Hiking in Sutjeska National Park, Bosnia & Herzegovina

From Slovenia we continued our roadtrip south to Bosnia & Herzegovina. Our plan was to stay at Hotel Mladost close to Sutjeska National Park in the south part of the country. We only stayed for two nights, so we had just one full day to explore the place.

The nature was really beautiful, but getting to the starting place of our hike was a bit of a challenge. Wereceived good instructions and a map from the Hotel reception. It was only a 20 kilometer drive to the starting place. The guy at the reception said that once we turn from the main road, the road turns into a dirt road. I asked, if it was still ok to drive with a normal car. He said it was. Well it took us about 2 hours to drive the 20 kilometers. Unfortunately we didn’t get any really good pictures of the road, because we had to concentrate on not breaking our car. But we managed still!

We stopped at a few lookout places on the way and the scenery was amazing. And it was very quiet, no other people around.

There were several options from out starting place. We decided to walk to Trnovačko Lake, which was about a two hour hike from where we left our car. It was a well-marked route and the weather was great again.

The Trnovačko Lake is actually in Montenegro. The path continues from here to the top of Maglić, the highest mountain in Bosnia & Herzegovina. It would have taken us atleast 5 hours to the top and back, so we didn’t even consider going up. It was still worth just visiting the lake.

We took the same route back to our car after a short break at the lake. The autumn colors were beautiful on the way. And the sun was shining!

This were we started and ended our hike. We were happy to be back while there was still daylight left as we wanted to drive down before dark. It was a bit faster driving down, but it still took us a lot of time.

There is a lot of potential in Bosnia & Herzegovina for all kinds of outdoor activities. The nature is really beautiful, but the roads are not so good and the whole infrastructure needs some development. But if you are ready for some adventure, I can recommend it already now.