Two-week routes assembled from things no search result will surface: the ferry that is not on the booking sites, the restaurant with no sign, the valley the tour buses skip.
Three passes, in order. We have tried skipping one. Never again.
Not a form, a conversation. An hour on what you loved, what you endured, and the day on your last trip you wish had been two. We keep notes on the things you avoid saying, too. Budgets are discussed once, plainly, then left alone.
Your draft goes out to the people who live on it. Dubravka in Kotor knows the 07:40 ferry holds four cars and that the queue forms at seven. Emre knows which pass is open, as opposed to officially open. The route changes. It always changes.
Fourteen days, planned to the ferry timetable and never to the hour. Two days carry nothing at all. Those are usually the ones you will still be describing at dinner parties in ten years.
The names are internal, part habit, part affection. Every route is built once, for one set of travellers, then retired. Yours will not be on this page.
No. 34
14 daysTrieste → Kotor
South along the coast by local ferry and one borrowed fishing boat. Lunch in an eleven-seat konoba on Šipan, anchovies and nothing else. You arrive in Kotor by water at dusk, which is the only correct way to arrive in Kotor.
No. 41
14 daysKanazawa → Sado → Takayama
June, on purpose: the wet season empties the coast road. A drum rehearsal on Sado you attend as guests, not audience. The best meal is in a farmhouse with six seats and no menu, booked eleven weeks ahead.
No. 47
14 daysİzmir → Kaş, the inland way
No coach, no cruise stop. Shared minibuses between hill villages, a carpet co-op above Ödemiş where the tea is not optional, and a cove near Kaş the gulet boats skip because the anchorage is awkward. It is not awkward for a rowboat.
A guidebook is written for everyone who might ever go. A fixer answers for one village, this week: which taverna reopened under the daughter, whose boat is out of the water until May, whether the road over the pass is clear or merely declared clear.
DubravkaKotor, Montenegro
Fourteen years a harbourmaster's clerk. Knows every ferry deckhand by name, and one by his debts.
KenjiSado, Japan
Retired ferry engineer. Got our travellers into the drum rehearsal by fixing the generator first.
AylinKaş, Türkiye
Counts the gulet boats every May and moves our clients' week accordingly.
EmreKaçkar Mountains, Türkiye
Runs the last garage before the pass. Knows it is open a full day before the official notice does.
The guidebook was right three summers ago. The fixer is right on Thursday.
“We didn't see another tour group for nine days. On the tenth we saw one, from the deck of a boat they could not board.”
“Fernweh sent a typed page titled 'things to not do'. It is the most useful travel document we own.”
Everything a recce turns up gets written down. These are the three pages we end up sending people before they think to ask for them.
Note 07May 2026
It runs twice a week, takes cash, and has no website. It is also the only way to reach the valley.
Note 06April 2026
Two of the fourteen days carry nothing at all. Those are the days people remember.
Note 05March 2026
A draft goes out to the people who live on it. It always comes back changed.
This is the short version of the long call. It takes four minutes and tells us more than a brochure ever could. Nothing here is binding, least of all the dates.
Two planners, roughly sixty hours to build a route. Eight a month is what careful looks like. If the month is full we say so, and hold your dates for the next one. Start with where you have been and what you refuse to repeat.