Bosnia

September 13, 2026

Bosnia

Zagreb – Drvar – Mostar – Montenegro

Zagreb – Drvar: 160 miles (257 km) – Mostar: 150 miles (241 km) – Montenegro border: 100 miles (161 km)

Mostar

Today I learnt that the scanners at the airport can detect explosives. I must admit to being quite nervous as they started scanning my toiletries. Apparently, if the second scan was positive, like the first, then I’d have a full bag search and might not be able to take the plane.

Reunited with Dooby

By good fortune, or pure luck, they scanned my toothpaste and hair gel rather than the fuel stabiliser I’d decanted into 100ml toiletry tubes. ( required to store the bikes for a few months to prevent the fuel going bad)

ADV bikes in storage

Thankfully, disaster averted. Several hours later we landed in Zagreb and stepped straight into a downpour.

This trip represents the last leg of the first year of the 321 Tour. 3 years, 2 bikes, 1 trip. We’re heading through the Balkans, staring with Bosnia, and will eventually end at Motocamp Bulgaria to overwinter the bikes.

400 miles (644 km) along the Dinaric Alps, Bosnia

The following morning, we’d had a restless night in a cheap hotel with a leaky drain that smelled of sewage and a mattress as hard as a board.(Sarah struggled with the hotel smell, so I was very pleased it wasn’t me who chose it!)

We caught a taxi to be reunited with our steeds at Lobagola, Bratina, where Dooby and Bo were waiting.

I really appreciate what Dooby has enabled for Sarah and me, and many others. There were a lot of adventure bikes stored at his place, each one enabling the travels of its owner.

The bikes fired right up and, after a quick once-over, we were ready to go.

Our first stop today is the deserted air base at Željava. It’s a dilapidated Yugoslavia Cold War air force base with multiple runways and hangers carved into the sheer rock face. There are miles of pitch-black tunnels.

It’s fantastic to see and it’s totally open. There are no guards, no payment, no gates. You can just go in and get lost in the pitch black, apparently eventually ending up in Bosnia and risking getting shot by the border guards.

A stop at a wrecked plane.

Our destination this evening is Drvar, in Bosnia, and by late afternoon we still had to cross the border. We’d heard horror stories about the queues and wait times, but we skipped past all the trucks, tiptoed past most of the cars and were through both posts in 24 minutes.

Our first experience of Bosnia was through clouds of fog and rain. We could have been anywhere. But a little later, as we descended the hills, the sun broke through and it became apparent we’d been transported to a prehistoric time.

Drvar Church

Endless, thick green forests carpeted an expansive and dramatic landscape of mountains, ravines and cliffs shrouded in clouds. This spectacle lasted the entire afternoon until we reached our digs, chosen by me, in Drvar.

Apartment Dream, Drvar, is our home.

It’s £15 a room, a bit dated, with old iron wood burners in the rooms, and is run by an old biker, missing fingers but extremely adept at holding a conversation through Google Translate. He met us with an ice-cold beer in the sun and a big smile.

What’s not to like?

Well, thinking about it, the Yugoslav-era bathrooms and hairdryers leave room for improvement.

I’m pretty sure Jason would have something to say.

What’s not to like? Dinner.

We ate at Madera restaurant, 1km up the road. Sarah had the meat kebab. The meat was dark, smelled of fish and was served in fried bread.

Yummy.

I’m quite certain we are not in a blue zone for longevity… but the local dog loved it.

The following morning we woke up to the smell of burning.

One of the Yugoslav-era hairdryers had burst into flames whilst a resident motorbiker was drying his boots.

It was the end of the boot and the dryer.

Apartment Dream Garage

Drvar Old Town

The destination the following day was Mostar. It’s 154 miles (248 km) away and we’re taking the Trans Euro Trail, which means a good section of it will be off-road.

In the morning we pass through forests on dirt tracks reminiscent of Slovenia. Lunch was at a locally renowned restaurant that we could smell cooking as we passed.

Great to actually taste real Bosnian ćevapi. Which, incidentally, is served everywhere, and beer is cheaper than cola, so we’ll likely have gout before we return.

The afternoon was spent on Bosnian mountain tracks, where we bumped into an English couple in a converted Mercedes truck.

It was extremely tough going. We had to stop a couple of times to rest and strip off layers. I got the drone out to take some panoramic views, but when I turned around Sarah was standing in her pants cooling off(!), so I couldn’t use that footage.

Mostar, an ancient old town with bridges spanning the river, stone buildings and tiny alleys. Mostar itself is situated roughly equidistant from Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, and I imagine it would make a fantastic trip linking the three together.

The history of Bosnia is apparent and the Ottoman influence easy to spot. Mostar developed as an Ottoman frontier town in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the famous Stari Most bridge, pictured, was completed in 1566 by Mimar Hajruddin, a pupil of the great Ottoman architect Sinan. (I read this on the tourist sign)

The bars and cafes are full of men drinking alone, and many of the women seem to stay at home. In fact, in the last 300 miles (483 km) that we’ve travelled through Bosnia, I think we saw one woman every 100 miles.

Mostar is different: modern on the outskirts, ancient in the middle, packed to the rafters with tourists and locals in their Saturday-night best, out to party.