Private day trips from Mostar with your own guide

The three places everyone staying in Mostar asks about, in one day and in a private car instead of a coach. Kravice is a wide horseshoe of waterfalls on the Trebižat, and from late spring to early autumn you can swim in the pool below them. Blagaj's dervish house stands where the Buna river comes straight out of a cliff, and Počitelj is a walled Ottoman village climbing the hill above the Neretva, with a tower at the top. Your guide sets the order around the crowds and the light.

Runs year-round

A full day up the Neretva from Mostar to Sarajevo in a private car with your own guide. You stop at the wrecked railway bridge at Jablanica and the Ottoman bridge in Konjic, then spend the afternoon in Sarajevo: Baščaršija and the Sebilj fountain, the Gazi Husrev-beg mosque, the Latin Bridge and the spot where the First World War began. Come back to Mostar in the evening, or bring your luggage and finish at your Sarajevo accommodation, so the day doubles as your transfer.

Runs year-round

200 metres of cable and 80 metres of height gain on the wall above Fortica fortress, ten minutes from the road. Graded A/B and about half an hour of climbing, with the Old Bridge in view for most of it. There is a swinging bridge partway up, and the route finishes near the glass-floored Skywalk deck. Two hours door to door from the centre of Mostar.

Runs year-round, weather permitting

600 metres of cable and 350 metres of height gain on Hum, the hill directly above Mostar, broken up by three suspension bridges. It is the longest route in the city and the one with the widest view over the Neretva valley and the Old Bridge. The route carries no published grade; we rate it B/C from guiding it. Sustained but never desperate, which makes it a good second ferrata or an ambitious first one.

Runs year-round, weather permitting

500 metres of cable above Blagaj with about 150 metres of height gain, ten minutes from the road. Graded A/B: it traverses sideways more than it climbs, which keeps it technically easy for its length, around 45 minutes on the cable with a few steeper pitches. The Buna spring and the dervish house are minutes away when you finish.

Runs year-round, weather permitting

You reach this one by kayak. A 20-minute paddle across the green water of Grabovica Lake on the Neretva brings you to the foot of Prenj, where a 250-metre Grade D route climbs steep cliffs high above the river canyon. It is serious vertical terrain built for experienced climbers, but with a guide, first-timers with a strong head for heights can do it too. The descent follows a marked trail past a viewpoint above Glogošnica.

Runs from April, weather permitting

Prenj rises steeply above the Neretva between Konjic and Mostar, and locals call it the Herzegovina Himalaya. The nickname oversells the altitude but not the character: sharp limestone ridges, deep karst basins, chamois on the upper slopes and hardly another hiker all day. We head up toward Zelena glava, at 2,155 m the highest peak in the range, and pick the exact line on the day to suit the group and the conditions.

Runs June-October

The Bijela cuts a narrow limestone canyon at the foot of Prenj, and the only sensible way through it is to get wet. You work downstream about three kilometres: sliding down water-polished rock, jumping into pools where the water turns turquoise, rappelling the waterfalls that are too high to jump, and swimming the sections where the walls come in close enough to touch both sides. The water stays cold all summer, which is the point in July. Wetsuit and technical gear are provided.

Not running at the moment

A full day on the Neretva starting from Konjic. The water is green and cold, and the rapids are Class II to III, which is enough to get you paddling hard in places without any of it being technical. In between there are long flat stretches where the canyon walls close in and you can stop paddling and look up. You pass under old Ottoman stone bridges on the way down, and there is time to swim where the river pools. A licensed skipper runs each raft. Lunch afterwards is a traditional Bosnian meal at a restaurant by the water.

Not running at the moment