Secret Carpathians

Serbia (camping tour)

August 9th – 19th 2026

What? How long? How hard? How much?

Type – standard offroad tour
Approximate length – 800 km
Wild camping (your own camping gear)
AT class tyres minimally required
Technical difficulty – 2-6/10 (weather dependent)
Scratching rate – 4-8/10 (scratching expected on a daily basis)

Tour price
1390 € per vehicle (regardless of number of passengers)

In this tour we explore the hidden Carpathian world in Serbia, south of the Danube river, which has everything a passionate wilderness explorer desires – deep, jungle-like forests, attractive, endlesly long highland ridges, breathtaking canyons, mountain lakes and rivers, trails leading you to lonely places and cliffs of timeless beauty above the clouds, exclusive, stunningly charming wild campspots, loads of mystery and ancient stories, and traditional way of life in the part of Serbia where time stands still. If you’ve liked the Carpathians in Romania, you’ll be overwhelmed by the discovery of the “Secret Carpathians”, wanting to return over and over again!

I’ve seen enough, take me to the booking form!

Where?

This tour starts from the Kučaj mountains, which are the largest chunk of uninhabited land in Serbia, featuring endless forests, impressive canyons and a huge highland plateau, before continuing to the south, where it reaches the 2000+ m mountains along the Bulgarian border. The tour continues further south along the Bulgarian border, all the way to the border with North Macedonia, driving along some epic highland ridges in the far south.

It’s a tour with a soul, for those with an endless desire to explore… It is simply THE crown of our Serbian tours, which can hardly be shadowed by any other – if you’re a die-hard overlanding nomad, you really have to try it at least once in a lifetime.

Tour itinerary

The meeting point for this tour is in a quiet countryside camp in the vicinity of the small town of Despotovac, about 30 minutes drive from the A1 highway (participants will get coordinates and detailed instructions on how to reach the meeting point about one month prior to the tour start).

During the 10 tour days we’ll make certain that you see the absolute highlights that the Serbian Carpathian mountains offer – revealing to you many geographical secrets known only to us!

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 dense forests of Homolje and Kučaj mountains, as we move southwards the forests are slowly replaced by wide open vistas and breathtaking distant views, as we start riding the virtually endless highland ridges of the south. Attractive, rocky peaks (which you can actually ascend with your 4×4 vehicle) will pop out of nowhere, making you just want to end your day there and enjoy the sunset. And the numerous river valleys harbor fantastic wild camping spots, where you have everything that you desire for a perfect escape from civilization – including enough firewood for campfires, and clean mountain water tasting much better than the bottled water that you often buy in the supermarkets. Some campsites, like the one in the Arbinje valley of Stara planina, where you have the opportunity to camp in the red rock riverbed, are a true natural masterpiece, while the lake campsites at Zavoj or Vlasina lakes make you want to extend the tour by a day or two, in order to have some pure chillout time, while swimming in those refreshing waters.

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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, natural stone arches (which eastern Serbia is particularly famous for), 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

We’ll be sleeping on nice natural campsites in total wilderness, often near rivers, streams or lakes. Our average time of arrival to campsite is between 17:00 and 18:00, and morning departure time is usually between 9:00 and 9:30. There will be plenty of firewood for building campfires, and in most cases there won’t be other people anywhere nearby. Although Serbia is a country rich with wildlife, with a large population of wolves, they pose no threat to the campers, so you can be relaxed. The altitude of our campsites will range between 700 and 2160 m, so it can in some of them be fresh during the night. To make camping more comfortable, you should have folding tables and chairs, as well as cooking equipment for food (although you can also use campfire), mobile refrigerator (12 V), etc.

I’ve seen enough, take me to the booking form!

Tour requirements

Tour requirements for the Secret Carpathians tour

  • AT or MT class tyres
  • basic tools for your vehicle and camping (like shovel, handsaw, etc.)
  • complete personal camping equipment
  • 12 V fridge and additonal equipment for preparing food
  • vehicle with low range transmission
  • a moderate lift – at least 2″

You should also consider

  • kinetic rope for offroad recovery
  • winch (may speed up recovery in case needed)
  • protective sillicone foil over your paint, or raptor coating (eastern Serbia has quite jungle-like terrain in many places, so we’ll have vegetation contact daily)
The attractive south-eastern descent from the highest peak, Midžor

Tour price coverage

Tour price covers

  • one adequately equipped guide vehicles with our guide
  • 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

I’ve seen enough, take me to the booking form!

Video from Secret Carpathians 2017

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 10 days 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. 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

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If you have any more questions,
ask your guide!

Invoice and payment instructions will be e-mailed to you upon filling out and sending this registration form

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