In the past couple of years we've really enjoyed a couple of trips to Croatia and Slovenia, which have whetted our appetite, and we've heard great things about other East-European countries, such as Albania and Romania. So we targetted this for our first prolonged tour in retirement.

The original plan was to head down to Albania  or northern Greece in early April, meandering  north through Albania, North-Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, Hungary... or at least some of them. 

However, as Josie's titer-test showed insufficient Rabies immunity, we decided to split our tour into 2 parts: 

1. part 1: April/May 2025 - Romania and Bulgaria - staying within the EU, ie avoiding Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia. 
2. Part 2 will include these non-EU countries. For non-EU countries (Albania, Bosnia Herzegovena, Kosova, Montenegro, North Mecedonia and Serbia) roaming is very expensive, so if we're there for more than a few days, it's worth buying a local SIM card.  eg Albania SIM card ~ €20/month for 25GB. We could buy an eSIM for the next country before crossing the border (eg from Breeze)

This page shows potential routes, first for part 1, then for part 2, and has links to pages showing the highlights of each county. 

As Josie's joining us, the rules for importing dogs are summarised here.