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.