travel advice on going from croatia to istanbul

My cousin and I are traveling from Budapest to Istanbul for almost a month. We want to spend at least 5 days in turkey and maybe 2-3 days in all other destinations. We are trying to figure out what the best destinations are on the way that would be accessible by bus and are the most worth seeing. We were either planning on doing Budapest to Zagreb then Zagreb to Split Then possibly split to Tirana then to Ohrid. that would leave us at the 27th of the month when we want to fly OUT of istanbul around the 5th of september so we are just torn between more country hopping with less time in turkey or spending a longer time in turkey. Please help! Thank you!

More is often less.