Specific Purposes while also taking French lessons during her studies within the Yugoslav-French Friendship Alliance. Danijela was already aware that she would work for print media in the future. Keep in mind that this was a particular time in the history of Serbia and the Balkans when the region underwent a turbulent period. However, her journalistic beginnings were related to culture. She was hired by municipality newspapers and ran a cultural magazine with other students at the faculty.
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As one of the rare students at Belgrade’s Faculty of Philosophy who decided not to leave the country when most fled the instability of the region, Danijela was among the first five people of her generation to graduate. Her final paper was related to Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy and the Look of Others theory the famous French poet Charles Baudelaire was subjected to. (Baudelaire was my favorite poet and was the reason I was restlessly looking for Les Fleurs du Mal in French by the Seine River in Paris.)
Only 15 days after graduation, Danijela brought her CV to one of the renowned independent newspapers in Serbia Glas Javnosti, and started to work.
This is how it all began.
Her professional skills grew making her thrive and advance to the next decision-making level. That is how Danijela Cirovic soon began to explore and write about geopolitical issues. This dynamic job she always loved got her acquainted with top national and international political figures and awakened a certain goal to contribute to a better future for the Balkans.
Her exceptional professional results after only a couple of years of work got her promoted to top newspaper section editor allowing her to be hired by top news companies over the years. Those were daily and periodic newspapers like Glas Javnosti, Blic News, Reporter, Evropa, Frankfurt’s Vesti, and many national and international news agencies and websites. Danijela was a member of the Serbian Journalists Association, Union Internationale de la presse francophone, the Southeastern Europe International Team of Investigative Reporters, and many other associations.
When the so-called Arab Spring broke out at the end of 2010, Danijela Cirovic traveled to the Middle East a few times and was hired as a correspondent. The latter inspired her to enroll the specialist academic studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade regarding the relation between world religions and states’ governances. She also learned Arabic for two years. (Even though I don’t actively use it any more, I still love the alphabet.)
Nevertheless, she always loved to travel, impatient to learn more about the world’s diversity. Given that writing already came naturally, she wrote about her trips, even in her spare time. After getting excited about everything she saw and experienced thus far, all the people she had a chance to encounter, all the diversity of cultures and traditions – glimpses of the world as she likes to call them – Danijela decided to share these experiences via her travel blog.
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The first year she tried to put to ‘paper’ all of her previous travels which spanned the area from Cuba via Europe and the Middle East to Indonesia, even though she still hadn’t been introduced to SEO (which is why I had to rewrite most of the old articles). This is when she began to collaborate with national and international tourist institutions and businesses.
Danijela Cirovic then finished Masterbox’s Digital Marketing Training and thus improved and broadened her skills not only to travel writing for websites but also more challenging landing page writings in English and Serbian, travel guide-books writing for domestic and foreign clients, social media managing, creating flyers and eBooks in Canva, etc.
(I like to say that this was my natural step forward, that I am an upgraded journalist due to improving in regards to the time I live in where most of the information circulates online. I continued to do what I do best but this time in a virtual environment that made me improve and adjust. For a curious person ready to learn – and let me remind you of a nerd I mentioned earlier – the sky is the limit, and the world is an endless source of writing material!)
When first clients emerged, Danijela Cirovic established a small business GLIMPSES in 2019 and started to work as an entrepreneur. She opened the Shop on this website with exclusively her eGuides and eBrochures on the ‘shelves’ hoping to be able to dedicate more time to writing new ones soon. Even though the number of editions is still small, they are unique and will be increasing in the future.
It should be mentioned that all the website articles and digital editions in the Shop are written firsthand. The author personally visited all the destinations she wrote about and described her own experiences.
More about Danijela Cirovic’s professional services can be found on the Freelance Travel Writer page on this website. All the information about the publications she wrote and links to free West Serbia brochures’ downloads and her Fiverr gigs, can also be found at the same URL.
Here are a few facts about me ‘behind the scenes’, so to speak. I don’t know if you will believe me if I tell you that I love to travel, hahaha.
Joking aside, traveling is a favorite part of my private and now also professional life. When I was most tired – rushing to get the story when former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was arrested, or editing the newspaper pages again after a sudden breaking news was out – I couldn’t wait to pack and fly somewhere I didn’t understand the language. It often happened that I fell asleep right after we took off.
The energy that took me exploring new parts of the world also introduced me to fitness which I enjoyed for years. I went back to running during the pandemic and even ran the 2022 Belgrade’s half-marathon 21 km race…
Someone recently asked me ‘if I can do anything halfway‘, haha.
Besides that? I love being outside and you can often find me sitting at a café and working. When you get used to the newsroom noise, café sounds are merely a symphony. Add to that a view of a river or sea, or charming alleys of European cities like Granada or Florence, and I can’t help but feel grateful for having such an astonishing workspace.
I am a cinema fan not skipping any auteur or documentary festivals in Belgrade. Even though I love books, I no longer buy them. I recently donated six bags of books to the local library since I didn’t know where to put them anymore. But I still pay regular visits to the library ever since elementary school.
I love listening to old rock, French chansons, and American swing but also all the traditional music I was fortunate enough to hear around the world – from the sad Arabian women’s voices to Portugal’s Fado that shreds your heart to pieces and brings tears into your eyes.
And one more thing – I love nature but am a huge history buff, and thus adore places I travel to that are full of history and stories. It shows in my writings, I’m sure, haha.
In my opinion, the best way to talk about traveling is to tell a bunch of interesting travel stories and anecdotes which are always fun. Therefore, I will try to “pack” my trips into various stories.
These Glimpses of the World are mostly written from scratch, usually in both English and Serbian – since the latter is my native language, rich and wonderful to use in storytelling.
On the other hand, a lot of those travel articles that have been published in my country over the years (in national newspapers and web magazines), I am going to repost here, with the English translation accordingly and a few changes. Some I might write all over again, others perhaps “pack” in numerous glimpses instead, in order to make them more accessible and easier to read.
So, the plan is as follows: I will post a series of travel stories on one destination that will help you get to know the place as though you have traveled there yourself. In the Destinations section, you will find stories about all the places I traveled to while the Weekend in Serbia part will introduce you to the top attractions of my home country.
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Hopefully, we will go on a journey to meet the world together, and these glimpses will be helpful to those who plan on traveling for the first time or are just interesting to those already sharing the passion.
Anyway, I look forward to telling you the whole story and am starting to feel impatient. Let me fetch my tea and cookies, and will begin typing immediately! I hope you will enjoy the journey just as much.
See you among glimpses,
Danijela Cirovic
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