Serbia runs on strong coffee, stronger rakija, and a hospitality that treats letting a guest pay as a personal insult. It's one of the cheapest corners of Europe left, the trains and buses are dirt cheap, and outside Belgrade you'll often be the only foreigner at the table — which in Serbia means you'll be fed until you surrender.
Start in Novi Sad
Fly or bus into Belgrade but head straight north first: the new fast train to Novi Sad takes about 36 minutes and costs only a few hundred dinars (under 5 euros). Novi Sad is the Habsburg-flavored counterweight to Belgrade — pastel squares, café terraces, and the Petrovaradin Fortress brooding over the Danube with its famously wrong clock tower, where the big hand shows hours so fishermen on the river could read it from a distance. If it's July, this is EXIT festival, one of Europe's great parties, held in the fortress moats and tunnels. Dorms run 12-18 euros; a proper meal with a drink rarely tops 12 euros.
Belgrade: give it three nights
Back down the fast line to Belgrade. The city is rough-edged and completely magnetic. Walk Kalemegdan fortress at sunset where the Sava meets the Danube, drink at the kafanas of Skadarlija, and then do what everyone comes for: the splavovi, floating clubs moored along the rivers, where nights start at midnight and end when the sun is well up. Entry is usually free; drinks 300-600 dinars. Daytime, balance it out — the Nikola Tesla Museum (about 800 dinars) runs demonstrations where a million-volt coil makes fluorescent tubes glow in your hand, and the brutalist blocks of New Belgrade are a pilgrimage for architecture nerds. Dorm beds 12-20 euros. Eat ćevapi with kajmak and raw onion for 500-800 dinars and understand why Serbs are unbothered by food trends.
West to Mokra Gora and the Šargan Eight
Buses from Belgrade's main station run to Užice in about 3.5-4 hours (around 1,500-2,000 dinars), and from there local buses and taxis reach Mokra Gora in the Tara mountains near the Bosnian border. The draw is the Šargan Eight, a restored narrow-gauge railway that climbs the mountain in a figure-of-eight through 22 tunnels, a relic of the line that once linked Belgrade to Sarajevo. The vintage train ride takes about 2.5 hours return and costs around 1,200-1,500 dinars — sit on the open platform between carriages if the conductor is in a good mood. Above the valley sits Drvengrad, the timber ethno-village film director Emir Kusturica built for a movie and never dismantled, with streets named after Fellini and Maradona. Guesthouses in Mokra Gora run 20-30 euros a double; the trout, smoked ham and mountain cheese here are the best food of the route.
Detour or push on: Tara National Park
If you have spare days, Tara National Park is next door — canyon viewpoints like Banjska Stena look a thousand meters down onto the emerald Drina and its famous tiny house on a rock in the middle of the river. Local taxis or a rented scooter cover it. Otherwise, backtrack to Užice for the road south.
Niš, the underrated finale
Buses from Užice to Niš take about 4-5 hours (around 1,800-2,200 dinars), or connect via Kraljevo. Niš is Serbia's third city, birthplace of Constantine the Great, and it wears its layers openly: a sprawling Ottoman fortress you can wander for free, and Ćele Kula — the Skull Tower — which the Ottomans built from the skulls of Serbian rebels in 1809 and which the Serbs preserved as a monument rather than tearing down. Entry is a few hundred dinars and it's one of the most sobering sights in the Balkans. Then Niš cheers you up the way it knows best: the kafana quarter around Kopitareva street, grilled meat, live trubači brass bands, and locals who will absolutely not let you sit alone. Costs here drop even below Belgrade — you can live well on 30 euros a day.
Practical notes
Go May-June or September; July is festival season and August is hot. Serbia is outside the EU and Schengen — handy for resetting visa clocks — and most passports get 90 days free. Cash is king outside the cities; ATMs are everywhere. From Niš, buses continue to Sofia or Skopje, which is exactly how most people's Balkan route keeps going.
