Scratching the car is one of the bigger frustrations of overlanders that are newcomers to the Balkans. Instead of the nicely maintained trails in EU offroad parks, they suddenly stumble into true, completely unmaintained wilderness, discovering trails that may have not been driven by anyone for ages. And when a trail is not used, it becomes overgrown by vegetation. So what is my advice for the Balkans rookies? Watch our new video to find out!
We have reached the point when nothing is certain anymore. Right now we’re in the midst of toughest lockdowns Europe has seen so far. Travel is technically possible, but strongly discouraged by most governments, threatening quarantine upon returning. Well, actually not every European country has the same approach, so if you intend to travel we suggest that you examine the conditions set by every country that you want to pass through carefully. Continue reading Corona pandemic update / December→
We have published the video from the 2019 Balkans Wild Tracks tour. This epic tour has been our bestseller for the past several years. Take a look to find out why!
2020. BWT tours are already booked out, but you can reserve your spot for 2021. Visit the tour page on our company website for more info – https://www.rustikatravel.com/bwt/.
We’ve completed the video from our premiere 2019 Ancient Trails tour, which took place in June 2019. Lots of rain and mud, struggle with the elements, but also enjoying the incredible scenery of central Serbia. Don’t miss our next Ancient Trails tour in May 2020!
Material from our 2019 season is starting to be added to our gallery – there are two new albums from some very inspiring tours that took place in the wilderness of Serbia in June and July. There is a widespread belief among overlanders that Serbia is the least interesting of the Balkan countries. We’re sure that, looking at these albums, you will get the opposite impression! Serbia has a broad diversity of different landscapes, probably being more diverse than any other of the Balkan countries, and offers fantastic possibilities for wilderness exploration, especially with some, in places quite demanding forest trails. However, if you take on Serbia, you’ll have to be ready to confront vegetation on a daily basis!
Ancient Trails is our brand new tour covering the mountains of central and southwest Serbia, and Secret Carpathians is our by far most popular tour, covering the serbian part of the Carpathians in eastern Serbia, continuing into the awe inspiring Balkan mountain range along the bulgarian border. Pictures speak much louder than words in both cases!
We have just released the photo album and video from our first tour of the season, the Homolje Gold Rush 2019. It was a great tour that was fully booked out, and the participants have enjoyed it very much! It’s one of only two hotel accomodation tours in our yearly calendar.
We managed to produce videos from two more of our 2018 season tours – the one from Iron Gate and The Stone Arches, as well as the video from the last of the Secret Carpathians series, which took place in October and was conducted for customers of 4WD Travel from the Netherlands.
While Iron Gate tour had just a few sunny days and turned out to be the rainiest of the 2018 tours, SC 4WD was conducted in perfect October weather and was perhaps the most enjoyable tour of the season. Take a look what these tours looked like!
Our ability to camp 365 days a year largely depends on the options how to keep our (rooftop or other) tents warm. Well, sleeping bags intended for below -30 temperatures do exist, but freezing your nose and face off if they’re protruding from the sleeping bag isn’t really the perfect idea of nighttime comfort. And being wrapped up in your mummy-bag doesn’t really leave space to do anything but sleep while in the tent. So what are the options of improving tent-life quality in cold places?
We know that most overlanders avoid taking part in organized tours, feeling uncomfortable with a strict timetable and a fixed itinerary that those tours usually mean. They want to have a much more relaxed feeling while on vacation exploring the unknown, with a chance to modify the plan on the move and adapt the tour pace to their likings.
We understand them very well, because those are our preferences too. So when we started organizing tours we thought how it could be done without becoming some kind of a disciplined, military drill, quite common for most tour organizers. And we found a good model. We just don’t conduct our organized tours any differently than when we travel with friends. What does that exactly mean?
It’s time to enter the family of overlanding nomads and provide a home on the roof of your offroader for yourself. But how to choose your ideal rooftop tent? In this short article we try to explain the good and bad sides of the two major types of rooftop tents.
I’ve been into nomadic travel through the wilderness of the Balkans for quite a number of years now, so I could say that I’ve got “some” experience on what’s important for a comfortable life in the wild. I’ve been using a softtop foldable tent for the first 7 years of that period, and must say that I’ve been quite happy with it, although over time I’ve started being more and more aware of it’s shortcomings. A moment came when I realized that a hardshell tent would be the evolution in the right direction for me, despite it’s higher price – packing and unpacking a softtop foldable tent day after day (especially in cold or rainy conditions) simply became too much of a hassle.