Travel / cycling
Bicycle touring the beautiful Balkans
We are traversing a steadily rising, constantly winding road as swallows sweep over the dolomite landscape and autumnal sunshine glints down.
As we gain height, our surroundings become ever more barren and quiet, the only sounds our breathing and the rattle of our panniers.
I let the wheels take the load and put my effort into the pedals, revelling in the simple majesty of moving myself and my essentials through the landscape.
Our entire view framed by never-ending, jagged peaks; it feels as if we have this rugged and beautiful world to ourselves.
Montenegro’s central region has many remote gravel paths to explore
This is central Montenegro, the second country in the Balkans we have passed through as part of a 6,000km journey from Bristol to Turkey.
With the Schengen clock finally paused as we entered the tiny, non-EU nation, we have travelled north inland after cycling the infamous Serpentine (8.3km of hairpin bends weaving up above the medieval city of Kotor) and found ourselves on an epic gravel path linking Šavnik and Kolašin.
From there, we planned to take a meandering route in a general eastern direction through Albania, North Macedonia and Greece before reaching our final European destination, Turkey.
Korçë, in the south east of Albania, is full of fascinating architecture including its Orthodox church
A complex region with an extraordinarily rich cultural heritage, Europe’s Balkan lands have been travelled through and fought over by civilisations including the Romans, Greeks and Ottomans for more than a millennium.
Broadly speaking, the term applies to the peninsula that stretches throughout southeastern Europe and ends in Greece.
And traveling light and wild camping under the stars with a bike and a tent really is the way to explore the Balkans’ diverse mountainous landscapes.
In Albania, “wild camping”, sometimes called stealth camping, is legal
Just days before, we are island-hopping along the Dalmatian coast, gliding along hilly yet rewardingly car-free roads, passing vineyards and blinded by views of a bright blue sea.
In Albania, we make fires overlooking Gjançit lake, sleep next to Përmet hot springs and visit the famous Blue Eye in Muzinë.
We spend four days camping on a deserted beach in Dhërmiu, spending days resting our aching bodies, swimming and being enveloped by sunsets.
And two weeks later, we find ourselves waking up in a frozen tent in a misty field in Bitola, North Macedonia, cycling past warning signs for bears and trying to race to milder climes in Greece and avoid forecast snow chasing our tails.
Visitors who explore the Adriatic Coast out of season are rewarded with deserted beaches
The further east we pedal, the more doors open and conversation, food and spaces to pitch our tent are offered.
Beneath the Sea of Mamara in Turkey, a bitter rain starts to pour as we ride on the hard shoulder of a highway (not to be recommended).
Exhausted and soaked through, we have 30km left until we reach our destination of Bandirma, where a bed in a guesthouse awaits.
We are feeling hopeless, until a lorry driver stops a dozen meters ahead and offers us a lift and a meal of meatballs and kefir in a roadside restaurant.
Two days later, we meet farmer Mermat, who lets us camp on his land and gives us gifts of hard-boiled eggs, grapes and bread.
Balkan hospitality is exceptionally warm and generous
“My tent froze over and I climbed the equivalent of three Everests on a bike with 20kg of luggage,” might not be everyone’s ideal holiday.
But I challenge anyone to beat the ecstatic feeling of reaching the top of a gravel mountain path in Montenegro, snacking on burek and taking in the spectacular, remote beauty of the Balkans.
This article originally appeared in Bristol24/7’s November/December 2025 magazine
All photos: Betty Woolerton
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