Driven · 2026
Twenty-four days, 3,476 kilometres — the most unhurried pace of the five trips. Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania lie so close together that you can cross two borders before noon and still get nowhere at all, if you are in a hurry.
The measurements
Every figure here comes from the trip’s own GPS record — distance, stops, times and the weather logged at each stop. Nothing estimated, and nothing rounded except for display.
South from Karlovac through Bosnia into Montenegro — Goransko, Plužine, the country around Lake Piva — then over the border to Shkodër and down to the coast at Ulcinj. The way back runs up the Dalmatian coast. Four countries, six border crossings, and less than a day between the high mountains and the Adriatic.
145 kilometres a day — rarely more than two hours of driving between one stop and the next. The numbers tell the rest: six days in Ulcinj, three in Shkodër, two in Karlovac. It is the trip that feels least like driving, and that is no accident: where the distances are short, what decides the day is not the leg but how long you stay.
Thirteen degrees at the coolest stop, twenty-seven at the warmest — fourteen degrees apart on a stretch you can drive in two days. That is the Balkans in May: up in the mountains you want the heater on in the evening; down on the coast you go swimming. Mostly fair weather at both ends.
The other trips