Secret Carpathians – Indian Summer edition

Serbia (hotel tour)

October 5-11th 2025
October 11-17th 2026

What? How long? How hard? How much?

Type – standard offroad tour
Approximate length – 600 km
Hotel accomodation (3-4 star, HB)
AT class tyres minimally required, MT tyres recommended
Technical difficulty – 2-6/10 (weather dependent)
Scratching rate – 4-8/10 (scratching probable on most days)

Tour price

990 € per vehicle for guidance + 490 € per person for accomodation (HB) in double rooms or 690 € in single rooms

Imagine an enchanting mountainous landscape covered by forests with a colour mix from lemon yellow, through green, to blood red? Imagine canyons and stony ridges through which you roam freely, while watching that spectrum of colours below? Imagine driving all the way up to 2160 m of altitude, with a sea of clouds below you? And at the end of the day, relaxing in the thermal pools of 3 and 4 star luxury hotels? Well, all that is something that you will experience in our Secret Carpathians – Indian Summer tours!

The moment we heard the comment that “it’s too bad that Secret Carpathians can’t be done as a hotel accomodation tour, because there’d be many interested to take it” we started thinking how it could, perhaps, be done. Eastern Serbia, or the territory that the serbian part of the Carpathian mountains covers, is a wild, sparsely inhabited area, with very undeveloped tourist infrastructure, with almost no hotels. So offering it as a hotel version was a challenge. But we made it, and even achieved to make it just as much of an adventure like our famous Secret Carpathians camping tour!

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Where?

In 2025 we decided to make a refreshing change to the Indian Summer tour, by switching the direction to south to north, giving it unexpected new dynamic and making it possible to fit in more of the top attractive tracks, which this area has to offer. That way we will finally manage to include all of the attractive ascents in Stara planina, which were before driven only during the camping tour.

Tour itinerary

The meeting point for this tour will be in Pirot, the town near the Bulgarian border, from where we will drive in a convoy to our first hotel. On the next day we will start our rounds of Stara planina, where we will cover all three most attractive peaks – Kopren (1963), Bratkova Strana (1943) and Midžor (2169), driving some of the more demanding trails along the high ridges.

In the last three days the tour will continue further northwards, leading you to Kučaj, the largest continuously uninhabited piece of moutainous terrain in Serbia, visiting the most attractive scenic viewpoint there, driving some challenging tracks (depending on the weather conditions) and visiting the one of kind farm of the Mustecic family on Kovej, having a unique insight in the life of people, the local cuisine, and the most attractive point above the Lazar’s canyon.

What does the east of Serbia look like? Having a 4x lower population density than western Serbia, it is an ideal place for those seeking a true wilderness experience, rarely found in Europe nowadays. In some areas (such as the Kučaj mountains) you can drive for 50-70 km without encountering a single town of village – just endless forests and pastures in mountains rich with wildlife.

The landscape that you will encounter is diverse and ever changing as the tour progresses. Starting in the highest mountains of Serbia, above 2000 m of altitude well above the treeline, featuring breathtaking distant views as you ride the virtually endless highland ridges. Later in the tour you will move towards the dense forests of Kučaj mountains, which also feature attractive, rocky peaks (which you can actually ascend with your 4×4 vehicle) as well as numerous enchanting river valleys, such as the red rock Arbinje valley of Stara planina, a true natural masterpiece.

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You will encounter a wide variety of various trails during the tour, that will satisfy just ANY offroad enthusiasts preference for a pure joyride – from deep jungle trails, fighting with vegetation (and occasionally mud too), through grassland trails over wide open vistas, that will grant you a relaxed opportunity to enjoy the scenery at high speed, all the way to following long, narrow high ridges (reaching higher than 2000 m in altitude), where you’ll encounter the Balkans mountains in their true, majestic beauty.

And while on tour, you’ll discover many secret places hardly accessible to regular tourists, such as hidden waterfalls, narrow canyons, which will quickly jam up the memory cards of your cameras with unforgettable memories – and you’ll have a hard time to convince your friends that that is actually Europe, and not some exotic wild country on another continent.

Eastern Serbia is sparsely inhabited, which doesn’t mean that you won’t have an immersive cultural experience, meeting the local people in the mountains, with their ever friendly, hospitable smiles, having a chance to taste home made goat, sheep and cow cheese, and drink the fresh milk from the animals grazing all around you.

This tour is a product of many years of development and perfectioning, derived from previous tours which partially covered this area. That is why we will not try to explain to you in detail what you will do day after day – because every day will be a new adventure, a chance to unveil and enjoy something new. Until we get to the end, concluding your perfect overlanding story of the Balkans.

Accomodation

October is already a time of shorter, cooler days, where luxurious 3 and 4 star hotels with their thermal pools will perfectly complement your exciting days on the track. Fortunately, we managed to find just the right ones, which will overwhelm you with hospitality and wellness and spa content. Meals in most of them are served as buffet.

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Tour requirements

Equipment of your vehicle for the Secret Carpathians tours should include

• AT or MT tyres (for rainy conditions MT tyres are advisable)
• vehicle with a low gear range is mandatory
• basic tools for your vehicle
• 12 V fridge to keep your food for the lunchbreaks in nature fresh

You should also consider

• kinetic rope for offroad recovery
• winch (may speed up recovery in case needed)
• a moderate lift – at least 2″
• protective sillicone foil over your paint, or raptor paint (eastern Serbia has quite jungle-like trails, so we will have some rough contact with the vegetation daily)

Tour price coverage

Tour price covers

• one (or two, depending on the group size) adequately equipped guide vehicles with our guides
• accomodation in 3 and 4 star hotels, on a HB basis (breakfast and dinner included)
• all fuel and other expenses for the guide vehicles
• personal counceling before and during the tour
• appropriate GPS maps and data, that can be made available to the participants, if they have compatible hardware
• handheld communication radio
• logistic help in case you need servicing due to failures on your vehicle

Tour price does not cover

• individual fuel and toll costs
• individual food and drink expenses
• expenses for servicing done by third parties
• individual accomodation expenses before and after the tour (on your way to Serbia and back)
• other individual expenses

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What else you should know about the tour?

We shall travel during the tour in a convoy. We’ll timely supply you (about one month prior to the tour start) with a Google Maps link to the meeting point (as well as numeric coordinates), and the contact details of your guide. Please secure that you have your travel insurance before starting the tour. We expect you to arrive with a vehicle in good technical conditon, which can endure a week of moderate offroading. In case of a serious malfunction which renders the vehicle stationary, we’ll organize the handling of the problem with the nearest workshop which can handle the defect, and go on with the tour programme with other participants as soon as possible. You can rejoin us as soon as the defect has been repaired. During the tour a chance to refuel will be available each 200-250 km (petrol, diesel, LPG). All major credit cards (Visa, Master, etc.) work in Serbia (both on ATM machines and for paying goods), but it’s advisable to have a small amount of cash for small expenses in the mountainous areas.

Average tour difficulty is medium (intermediate). In practice, that means that we will be travelling on decent quality dirt roads most of the time, but occasionally we’ll encounter a certain technical problem that should be resolved in order to continue, such as excessively muddy areas, deeper tyre tracks, uneven or slippery terrain, tricky river crossings, stronger side angle, etc. We will handle every problem systematically and with minimum risk. We will not invent problems that are not already present on the track just for fun, or to show off. If we conclude that some problem is too risky, after consultation with the participants we may decide to make a detour (the guide vehicle always goes first to check out the problem difficulty). Our operational communication during the tour will be on handheld radios provided by us, that will be distributed to the participants at the beginning of the tour.

Tour booking form