The Balkans offers excellent opportunities for overlanders, 4wd touring and more adventurous road trips. As overland travellers based in Europe or passing through on the way to or from Europe, the Balkan states are a great place to explore, without going to far afield. You will experience very diverse cultural scenes and a decent amount of modern history and friendly people.
In our blog you will see that there are many routes through the region, our first trip was by road entering via Slovenia to Croatia to head to Serbia and onto Montenegro, before using the Croatian ferries to explore the Dalmatian coast.
On later tours we explored the area further either entering using ferries from Italy to Dubrovnik or leaving via ferries to Italy from Albania.
However you choose to explore the area, you are guaranteed to have an awesome experience, for a fraction of the cost of Western Europe. I’d suggest you get off the beaten track, travel slowly and see what happens.
We were up very early thanks to having had no sleep. Dan started the day with a 5am swim, that should wake him up! As a result, it was a departure of 6am for us after we brushed our teeth and dressed. We decided to find a café along the way and get some breakfast […]
We had a fairly good night’s sleep and woke up early ready to hit the road. We decided to avoid the breakfast which was spoken of last night as dinner was a little ‘dodgy’, for want of a better word at the hotel. We opted for just a coffee instead. On our way out, just
Being in a hotel last night meant getting away quickly was easy. We started the day with a local style breakfast of feta, tomato, cucumber and bread. Washed down with a few coffees. Our plan was to check out a beach I had found on Google earth that looked almost isolated due to the track
Today was about following circles on a map to Divjakë-Karavasta National Park before spending a night in Kepi i Kalas. Despite the heat we did quite well this morning and managed to get packed up and on the road by 0945, after we had a relaxed coffee and showers all round. Our original plan was
We decided to stay two nights at Lake Shkodër. After an eventful night, we woke slowly, having been woken by Cass in the middle of the night again. Persistent thunder meant that she was afraid and ended up in our tent, whilst the thunder rolled in. There had been a little rain too, but not
Our plan today was to cross the border from Montenegro into Albania, after two nights in Kostanijica this time without raves all night we felt rested and ready to continue our Overland journey. I was nervous though crossing into a new country, Albania seemed a big unknown to me. My nerves made me excited. Today
Today we headed for Montenegro, our cunning plan was to head out on the main roads so we could get there in good time to relax. That is where we went wrong! Finding the right road We headed out from Konjic diligently following the signs to Nevesinje. Within a few miles the signs became vague
Lukomir village sits at an altitude of 1,500 metres on the Bjelašnica mountain. Our plan to today was to take the gravel tracks in the mountains to find the Bosniak village. We had no idea where we would stay that night and had no GPS to guide us. Leaving Sarajevo Having spent the last night in a
The drive was not long from Jajce, but was a hot one. As we entered the city, we found it hard to navigate with our large scale map and the guide book’s city centre map. Wish the Garmin GPS was still working. Eventually managed to get onto a road that was shown on the map
Jajce is a UNESCO candidate and well worth a visit. It was our next stop on our short overland road trip in Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the way to Sarajevo. We were looking forward to seeing the Watermills and relaxing next to lake Plivsko Jezero before exploring the town tomorrow. Over the last few years of doing