9 Days of Culture, Castles & Waterfalls in Bosnia

After breakfast, you'll head south into Herzegovina, where the landscape gets even more dramatic. The drive itself is the day's first highlight, following the Neretva River—a ribbon of liquid jade so vibrant it seems to glow. You'll wind past canyons and the stunning Jablanica Lake, scenery so beautiful it makes you want to write bad poetry.

Then, you’ll arrive in Mostar. The city is home to the legendary Stari Most, a bridge so elegant it looks less like engineering and more like a stone rainbow.

Dive into the cobbled alleys of the Old Town, a bustling bazaar where the sound of coppersmiths’ hammers fills the air. For the best view in the house, climb the minaret of the Koski Mehmed-Pasha Mosque. It’s a tight squeeze, but the panoramic photo you’ll get is worth every single step. Your legs will forgive you eventually.

You'll have free time to wander, shop, and relax in a riverside café before spending the night in this magical city.

Today's optional tour is for people who realize the best things in life aren't mandatory.

First, you visit Počitelj, a stone town that forgot to check the calendar for the last 600 years. It’s not a replica; it’s a stubborn survivor, built back when things were meant to last longer than a mortgage.

Then, you see Kravice Waterfalls, which is the planet showing off. It's a roaring, wide-screen cascade that makes every manicured city fountain look like a pathetic, leaky faucet.

You end in Blagaj, where a river explodes fully-formed from a cliff. Next to this raw power sits a silent Dervish monastery—the universe's most interesting odd couple. Lunch is trout from the miracle you just witnessed, because even profundity should be served with a lemon wedge.

Alright, time to trade one stunning view for another. Today is a travel day, which is the universe's polite term for a 4-hour road trip that beats your 40-minute morning commute by a soul-cleansing landslide.

You're heading to Bihać, a town that exists in a permanent hug with the Una River. The story goes that the Romans first saw it and named it "Una"—the one—because they were so floored by its beauty they simply ran out of superlatives. An empire, left speechless.

You'll get a chance to have lunch by this legendary river. It’s the perfect introduction to a town whose main feature is a waterway so gorgeous it broke the vocabulary of a conquering army.

Wake up in Bihać, stuff your face, and then go watch Una River throw itself off a cliff at Štrbački Buk like it’s auditioning for a shampoo commercial—nature’s way of saying, “top this, humans.” Then swing by Natura Art Eco Village, where lunch is served on a boat so you can literally eat your soup while the river rocks you like a drunk lullaby. End the day back in town, belly full, eyes dazzled, realizing that in Bihać even the waterfalls have better stage presence than most rock bands.

First, you hit the Japod Islands, where the river curves into a perfect little heart, just to remind you that Mother Nature still does romance better than Tinder. Then it’s off to Ostrožac Castle, a stone beast on a hill that’s been judging humanity for centuries and still hasn’t seen enough to be impressed. Wrap it up with another night in Bihać, where even doing nothing feels like you’re cheating the system—because sometimes the best option is the “optional.”

Check out, grab your breakfast, and roll toward Sarajevo like a suitcase with a hangover. First stop: Jajce, a town so ridiculously beautiful it makes other postcards look like mugshots. This is where empires came to flex—Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians—all leaving behind enough ruins to start a clearance sale. And smack in the middle of town? A waterfall, because Jajce doesn’t just do history, it does special effects. Swing by Pliva Lake and its wooden water mills—basically medieval blenders still humming along. Then on to Travnik, where Ottoman governors once ruled and Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić was born, proving genius can grow anywhere, even under empire fatigue. Climb the fortress, snap your photos, and feel superior to everyone scrolling Instagram back home. Finally, Sarajevo awaits—history’s crossroads, your overnight pit stop, and the only place where the past, present, and future all argue over coffee.

09:30. Breakfast done, now the city of Sarajevo rolls out the red carpet of contradictions. First stop: Baščaršija, the Old Town, where Ottoman cobblestones and Austro-Hungarian facades stare each other down like divorced parents at Christmas. They call this place the “Jerusalem of Europe,” and for once the slogan isn’t pure tourist-board fluff—mosques, cathedrals, churches, and synagogues sit shoulder to shoulder, probably wondering how the hell they all ended up on the same block. You’ll see Gazi Husrev Beg’s 1530 mosque, his madrassa, and a lunar clock tower that makes your smartwatch look like a cheap toy. Then there’s the Sacred Heart Cathedral, the biggest Serbian Orthodox church, the Jewish Museum in a synagogue from 1581, and the Eternal Flame burning for World War II. Markale market waits too, carrying both beauty and ghosts. At the Latin Bridge you stand where a bullet turned an archduke into history’s domino and accidentally invented World War I. The Ancient Bezistan bazaar, Sebilj fountain—the city’s mascot—and the grand Sarajevo City Hall (“Vijećnica”), a library so beautiful it could make you read something longer than a text message.

Lunch saves the day: legendary ćevapi, meatballs that taste like Bosnia’s love letter to cholesterol, or pies so good you’ll forgive empires for invading. Wash it down with Bosnian coffee, thick enough to stand a spoon upright and strong enough to erase jet lag.

Optional: Trebević Olympic Mountain, where you get panoramic views of Sarajevo and can wander the woods or walk the eerie skeleton of the Olympic bobsled track, a reminder that glory doesn’t age well.

Back to the hotel, free time, overnight in Sarajevo

Breakfast, check out, and off you go—Sarajevo International Airport, where the trip ends the way all great adventures do: in a security line with your shoes off, clutching a boarding pass like it’s a golden ticket. The city waves goodbye with minarets and mountains in the rearview, and you realize departures are just Sarajevo’s way of saying, “Come back when you’re hungry again.”