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We were reviewing our departure plans for Kosovo and quite by accident stumbled upon a link to an article on Lonely Planet about a traveler getting detained while traveling from Kosovo to Serbia. Since that is in our plans for a week from now, I did a bit more research.
Even though Kosovo is not a operate country, following the war in the 90s, and accepted by currently 116 countries, Serbia itself still considers Kosovo to be part of their territory. If you enter Kosovo at a border crossing other than through Serbia, you get a Kosovo entry visa, not a Serbian...makes since of course. However, if you then travel from Kosovo into Serbia, you will be stopped at that border and detained...because you did not "legally enter" Serbia. I know, sounds almost ridiculous...but it is true. After a few more hours of research, I was able to find a huge number of current posts, all telling the same tale.
So for the nest several hours, I contacted our Kosovo host and worked out a reasonable last minute cancellation. We did not want to stick the fellow with a full week cancellation, even though he allows last minute full refunds. We ended up giving him four days of income for his trouble. We made of course a new friend.
Next I had to cancel our bus tickets into and out of Kosovo. Luckily, the bus portal gave us a refund less a small 10|% service fee. Then I was able to get four advance nights with our Belgrade Airbnb. Her calendar was open and that made it possible. And then I was able to move up our new bus schedule to Sarajevo and get and extra three nights added to our existing reservation.
With housing and transfer refunds done, I went to work on getting to Belgrade from Macedonia. Since bus service was not an option...there are no buses that go directly into Serbia from Skopje. We finally had to settle on an air option. We were able to book a flight from Skopje to Belgrade with a seven hour layover in Istanbul.
So, in the end, with the pending refund from our last Turkish Air issue, we are still a few dollars ahead.
We departed at 6AM, flew to Istanbul, hung out in the airport for seven hours, and then flew to Belgrade. Upon arrival we had yet another immigration moment, as secret service agents were at the gate checking all passports for Kosovo entry stamps before letting us move on to the formal immigration counters. The stories were accurate. A few folks were taken away into custody for having Kosovo entries in their passports. Ugh...why can'\t the world get past all of this political gamester-ship?
Even though Kosovo is not a operate country, following the war in the 90s, and accepted by currently 116 countries, Serbia itself still considers Kosovo to be part of their territory. If you enter Kosovo at a border crossing other than through Serbia, you get a Kosovo entry visa, not a Serbian...makes since of course. However, if you then travel from Kosovo into Serbia, you will be stopped at that border and detained...because you did not "legally enter" Serbia. I know, sounds almost ridiculous...but it is true. After a few more hours of research, I was able to find a huge number of current posts, all telling the same tale.
So for the nest several hours, I contacted our Kosovo host and worked out a reasonable last minute cancellation. We did not want to stick the fellow with a full week cancellation, even though he allows last minute full refunds. We ended up giving him four days of income for his trouble. We made of course a new friend.
Next I had to cancel our bus tickets into and out of Kosovo. Luckily, the bus portal gave us a refund less a small 10|% service fee. Then I was able to get four advance nights with our Belgrade Airbnb. Her calendar was open and that made it possible. And then I was able to move up our new bus schedule to Sarajevo and get and extra three nights added to our existing reservation.
With housing and transfer refunds done, I went to work on getting to Belgrade from Macedonia. Since bus service was not an option...there are no buses that go directly into Serbia from Skopje. We finally had to settle on an air option. We were able to book a flight from Skopje to Belgrade with a seven hour layover in Istanbul.
So, in the end, with the pending refund from our last Turkish Air issue, we are still a few dollars ahead.
We departed at 6AM, flew to Istanbul, hung out in the airport for seven hours, and then flew to Belgrade. Upon arrival we had yet another immigration moment, as secret service agents were at the gate checking all passports for Kosovo entry stamps before letting us move on to the formal immigration counters. The stories were accurate. A few folks were taken away into custody for having Kosovo entries in their passports. Ugh...why can'\t the world get past all of this political gamester-ship?
1 comment:
Thank you for your blog ... I'm really enjoying it. My wife and I are planning a 3 month trip to the Balkans this spring. We would like to visit both Kosovo and Serbia. Based on what I have read so far, I understood that entering Kosovo from a third country and then traveling directly into Serbia was not possible if traveling using a passport. I haven't read about anyone in the last number of years being turned away for having a Kosovo stamp in their passport when entering Serbia at an official border control. Is this a new development?
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