A Balkan Love Letter: The Making of a Tourism Powerhouse

Just in case you decide to stop reading this article after the first sentence—I’m not calling you out, I do it all of the time—I want to be sure you get at least one solid inside tip before leaving: Make the Balkan Peninsula the site of your next vacation.

If you feel like you have heard more about the Balkans in recent months, it is no coincidence. This region, tucked between Italy and Turkey and underneath Hungary and Austria, is reaching a tipping point in popularity. Stories about countries here—especially on the peninsula’s western half—are starting to come in waves and from nearly every travel publication. Articles about Croatia and Slovenia are expected. The former has 1,185 islands. The latter sits at the foot of the Alps. But it is the countries just below these holiday stalwarts (see the map above) that are beginning to take the headlines.

In this spirit, I offer the first of my Balkan Love Letters. I live in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the heart of the Southeastern European peninsula. In this series I will provide tips, places to visit, information about outfitters, local insight, and anything I can to make visiting here easier for readers. Consider this an open, but respectful, forum. Feel free to leave comments and questions—below—asking for travel advice. I will do my damnedest to incorporate your questions into upcoming letters.

For years, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia were just names on a geography quiz. Or, worse, they were the answers to questions concerning dictatorial regimes or wars in the 1990s. No longer. Today, these countries represent the next frontier of European travel. The nations of the Western Balkans, presently and collectively, sit on a rare precipice in tourism: They are, for the most part, unsullied; they still cling to old-world traditions; their landscapes are crisscrossed with mountain ranges and rivers; the region hugs the Adriatic Sea; and it is still relatively undiscovered.

The undiscovered part will change … soon.

How do I know? I have been a travel writer the better part of 20 years. Depending on whom you ask, this is either impressive or depressing. Regardless, travel writers—who make a living at it—share one key trait: They can smell the winds of change and adjust to cater to the needs of publications. Today’s editors are looking for stories about the Balkans.

But even throwing all of this insider intel out the window, one can just apply logic to the situation. More than a billion people are traveling the planet at any given moment. The travel industry is predicated on the next “undiscovered” destination. The Western Balkans, for unfounded reasons, has remained a blind spot on many tourism radars. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that the region is just a quick train, bus, or ferry ride away from that traditional stopping point for many American tourists in Europe: Italy.

I owe my travel-writing career—for whatever that’s worth—to the Balkan Peninsula. I moved to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1998. I chose the Balkans, I suppose … but not really. I would have gone anywhere. I was in my 20s. But one life decision tends to roll into another, and for the last 17 years I have lived on a circuit between the States, Sarajevo, and Zagreb, Croatia.

My first real stories for publications of girth were about this peninsula. I was lucky. This was before there was an abundance of interest—or travel writers—in this beautiful, but, at the time, war-torn region. Editors took my stories because I was among the few pitching ideas. I wasn’t ahead of my time; I just happen to be here. Today, to everyone’s benefit, a new cadre of writers has shifted its focus to the Balkans.