Country with Enchanting Landscapes

Serbia is a buzzy and boisterous country, compact enough for visitors to sample both Belgrade’s urban hedonism and the gentler pace of the smaller towns or national parks within a few days and it’s one of Europe’s most affordable destinations to boot. Grittier than its blue-eyed neighbor Croatia, it is nevertheless an integral part of any backpacker’s Balkan tour: at the heart of the region, it gives easy access to the cluster of cultures and histories crammed into this small corner of Europe.

Serbia’s young, European-minded population brings a bubbling energy to its bars, cafés and clubs, producing an adrenaline-charged nightlife unmatched anywhere else in the Balkans. The general determination to have a good time confounds the expectations of many a traveler, arriving with memories of the 1990s, when Serbia’s name was not often off war reporters’ lips. Today, it’s just as likely to attract headlines for its crop of world-class tennis players or the annual EXIT festival in Novi Sad.

Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, is a sociable, hectic city that energizes and exhausts by turns. Northwest of the city on the iron-flat Vojvodina Plain sits lovely Novi Sad, window to the Fruška Gora hills, while further north a stone’s throw from the border with Hungary enchanting Subotica is sprinkled with early twentieth-century Secessionist architecture. Deep in the mountainous tract of land to the south of Belgrade are three key struts of Serbia’s religion-cultural heritage Žiča, Studenica and Sopoćani monasteries. East of here, Niš is a pleasant small city to pause in en route to or from Bulgaria or North Macedonia.