With my route across BiH all planned out, I had to decide when to travel. It was necessary to schedule my train journey from Zagreb to Ploče, via Banja Luka and Sarajevo, before the end of August. The train from Sarajevo to Ploče runs only in the summer, and only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I scheduled the trip for Friday, August 29th. If everything went as planned, that would get me to Sarajevo on Saturday, August 30th and I would get on this summer’s last train to Ploče on Sunday, August 31st.

I spent most of this summer based in Zagreb, taking trains and riding bikes. While I mostly traveled around Slovenia and Croatia, in late August I embarked on a multi day trip across Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), taking trains to the Adriatic port of Ploče via Banja Luka and Sarajevo. This article is the first in the series about this trip, where I will share some background on why this trip is so long and complicated, and how I planned it despite these difficulties. In the following articles I will write about the trip itself.