Slowerlanding Carpathians (slowerlanding tour)

Serbia
June 29th – July 9th 2025

The impressive Iron Gate gorge may not be the highest, but is the biggest gorge in Europe, where the mighty river Danube breaks through the Carpathian mountains on it’s way towards the Black Sea. Numerous beautiful beaches feature some of the best sunsets, and the Lepenski Vir archeological museum has been build on the site of the oldest culture in Europe, about 7000 years old. And it is not only the riverbank of Danube that is impressive, but the Carpathian mountains south of it harbor many true gems – rivers, waterfalls and small lakes, great scenic viewpoints, but most of all they are famous for the 15 natural stone arches, hidden deep in some of the small river valleys. It is an unknown green world full of surprises!

What? How long? How hard? How much?

Type – slowerlanding tour
Organizer – Dreamscape Overland
Duration – 10 days
Approximate length – 600 km
Technical difficulty – easy to medium
Tarmac/gravel rate – 50/50%

Price
1390 € per vehicle

Where?

Tour coverage

The tour will start from a very nice campsite at the bank of the Danube in the vicinity of Golubac, and for the first few days it will follow the tarmac road along the Danube for the most part, occasionally making detours towards points of interest, such as some attractive scenic viewpoints, or the Lepenski Vir archeological museum (some hiking may be required).

Our 2018 tour from the area (not a slowerlanding tour)

Upon completing the part along the Iron Gate gorge, we will move further inland into the serbian Carpathians, and that is where gravel roads will start to dominate the tour. After visiting the beautiful Blederija waterfall, we will also visit the Vratna river, known for having three natural stone arches in it’s canyon (making it unique in Europe). The next camp will be in the vicinity of the Vratna monastery, at the start of the canyon.

Our journey continues further in a southwesterly direction, until we reach the lake on Stol mountain, which will be the next camp. It’s a beautiful little spot, offering great opportunities for swimming in the hot summer weather, as well as hiking to the nearby Stol peak, which really offers some impressive views.

Next section takes us towards the town of Bor for refueling and resupplying, after which we continue towards the Kučaj mountains and Kovej, the most impressive place above the awe insipiring Lazar’s canyon, the most famous canyon in Serbia. As this could easily be the highlight of the tour, Kovej is the place where we will spend two nights, offering you a day to rest among the incredible scenic views, or maybe undertake a more active day of hiking along the ridge of Malinik mountain, or venture into the depths of the canyon.

After Kovej, our journey into the heart of Kučaj mountains continues, as we stop briefly to visit the Novi Stjenik monastery under the Mikulj peak, before we end the day at our next campsite, in a fairy-tale-like area of pinetree forests and picturesque meadows, called Valkaluci. Valkaluci is situated in the very centre of Kučaj mountains, equally far from civilization on all sides. And knowing that Kučaj is the biggest uninhabited area in Serbia, this is really remote!

As we continue through Kučaj, we will reach Beljanica, a plateau also featuring the highest peak of Kučaj, and some spots which are really great for wild camping. So that’s where our next camp will be. As we descent towards the northwest from Beljanica we will finally reach the Homolje mountains and Trest forest, where our last campsite will be, deep in the Vitovnica river valley. On our way there we will also visit the Krupaja spring, a very beautiful spring coming out of a cave which is so deep that the cave divers didn’t manage to reach the bottom yet!

Our 2017 tour in the area (lots of narrow tracks, not a slowerlanding tour!)

Accomodation

For this tour we have really carefully picked out our campsites, and they are mostly beautiful spots deep in the wild, often on riverbanks or lakes, which inspire to spend more than one night. And on one occasion, in a very beautiful place, we will really spend two nights in one spot, having a rest day which is common practice in the slowerlanding tours. Daily driving will be shorter than in the standard offroad tours, more focused on enjoying the surroundings in the places where we camp. In most camps there will be a possibility to resupply drinking water, and an opportunity to swim in the Danube, or in the Stol lake. Other places will have plenty of firewood lying around, so building campfires will be quite simple.

Your touring vehicle and equipment

One fully camping equipped offroad vehicle, van or truck
AT class tyres or good quality road tyres

Tour price coverage

Tour price covers

our guide in his own vehicle
all fuel and other expenses for the guide vehicle
personal counceling before and during the tour
appropriate GPS data in GPX format
dual band handheld radios

Tour price does not cover

individual fuel and toll costs
individual food and drink expenses
servicing expenses by third parties
other individual expenses

What else you should know about the tour?

You with timely be supplied (one month prior to the tour) with a Google waypoint to the tour starting point, as well as the phone number of your guide. Please secure that you have your travel insurance before starting the tour. We expect you to arrive with a 4×4 vehicle / van / truck in good technical conditon, which can endure ten days of moderate overlanding. This tour does not require a high level of offroad experience and skills. There will be parts of the tour when we won’t have a chance to refuel for several days so you should have a fuel tank that can guarantee covering 250 km without visiting a petrol station. All major credit cards (Visa, Master, Maestro, etc.) work in Serbia (either on ATM machines or for paying goods), and the official currency in Serbia is Dinar (RSD). You’re advised to have at least a small amount of cash for small expenses in the mountainous areas.

Average tour difficulty is easy, with rare moderate details. In practice, that means that we will be travelling on a combination of tarmac and decent quality dirt roads, selecting those which are wide enough to accomodate larger vehicles such as vans and trucks. On a few occasions we will have to pass shorter sections which are at the very border of acceptability regarding width and vegetation, where, in case there are some branches extruding from the side too much, the guide will remove them with the chainsaw, so that all vehicles can safely pass. However, the final approach to the meadow on Kovej (where we spend two nights) is rather narrow, so some scratching will happen. If you have a problem with this, protect your car body with some protective sheets. We will not have any deep water crossings on our route (so no snorkel is necessary). Our operational communication during the tour will be on dualband handheld VHF/UHF radios, which will be distributed to the participants at the tour start.