This Summer Dan has managed to wangle 4 weeks off work. To add to that, Wendy has changed jobs and now has the school holidays off, so she has 6 weeks holiday over the Summer!
This has allowed us to open up our plans, expand our horizons and we have this year decided to travel down to the Serbia, Montenegro and the Bosnia area.
As usual we consulted our UNESCO World Heritage book for ideas of places to stop in the countries we would like to be visiting this year.
We also purchased Bradt travel guides (see list at the bottom of this page) for the same countries and started our “plan”, we only do this to amuse Wendy, Dan would rather just book the ferries point the Landy in the right direction and be done with it.
Luckily the plans are never stuck too, not even the ferry bookings.
We have a Michelin Europe Map (705), which is on a really large scale (1:3 000 000), which is great for planning our trips. It gets more and more tatty each year, not to mention colourful. So, we sat down with our trusty old Europe map and plotted places we found in book, on-line and in the guides. With help from a few glasses of Vino, this is what we came up with.
Once we had this plotted, we decided to draw up a Google map. Unfortunately Google won’t route you through Bosnia, so we have had to route around Bosnia to create our map. Pity really. We have shared this Google map with family so that they know the rough route we plan on travelling. We should really just say we are heading to Devon for a month, any mention of going further a field tends to instil panic!
Between the plan’s inception and leaving there were a few things to sort out. When you leave the EU you need an international driving permit (IDP), we got this at a local post office in WHSmiths, what a bad experience! The cue was massive and the staff a bit unfamiliar. Next time I think we will use the AA postal service. Apart from the IDP, insurance is an issue. The EU 3rd party cover will not be valid in some countries outside Europe, like Serbia. We managed to confirm that a green card would be available on the border. Prices vary wildly thou.
Over and above paper work, maps needed sorting, both paper 1:200 000 and GPS. The car needed a service and a couple of niggles sorting.
Only 4 days to go and the car needs to be packed up by Thursday as Dan has a meeting Friday. The flat once again looks like a camping store with piles here and boxes there… Clothes are being washed ready to get packed up. Pity the English weather isn’t being helpful in the way of supplying sunshine. But it looks like all is going ahead.
The Brady Guides we purchased are:
Dan’s a windsurfing, adventure-seeking nomad with a passion for exploring the globe overland and an Engineer. Having grown up in the Middle East, he brings a unique perspective to Getting Lost Again, sharing his love for discovering hidden gems and embracing the unexpected. When he’s not on the road, he finds inspiration in windsurfing and other creative pursuits – and is equally at home under a vehicle solving problems as he is exploring a new place.