How to Get From Sarajevo to Dubrovnik by Bus
After 10 days in Sarajevo, we decided to move on. We decided to head to Dubrovnik for a few days before heading down to Montenegro and possibly Albania.
There aren’t any international trains from Bosnia, so we decided to take the bus.
There are currently 6 buses a week that run from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik. I guess the number will increase during the summer season.
The current bus times are as follows:
Monday, Wednesday & Friday: 10:00-15:45 (5 hrs 45 mins)
Thursday: 07:15-13:40 (6 hrs 25 mins)
Sunday: 07:15-13:40 (6 hrs 25 mins); 10:00-15:45 (5 hrs 45 mins)
Tuesday & Saturday: No buses
The buses are run by Croatia bus-Globtour-Touring-Jadran ekspres. This bus has a toilet on board. The bus we got stopped Mostar East bus station on the way. If you prefer traveling by train, you could get the train from Sarajevo to Mostar and then the bus from there. The train station is right next to Mostar East bus station.
Booking our ticket online
We booked our tickets the GetByBus.com website. We’ve used them many times in the past and have always found them to be reliable. The tickets cost 34.87 EUR each. There was also a booking charge of 2 KM (1 EUR) each that we had to pay at the bus station and 2 KM (1 EUR) each that we had to pay to the bus driver for our luggage.
Once we booked the tickets we got an email confirmation with the tickets attached. The tickets contain an QR code that you show the bus driver, so there’s no need to print the tickets.
Sarajevo Bus Station
The bus station in Sarajevo is around 100 meters from the train station. We got there by taxi. We were ripped off by yet another taxi driver. More about that at Bosnia Taxi Scams.
If you book your tickets online like we did, you’ll need to head to this booking office inside the bus station and pay a 2 KM (1 EUR) booking fee per ticket. They will give you a receipt that you then need to show at the entrance to the bus platforms.
Our bus to Dubrovnik left from platform 13. There are 3 or 4 cafes at the platform area.
Our Bus
We had a modern business-class bus that had comfortable seats, free wifi, and a toilet on board.
As you can see above, the seating is pretty comfortable. You don’t get allocated a seat when booking, so can seat wherever you like.
Bus wifi speed
On the bus from Split to Mostar, the wifi speed was fairly decent, but on this bus it was quite slow.
Bus route
You can see the bus route above. Mostly, no one got on or off the bus, except at Mostar. When the bus left Sarajevo there were only 8 passengers. The bus was around half full after passengers got on at Mostar.
The Croatia/Bosnia Border Crossings
Note that the heading says crossings not crossing. This is because the pass passed through three border crossings. After initially crossing from Bosnia to Croatia, the bus crossed back into Bosnia and then back into Croatia.
We stopped at a small immigration office when leaving Bosnia. We had to get off the pass and have our passports stamped to leave Bosnia.
At the next stop, we had to be stamped into Croatia. This took much longer. We had to get off the bus, as usual, and an immigration officer checked the bus. It looked like they were making there weren’t any people hidden on the bus. A man was also taken off the bus to have this bag search. It looked like they just picked someone at random. The man got back on the bus a few minutes later.
At the next two crossings, we had to get off to have our passports scanned at the first and stamped at the second. My wife’s passport ended up with one stamp to show that she left Bosnia and two stamps showing that she entered Croatia.
Our bus arrived in Dubrovnik at 16.50, so was just over an hour late. This seemed to be due to the time we spend at the three border crossings. You never know how long it’s going to take. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, while at other times it can be an hour or so.
Getting to Dubrovnik Old Town from the bus station
See our separate post about this – How to Get From Dubrovnik Bus Station to the Old Town.
We were told that a taxi costs 15 EUR for the approximately 3 km journey. The bus cost just 1.73 EUR. A massive saving.
Book your hotel in Dubrovnik
When we stay in hotels we also use Agoda for our bookings. They have a price-match guarantee and lots of special benefits like cashbacks that you can use for future bookings.
