Sarajevo Without a Car: 5 Day Trips by Bus and Train

Sarajevo has two intercity bus stations and they serve different places.

• Sarajevo International Bus Station, Put života 8. This is the one you want. Buses to Travnik, Jajce, Visoko, Konjic, Zenica, Tuzla, Bihać and Medjugorje leave from here.
• Bus Station Lukavica, Srpskih vladara 2, in East Sarajevo. This one serves Srebrenica, Trebinje, Višegrad, and international routes to Belgrade, Novi Sad, Podgorica and Herceg Novi.
• The railway station, Put života 2, sits beside the main bus station. Trains run to Mostar, Čapljina, Konjic, Zenica and Banja Luka.

For the five trips here you never need Lukavica. It matters if you are continuing to Serbia, Montenegro or towns in Republika Srpska, which is worth knowing before you book an onward ticket rather than a day trip.

Take the train. It costs 14.10 KM in second class, about 7 euro, with 20% off a return, and it runs through the Neretva gorge on a line that buses cannot follow.

Departures from Sarajevo are 07:15, arriving 09:12, and 16:46. Coming back, the useful one is 17:09, arriving 19:07. Take the morning train out and the evening train back and you get just under eight hours in Mostar, which is more than enough.

On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from June to September the service extends to Ploče on the Croatian coast, which adds a 19:56 departure from Mostar, arriving 21:54. Summer adds a train here; it does not take one away.

Book at zfbh.ba. Booking opens two weeks ahead and tickets are collected at the station. The operator is Željeznice Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine, and its timetable lists this route under Sarajevo to Čapljina and Sarajevo to Ploče, not under Mostar, because Mostar is a stop along the way rather than a terminus.

The easiest day trip on this list. About ten buses a day, 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours, 21.00 to 26.50 KM depending on carrier. Centrotrans runs most of them.

Out on the 07:30, arriving 09:30. The last bus back leaves Travnik at 19:05 and reaches Sarajevo at 21:05. That is roughly nine and a half hours on the ground, the most generous window here, and it means Travnik does not have to be rushed.

The town was the seat of the Ottoman governors of Bosnia, and it has the fortress and the Ottoman-era core to show for it. Ivo Andrić was born here.

Jajce works, but be honest with yourself about the arithmetic. Five buses a day each way, 3 hours 35 minutes to 4 hours 15 minutes each way, 45.50 KM.

Out on the 07:30, arriving 11:15. The last bus back leaves Jajce at 17:25, reaching Sarajevo around 21:00. That gives you about six hours in town for roughly seven and a half hours of travel. It is a long day for a small place, and the small place is genuinely worth it, but go knowing the ratio.

The waterfall is inside the town itself, at the confluence below the old centre, which is the thing that makes Jajce unlike anywhere else on this list.

The most frequent connection here: fifteen buses a day, 55 minutes to 1 hour 25 minutes, 12.00 to 17.50 KM. The Mostar train stops here too. Returns run until well into the evening, with a 19:35 departure arriving 20:50 and later services after it.

ARK D-0, the nuclear bunker built for Tito, needs planning and most pages do not say so. Entry is 40 KM per person, cash only, collected in Konjic town. The guided tour is compulsory and runs at 09:00, 12:00 and 15:00 daily, lasting about 90 minutes. Booking at least 12 hours ahead is recommended, though there is no minimum group size.

The bunker is at Gornje polje in Ljuta, not in Konjic and not walkable from the bus stop. The operator can arrange transport from a pickup point in town if you contact them in advance. Take the 06:00 bus, do the 09:00 tour, and you are back in Sarajevo by mid-afternoon.

Cheap and constant: more than twenty-five buses a day, 30 minutes to an hour, 9.80 KM. It is also on the railway line.

Most people come for the pyramid claim, so here is where that stands. The claim has been promoted by Semir Osmanagić, a Bosnian-American businessman, since 2005. In December 2006 seven European archaeologists issued a declaration through the European Association of Archaeologists calling it "a cruel hoax on an unsuspecting public" with "no place in the world of genuine science". Geologists, in work led by Professor Sejfudin Vrabac of the University of Tuzla, identify the hills as natural flatirons of conglomerate, clay and sandstone. Plenty of people visit anyway, and that is their business.

The reason to go that does not depend on any of it: Visoko was the medieval capital of Bosnia, and Visočica hill carries the ruins of the Visoki fortress, built on a Roman observation post which itself sat on earlier settlement.

• Trebević by cable car. The lower station is in Bistrik, about ten minutes on foot from Baščaršija, and the ride takes about seven minutes. Expect to pay 30 KM return as a foreign visitor, against 6 KM for residents. Roughly 09:00 to 17:00 outside summer, later in season, with the last cabin down at 17:00. Check before you go.
• Vrelo Bosne. Take the tram west to the Ilidža terminus, then walk Velika Aleja, a flat, shaded avenue of 3.5 km, 35 to 45 minutes, or take a horse carriage. About an hour and a quarter door to door. There is a park entrance fee; the 2026 amount is not published clearly, so carry small notes.

Lukomir appears on every Sarajevo day-trip list. There is no bus. The options are driving, about 90 minutes with the last 16 km on gravel, or a guided hike from Umoljani, which is itself a 50-minute drive away and then two and a half hours on foot each way. The village sits at around 1,500 metres.

If you have no car, this is a trip to book as a tour or to skip. It is not a bus journey, and pages that list it beside Mostar are not telling you that.