This is part of my Central Europe series. If you’re coming from Croatia’s coast, start with Split: Roman History Meets the Adriatic. Before arriving in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I knew remarkably little about the country. I could point to it on a map. I knew it had once been part of Yugoslavia. And I knew…

This is part of my Central Europe series. If you’re coming from Croatia’s capital, start with Zagreb: Croatia’s Overlooked Capital. After a single night in Zagreb, another early bus awaited. This time, however, I was finally heading toward the Croatia I thought I was coming to see. Before arriving in the country, the images that…

This is part of my Central Europe series. If you’re coming from Slovenia, start with I Thought Slovenia Was a Stop. It Should Have Been the Trip. Fresh off Slovenia, where what I thought would be a brief stop quickly became one of the highlights of the trip, I was once again boarding a bus…

This is part of my Central Europe series. If you’re coming from Austria, start with Why I Stopped in Graz Instead of Going Straight to Slovenia. By the time I arrived in Slovenia, I thought I already knew what the highlight of my trip would be. Kraków had exceeded every expectation (Is Poland Worth Visiting?…

This is part of my Central Europe series. If you’re coming from Slovakia, start with Slovakia: The Country I Knew Almost Nothing About. One of my favorite parts of independent travel is the freedom to adjust plans as I go. Not dramatically. Just enough to make a trip a little easier, a little more enjoyable,…

This is part of my Central Europe series. If you’re just joining the journey, start with Is Poland Worth Visiting? My Honest Thoughts After 5 Days and Warsaw vs. Kraków: Which Polish City Should You Visit? One of the things I enjoy most about longer trips is the opportunity to visit places I might never…