Novi Sad Offered the Authentic Serbia That We’ve Been Dreaming of

This is the Serbia we’ve been hoping to find. We came to Novi Sad to get an authentic taste of life outside the big city; we wanted to spend our summer the same way that Serbians do. That meant enjoying the cafe culture in a beautiful historic centre; getting out into the countryside to spend an afternoon at a farm; and taking a look at the impressive monasteries that are throughout the region.

Normally it’s a little challenging as an international tourist to get an authentic taste of the local culture. Often we just get the packaged version that all the other tourists get. So with this trip to Novi Sad, we were looking for something a little more local.

We had a long list of all the things we wanted to experience while we were here. And after our month in Belgrade, we knew that our budget would go fairly far. But what would it all add up to? Now that we’re at the end of our month in Novi Sad, this is the time when we look back at our experiences in a city and put a price tag on it…how much did we spend and what did we get for it?

Let’s start the tally with our apartment, which is always the big ticket item in our budget. When we look for an Airbnb, we’re looking for a place where we can be really comfortable for a whole month. Since we’re slow travelers, we want to feel at home no matter where we are in the world.

To be honest, when we first started looking at the listings in Novi Sad, there was much less to choose from compared to Belgrade, possibly because it’s peak holiday season. However, despite the low inventory, in the end we landed a very memorable apartment. It’s light and bright and everything is brand new. The interior is minimal and stylish; no clutter; lots of local art on the walls. We loved the big windows and having a balcony for enjoying our morning coffee. We also loved how spacious it is, about twice the size of our place in Belgrade.

The location was perfect: right in the historic centre of the city, minutes from the pedestrian area where the main sights are located. We’re also literally in front of the green market so it’s really easy to pick up any groceries we need.

So that’s where we’ve been staying for the month. But what have we been up to all this time for entertainment? We found there was lots to keep us busy around the city. There’s the well-preserved historic centre which is ideal for walking around and taking in the lovely architecture. We also made our way to Petrovaradin Fortress for a wonderful view of the city. And we took a lot of long walks, which were the perfect training for our upcoming hike in Albania. I also popped into the Vojvodina Museum which gives a very, very thorough history of the region. This one is best for the real history buffs although you do need to hunt around for the English translations.

We’re here in Novi Sad to enjoy the city but the main event for us was to explore the surrounding region.

We had a long list of excursions we wanted to make but we needed to figure out which experiences would be worthwhile and which ones were tourist traps. It’s never easy to plan our time as independent travelers when an areais completely new to us.

So we researched. We consulted a lot of sources to plan our excursions: Google Maps, vlogs, blogs, customer reviews. We even used a good old fashioned paper map. It took a little effort but we were really happy with our final itinerary.

We rented a car for a few days and this turned out to be our only transportation cost aside from our transfer to get here from Belgrade. Having the car really gave us the freedom we wanted to explore the region. We went to the town of Subotica, which is in the north of Serbia, right by Hungary, which is most famous for its wonderful collection of art nouveau buildings.

Novi Sad is also very close to Fruska Gora, a national park, which is ideal for hiking, visiting monasteries and eating authentic farmhouse meals. In fact, our favourite excursion had to be the one where we combined all our favourite activities into one day. We hiked through the forest and vineyards to the lovely Rakovac monastery, then we hiked back down and capped the experience with an unforgettable afternoon at a winery. We sampled lots of rakija and wine in the cellar that our host had built himself and followed this up with a true farm to table feast.

As usual, our meals out have been a real highlight of our time here.

Back in Belgrade we tasted a lot of the classics and the street food that’s so popular here in Serbia. Of course, while we were here, we still had to sample the classic cevapi with shopska salad. But we definitely tried to expand our range a lot further. We went to our neighbourhood eatery for their breakfast buffet every weekend, which was a great way to try many different traditional dishes. Both the quality and the price were amazing. Another favourite of ours was Veliki Cafe where we’ve enjoyed a lot of very well prepared local food.

Of course, we don’t just want to dine out when we’re traveling. We love having home-cooked meals, especially when we have such a nice kitchen to work in. And all the groceries we need have been just outside our front door. Of course there’s the green market where the produce is so abundant, amazing quality and cheap. But there are also lots of butchers and bakeries and fish stores right there too. And even though I hardly speak any Serbian beyond the niceties, I’ve felt pretty comfortable getting the shopping done.

A lot of international tourists make Novi Sad and the whole Vojvodina region into a day trip from Belgrade. And there are definitely plenty of tours that will give you a taster. But we really felt that it was worthwhile to spend longer and take the time to discover what this beautiful region has to offer, just like the locals do.

That’s everything we enjoyed this past month in Novi Sad. Now let’s tally the final bill: Our Airbnb, just minutes away from the historic centre, came to $1,082 USD. Transportation was $167 USD, which included a three-day car rental and our transfer from Belgrade to Novi Sad. Paid entertainment was just $2 USD — barely worth mentioning. Dining out every couple of days cost us just $353 USD while groceries for the month came in at $465 USD.

A full month here in the beautiful city of Novi Sad set us back a grand total of just $2,070 USD.

If you think that’s pretty reasonable for a month of wining, dining and sightseeing in Europe, you should see what we spent in Belgrade. We went to Belgrade hoping to find a low-cost version of Europe. We stayed right in the centre of the city, dined out basically every day and took in all the sights. You can find out how much it all cost in the next post right here.