I love the idea of planning an itinerary before I travel, even though I know that once I land in a place, the odds of my following the agenda aren’t great. I have always felt the tension between the desire to explore freely and having at least a broad agenda to minimize the time spent planning while I am traveling.

For this trip, after a brief two-day stop in Stockholm, the primary goal is to explore the parts of the Balkans I didn’t get to see back in 2018. After arriving in Bulgaria, the plan is to drive in a counter-clockwise circle through Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo before circling back to Sofia.

30 hours from departure, there is still a lot I need to figure out. The highway toll system seems inscrutable, I have marked far too many destinations to possibly visit, and last night, I started to think that maybe I just want to relax on Greek islands for a few weeks, so who knows where I will end up?

To the unknown!