I’d like to do a trip in the Balkans next spring or summer, what spots do you guys like best? I like more of the outdoorsy type places…
Slovenia - The capital is small though beautiful. Lake Bled is overtouristed. Stay on the bus and go to Lake Bohinj instead.
Croatia - I’d stay away from Dubrovnik. Overpriced, overcrowded and honestly not that great. Kinda rode to popularity through Game of Thrones. Split and Rijeka are fine though as are the islands off the coast.
Montenegro - Kotor was favorite destination there. I’d stay away from the capital. It sucks.
Albania - I didn’t travel to the Albanian Riviera just yet but I haven’t heard a bad word about it. Tirana is good for a day or two but there isn’t much there to see imo. Berat and Kruje are good day trips.
Greece - Well obviously
Bosnia - I travelled to Mostar and Sarajevo. Both are worthy of at least a couple of days.
Serbia and Kosovo are pretty meh destinations especially if time is a factor. Haven’t been to North Macdeonia yet.
Trying to use dating apps to meet people in advance for Armenia and Georgia and it seems to be an epic fail.
A lot of the profiles resemble the ones I saw for Albania which is memes in their native languages, pictures of the back of their heads, and the occasional landscape photo. Came across more Russian profiles (both tourist and resident) than Armenian and Georgian profiles. Would think there’d be more promise there but nearly all of those profiles were in Russian and I’m sure a large chunk won’t want to meet a foreign tourist who doesn’t speak their language.
Things appear very socially conservative. Honestly, seems like a total nightmare to form a relationship there unless you’re also deeply religious and from the same ethnicity. Probably even worse if you’re LGBT.
In the end, I met good people in Albania while travelling who I was happy to spend my time with. Just wasn’t through dating apps.
The highlands of Albania (northern part of the country towards Kosovo) look incredible–try to get to Theth if you can. I never made it there, but I greatly enjoyed the rest of the country–solid scenery/culture/town mix in a very compact country.
Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia/Albania is awesome. The entire thing is spring fed with basically no inflowing waterways, so the lake is super clear.
Kotor in Montenegro is a must, and I have wanted for years since to rent a car and explore the Montenegrin countryside for a few days.
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I wasn’t dating myself obv, but Georgia seems like it’d be one of the worst non-Muslim places in the world for both hookups and long-term dating. It’s just super religious/traditional and seems like there isn’t much of a hookup culture. I was always reading on Reddit that Tinder sucks there.
Haven’t tried Georgia explicitly though there were a few Georgians mixed into my search in Yerevan.
Pretty sure it’ll be the same as Armenia which is yeah…shitty.
I had a few matches from my Armenia search and noticed that the communication is very direct and to the point. Not much of a culture of chatting and getting to know someone via small talk.
Serbia is supposed to have some spectacular countryside, though I haven’t been there.
I assume that’s what CS04 is asking about, not Tinder dates.
Always gotta jab at people without provocation, don’t you? What’s crazy is that jab wasn’t in the initial post you made. You saw it and thought, “You know what this needs? An insult directed at someone who didn’t insult me first. Much better.”
No wonder why people hate you here.
Nice, thanks for the response, I’ve never heard of Lake Bohinj before. I’ve heard good things about Mostar and Sarajevo though! How’s the public transit, is it pretty easy to take buses around?
It’s been almost 10 years since I visited. I’m sure my knowledge is out of date.
Bohinj was a day trip from Ljubljana. The train between Mostar and Sarajevo was slow but had a ton of beautiful views along the way. In both Slovenia and Bosnia, I don’t recall using intracity public transport.
ETA: Bohinj is actually part of a large national park
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Sweet, I’ll definitely look more into Albania. It seems like it’s getting more popular lately, at least on Reddit anyway.
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Bit sensitive, bob. I like reading this thread and didn’t want to see it degenerate into a sex tourism thread like the ones on 2+2. Anyway, whatever.
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Calling solo travelers who use apps to meet people while abroad sex tourists is insulting. It also insults the women who choose to participate in it to meet people as well.
There’s been nearly 4000 posts in this thread about travel. If it hadn’t degenerated into sex tourism yet it’s not going to at all. Total bullshit rationale from you.
The reality is you saw it as an opportunity to imply that I was a sex tourist and took that chance to piss me off. Congratulations, it worked.
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Oh ok. One of the posts did read like the sole aim of travel was hook ups rather than travel itself but maybe I misread it, in which case I apologise…
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I visited Bled in peak season and honestly it didn’t seem too bad. Busy but not obscenely so.
I’d stop by Lake Bled for the photo opportunities alone, but is there much to do on the lake?
I remember taking a bus planning to get off at Bled and almost the entire bus got off there. I changed my mind last second and went a bit further to Bohinj.
There’s an island in the middle of the lake with a church on it.
Also the water in Bled is supposedly much warmer than Bohinj. I swam in Bohinj and the water was quite cold which I was pretty happy about on that day.
A Google search will probably surpass my memory, but there’s the church in the middle, also Bled Castle. I believe you can go swimming and boating in the lake. There were a lot of places renting bikes for biking in the area. Also hiking in the area.
Bled is definitely touristy, but it has enough natural beauty that you can still enjoy it without feeling your at Disney or something.
Bohinj being larger it may offer more water activities. We just stopped quickly for a couple pics at Bohinj so not sure all that it has to offer.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but from the old 2p2 travel forum, didn’t you live in Africa for a while? Any of your experiences there would be a cool contribution to this thread imo.