Settling Into Slow Travel Life In Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina)

We’ve been in Sarajevo for a few weeks now and are in a pretty nice slow travel groove.

We have managing our day-to-day needs figured out. We know how to get around the city. We know the major tourist areas to visit (or avoid). And we have discovered a bunch of great hiking routes.

Simply put, our slow travel life in Sarajevo is pretty great.

It hasn’t been since Baños de Agua Santa (Ecuador) that we’ve had such a great blend of urban and rural living, which is perfect for people like us.

Come see what we mean.

So What Is Sarajevo Like?

Sarajevo is a very interesting place.

Although it is the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the city never feels overwhelmed with traffic or tourism. Sure, touristy areas get more volume. But it never feels like it is difficult to enjoy Sarajevo at any time during the day.

And we are really loving the locals we have met.

Granted you can’t generalize an entire city’s culture from 4 or 5 extended interactions. But we’ve found locals to be outgoing and funny, kind and welcoming to visitors, and eager multilingual communicators.

We’ve been shocked at how many Sarajevo locals speak good English, although that mainly applies to those under 40 years old. Even when we meet older-generation locals (usually 40+ years old) who can’t speak English, we all usually have a good laugh at how bad our collective language skills are while relying on pantomime.

It is also interesting living in a city whose dominant religion is Islam, even if it is only around 53% of the population. You’ll hear calls to prayer throughout the day. See crowds of people entering and leaving mosques at different times for worship services. And it is common to see women in traditional headdresses, ranging from simple scarves to full-length burkas.

But other religions are represented here too, and the overall vibe seems tolerant and respectful. It’s been nice to experience this firsthand, especially when considering the horrors of the Yugoslav war that took place here in the 1990s.

And smoking is a thing here, as it is in the Balkans in general. Not as bad as we remember in the USA circa 1980, but smoking culture is alive and well in Sarajevo.

Thankfully you don’t have to worry about it in supermarkets and most indoor public places. But for bars, cafes, and restaurants, you have to check out their seating area to see whether or not you can escape secondhand smoke if smoking is allowed.

That said we haven’t had any problems. It is just weird that we’ve had to think about this sort of thing again.

Communication

Although the same language is used in B&H for all practical purposes as in Serbia (Serbo-Croatian), it has been much easier for us to communicate in Sarajevo.

The Cyrillic alphabet does exist here, but it is used FAR less than in Serbia, in favor of the Latinized version. After discussing languages with a Sarajevo couple on the hiking trails, we got the impression that the Cyrillic alphabet is viewed with a certain amount of eye-rolling contempt by the younger generation.

What this means is that it is much easier for us to operate in the streets of Sarajevo.

Printed words are easier to pronounce. Signs are easier to translate. Menus are easier to deal with. And absorbing new vocabulary is MUCH easier.

And as we’ve mentioned before, locals in Sarajevo seem more proficient in (or are more willing to use) English.

So it is a little weird – communicating has been much less stressful in Sarajevo than in Belgrade, despite the language being effectively the same.

Personal Safety

We haven’t felt unsafe at all in Sarajevo, at any time of day or night. We’ve walked all over the city, and into many of the neighborhoods surrounding the central artery, without any issues whatsoever.

In the evenings, people young and old are out in parks and walking for pleasure in the streets. And kids are given the freedom to roam and play in their neighborhoods, more or less unsupervised, like it used to be in the USA back in the 1970s.

Of course, you are advised to watch out for pickpockets in the heavy tourist zones. That said, Sarajevo does not have a reputation for worrisome levels of crime.

Day-To-Day Life Stuff

It has been really easy for us to live our slow travel lives here.

We reside in the Hrasno neighborhood, which is ~3.5 km west of the center of town and almost 5 km west of the historic old town.

The Hrasno neighborhood is residential, which is just the way we like it.

The Robot shopping center is right across the street from us and accommodates 80% of our grocery and houseware needs. The only things that our Robot shopping center lacks are good produce and meat sections. But for those things, we just walk 15 minutes to the Mercator Ložionička shopping center, where their meat and produce selections are solid.

And like Madrid, Spain, our neighborhood has lots of local cafes and restaurants to take advantage of.

Getting Around Sarajevo

In some ways, getting around Sarajevo is easier than in Belgrade. And in some ways harder.

Sarajevo is quite walkable, with good sidewalks and other pedestrian-specific walkways to help everyone get around safely.

But we still need to use public transportation.

The sprawl of Sarajevo is sausage-shaped, following the East-West flood plain running between the mountains here. And with us being on the western side of town, taking public transportation is needed if we want to get to the more historic eastern side.

Public transportation comes in several forms here. There are electric rail trams, buses, and minibuses here. Trams run up and down the central artery, buses service the neighborhoods further out, and minibuses run from the city to the more mountainous communities nearby.

And it seems that the public transportation system in Sarajevo has received a major facelift. Buses and trams are pretty new and shiny, with only the occasional tram looking more than a handful of years old.

The cost to ride any of these vehicles is the same at 1.80 BAM (~$1 USD) per ride.

What adds complexity to this system is that there are TWO groups in charge of public transportation routes.

The first group is GRAS – which is run by the local government. GRAS route information can be found on Google Maps. Within Sarajevo, trams and buses run pretty often, so you don’t have to wait long for your ride. But if you are traveling to a nearby town outside of Sarajevo you may be waiting a while before the bus comes! The only solution is to visit a terminal stop for that route in advance and look for a piece of paper with the schedule printed on it. Crazy that this information is not available online.

The second group is Centrotrans – which is a private company. Centrotrans publishes all of its routes (with schedule information) on its homegrown app. This makes planning MUCH easier!

We’ve used both systems and they are very nice. But we admit that it is much easier to plan our travel around Centrotrans routes if we are going to satellite towns outside of Sarajevo.

Local Cuisine

Like Serbia, meat is always on the menu in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Truth be told, their local cuisines seem more similar than different from what we’ve seen so far.

However, there are some interesting differences in the markets. For example, it has been easier to find a great selection of cheap, high-quality breads in Belgrade. And in Sarajevo, it is easier to find a huge selection of cheap, sweet Turkish-style treats.

Broadly speaking, it is a little harder to find a broad selection of produce in Sarajevo compared to many other cities we have lived in. But if you are willing to walk a little, you can usually hunt down what you need.

And food costs seem to be a bit cheaper for many things in Sarajevo than in Belgrade, although results may vary depending on if you are in a tourist zone.

Killing Time

As usual, we keep up with our Spanish language studies, financial management responsibilities, and personal hobbies.

But when we want to get out, we spend most of our time exploring.

Getting to know our local neighborhood. Stretching our legs along the walkway that follows the river near our place. Exploring the historic areas of Sarajevo. Finding new restaurants and grocery store opportunities. And checking out the B&H version of shopping malls.

We always find ways to enjoy ourselves. Here are some examples.

And we’ve been hiking. A lot.

Sarajevo has a bunch of easily accessible, high-quality trails that have scratched our itch to get back out into nature. We’ll write about the hiking aspects of our Sarajevo lives in another post though.

Closing Thoughts

For us, Sarajevo has been a really easy city to live a slow travel life.

The people are great. The culture is vibrant. Living expenses are affordable. Amenities are accessible. The historic center is fascinating. And access to the great outdoors is easy.

We haven’t said much about our outdoor explorations yet, but our next post will almost assuredly be about one of the big hiking trips we have made.

Until next time…

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