Ancient Trails

Serbia
June 16th – 26th (22nd) 2024 (only one place left!)

Type – standard offroad tour
Duration – 6 or 10 days
Wild camping tour (your camping gear)
Approximate length – 1000 km
Technical difficulty – 2-7/10
Scratching rate – 1-7/10 (occasional heavy scratching)
Capable AT tyres recommended, optionally MT

Price
990 € per vehicle for 6 days
1390 € per vehicle for 10 days
(regardless of number of passengers)

This tour takes you between the east and west, through the very heart of central Serbia, from one mountain to another, featuring a diverse, dynamic and exciting landscape that will grant you all kinds of impressions during the ten days of the wild camping tours – from deep, occasionally muddy forests, through rugged canyons, to green pastures surrounded by pinetree forests, featuring endless vistas. And all that full of history, along the trails of medieval kings, from one fortress or monastery to another. There’s no country in the Balkans featuring such exciting contrast like Serbia does, and this tour shows it very well!

I’ve seen enough, take me to the booking form!

Where?

Ancient Trails 2023 tour video

Tour start

Upon gathering at the meeting point in Gučevo mountain around 16:00 on the arrival day, we will take the short (but challenging) forest trail to our deep forest hideout, where we will setup the camp and introduce the group to what we will do and see in the coming days. Next morning, we continue on our itinerary along the main ridge of the Drina mountains range. Please replenish your food supplies and refuel in Loznica or Banja Koviljača, as we won’t have a chance to do so in the first 3 tour days. We move eastwards, in the direction of Sokolske mountains, before we take on the Valjevo mountains range, including the highest peaks, Medvednik, Bobija, Jablanik and Povlen.

Next days will take us in an easterly direction, slowly moving across Ravna Gora, Rajac and Rudnik mountains. First three of our campsites will all be along rivers or lakes, either directly in the riverbed, or next to it.

Video from the Ancient Trails 2022 tour

Moving on

After we cross Rudnik and Gledićke mountains, we will reach Goč mountain, featuring some of the nicest forests in Serbia, which have been chosen as an educational ground for forestry studies. Depending on the weather conditions, muddy parts may be encountered there, so you’re well advised to have at least some capable AT tyres (such as the BF Goodrich All-Terrain). From Goč the itinerary takes us further on to Stolovi, a ridge with magnificent views, which is the home to one of the biggest packs of wild horses in Serbia. Then from Stolovi we move on to Željin, where, if the weather conditions allow, we will have our highest altitude camp during the tour, at an altitude of 1650 m.

I’ve seen enough, take me to the booking form!

Our journey will continue from Željin in a westerly direction, taking us across Ibar river to Golija mountain. There we will experience a mix of beautiful, diverse forests, as well as endless green pastures. A huge territory of high mountains, which will take us 2,5 days to cross, and present us with the most serious mud challenges in the tour, but also some memorable campsites. Golija’s highest peak, Jankov Kamen, with it’s 1833 m of altitude, will be the highest point of the entire tour.

The grand finale

The tour dynamics are so finely tuned that the very best is left for the last days of the tour, and the very best certainly means a jouney across Čemerno and Golija mountains, featuring the highest peak on the tour (1833 m). It is not only the home to high peaks, but a dynamic mountainous area full of wildlife, scattered mountain villages with wooden houses featuring traditional architecture, beutiful wild campspots, mountain lakes, and also many historical monuments (some of the best known monasteries in Serbia are there, such as the Studenica monastery).

Most of the roads that we will travel on during the tour are gravel and dirt roads connecting mountain villages, forest roads used mainly for lumber exploatation, but we will also often drive in open grassland on barely visible tracks, or no tracks at all. Ocassionally you have to count with shorter or longer muddy passages, but most of them will be normally drivable on AT tyres, without the need to use winches. However, in case of rainy weather, some of these may deteriorate to the extent that getting stuck and needing to be recovered with a winch is possible. We will not take any substantial risks – in every part of the trail we can choose easier / safer alternatives in case of deterioration due to weather conditions. Also keep in mind that in many cases while driving through forests there might be considerable contact with the vegetation, so your vehicle will probably get a certain amount of surface scratches, unless you preemptively protect it will sylicone foil, or other kind of protective finish.

The daily trails will be between 60 and 105 km long, exceeding that range only in cases of considerable length driven on tarmac road (pavement). The endpoint of the tour will be in far southwest of Serbia, near the border with Montenegro.

Accomodation

Our campsites will be deep in the wilderness, sometimes featuring mountain streams and rivers, in most cases ideal for full comfort far away from any signs of civilization. We will have firewood in abundance, so we will have an opportunity to light campfires every evening, which can also be used for grilling. We will attempt to arrive at the campsite every day no later than 17:00, so that you have plenty of time to setup your little nomadic haven and prepare for the night, enjoying the beautiful surroundings to the fullest. We usually leave the campsite at 9:00, leaving us enough time for a relaxed breakfast and packing up all the equipment afterwards (according to group preferance, we can leave later, or earlier).

Altitudes of the campsites will vary from around 600-700 m, to as high as 1650 m, which means that nights can get fresh, with temperatures possibly dropping below 10 C. So in order to sleep comfortably at night be sure to have warm sleeping bags!

Replenishing our food supplies will be possible 2-3 times during the tour, as we pass by some bigger towns. Therefore we recommend that you equip your vehicle with large capacity / good quality compressor refrigerator, so that you can keep your food fresh over several days.

I’ve seen enough, take me to the booking form!

Every day we will make a lunchbreak sometime between 12:30 and 14:00 lasting for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, so there will be plenty of time to prepare a decent lunch.

Tour requirements

Equipment of your vehicle for Overlanding Ancient Trails should include

  • AT tyres as required minimum, MT optional
  • basic tools for your vehicle and camping
  • a kinetic rope for recovery and some shackles

You should also consider

  • Sillicone protective cover over your paint is strongly advised, as almost all offroad trails in Serbia are narrow, and therefore have contact with vegetation on daily basis
  • winch (we’re not planning to get stuck on the trails, but having your own winch can dramatically expedite recovery in case needed)

Tour price coverage

Tour price covers

  • our guide in his own vehicle, and tour guidance during 10 days
  • all fuel and other expenses for the guide vehicle
  • personal counceling before and during the tour
  • appropriate GPS maps and data, that can be made available to the participants, if they have compatible hardware
  • handheld dualband communication radio with charger

Tour price does not cover

  • individual fuel and toll costs
  • individual food and drink expenses
  • mechanical servicing expenses by third parties
  • individual accomodation expenses before and after the tour (on your way to Serbia and back)
  • other individual expenses

What else you should know about the tour?

For this tour the meeting point will be by the WWI monument on Gučevo mountain, near the town Loznica in western Serbia. From there we plunge directly into the jungle-like forests of Gučevo, and follow the ridge all the way to the highest peak of Sokolske mountains, Rožanj. You’ll be supplied with detailed access instructions to the starting point, coordinates and GPX/KML tracks from your country to meeting point. Final details will be mailed to you one monthbefore the tour. Please secure that you have your travel insurance before starting the tour. We expect you to arrive with a vehicle in good technical conditon, which can endure 10 days of serious overlanding. This tour will require average offroad experience and skills, but the rainy season in the Balkans (May) can bring us lots of mud and serious challenges on some trails (so keep that in mind!). During the tour a chance to refuel will be available each 200-250 km (petrol, diesel, LPG). All major credit cards (Visa, Master, Maestro, etc.) work in Serbia (both on ATM machines and for paying goods), but it’s advisable to have a small amount of cash for small expenses in the mountainous areas.

Tour booking form

If you have any more questions,
ask your guide!

Invoice and payment instructions will be e-mailed to you upon filling out and sending this registration form

Image gallery from the tour area

Take me back to the booking form!