I recently heard about Belgrade, Serbia and decided to find it on Google Maps. For some reason, I couldn’t stop looking it up and seeing all the cool countries that were surrounding it! The seed was planted and I was dreaming about buying rugs in Turkey and visiting castles in Transylvania and slipping out to the beaches in the Greek Islands. My career had taken a bit of an unexpected turn and I immediately pounced on the idea of traveling. Watering the seed had begun…

Only a few days out of work later I pulled up the maps and started looking at what could really be a feasible trip. Belgrade looks cool but it wouldn’t be a good place to start the adventure from. Turkey required a Visa and since I was only considering Istanbul, I decided to skip it and start looking at flights into Athens. Going overland from Turkey to Greece would be a time suck and I didn’t think it would be time well spent. Flights into Athens were incredibly reasonable and as history proves, it’s rare for me to go into and out of the same foreign country. Where would be a good spot to travel to?

Croatia has been all the rage the past few years and I have had several friends go and love the coastline, beaches and food. Then I heard about the beauty of Slovenia and all the outdoor recreation it has to offer so of course, I had to go there too! And by the looks of it, Venice, Italy was pretty close as well! Venice is a place that I’ve been kicking myself about not visiting while I was working in Tuscany. So 10 years later, I decided to add it to my list and have it be my final destination!

There are a lot of other countries between Greece and Croatia and my preferred style of overland travel versus flying, it would make sense to check those out too. So as for now, I’m including Macedonia, possibly Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzgovina in my adventure. I clearly got excited at all the new places to explore and cultures to learn about and let’s face it; food to eat! Since this trip will be my shortest solo trip at just 6-weeks, I hope that I can successfully give each country my time to appreciate all it has to offer.

Are you ready to learn about these beautiful countries with me? Let’s do this!