Hi James,
We’re still on the road at the moment, enjoying our last few days in the Greek sunshine! It’s been a really great trip, but tricky sometimes with the kids. We found visits to cities quite tricky but then that’s also to do with the age of our kids!
Do you have a rough idea of where you are planning to visit? I’ll give you a bit of a summary of the countries we visited:
Serbia - really friendly and beautiful places to visit. Good campground just outside of Belgrade to visit the city. We loved the city of Nis. Zlatibor mountain area is stunning as us the Tara national park, but it will be getting quite cold by end October. I also recommend the Mokra Gora train trip, great with kids.
Outside of the cities and main tourist areas of national parks there were few campsites but we often stayed at wineries.
B&H - loved Bosnia! Such a beautiful, beautiful country. Sarajevo is a must. Mostar too. Mostar was insanely busy when we visited, try to get there early in the day. Unfortunately we didn’t have as long in B&H as we would have liked.
Montenegro - Bay of Kotor was stunning, we stayed outside and took a bus into Kotor a boat trip back to the campsite, the kids loved it! We then went to Durmitor National Park, stunning but FREEZING! Biogradska National Park was also nice but you really need to be able to walk a bit to appreciate it, our kids were a bit young to hike. Then we visited lake Skadar, supposed to be stunning but it was raining so i can’t say much.
Albania - so I think Albania will depend on your kids and your vehicle. We enjoyed it a lot but the weather was hit and miss. Pretty much everywhere on the coast is now closed for the season. Although there are lots of places to wild camp and the sea is lovely and some campsites are still open, there weren’t a lot of restaurants. We were fine driving everywhere with our big vehicle except the mountains in the north which would have been too much. I also recommend visits to Berät and Krujë.
The further south the more basic the campsites. Most places only take cash.
Generally everything has been really fun and straightforward (although a bit trickier as things close down for the season, you’ll need to wild camp and be a bit more self sufficient re food.) Whilst we haven’t met many other families with kids the local people have been unbelievably welcoming. Our kids have been spoilt rotten with cake and chocolates and home cooked breakfasts nearly everywhere!
This is already a very long post, but feel free to pm me or email (Kathi.ch at iCloud com) if you would like any more details on specific campsites etc. I also have a pretty comprehensive list of Balkan playgrounds!
Happy travels!
