Drive from Athens toDubrovnik

I have not done this but the first thing you should do is investigate what the drop-off fees would be in this case. I suspect very high.

Douglas, thanks for your reply and clearly to check the drop off fee would be essential. Would you possibly let me know the following: 1. Are the roads clearly marked and easily traveled, 2. Were there good optins for places to stay overnight, 3. were there good choices for dinner, 4. did most people speak some English, and 5. how long would it take to drive from Athens to Dubrovnik ? Thanks very much for your comments.
Fred

As I said, I have not done this trip and only driven in Greece. Greek roads are pretty good, well marked and lightly traveled outside of Athens. There are a multitude of options and so it'd be hard to directly answer most of your questions. To get to Dubrovnik you'd have the option to drive through Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia. Hopefully some people can discuss driving and traveling in those countries. I'd also highly recommend investing in guidebooks for that region. Any advice you get here should be a supplement to your guidebooks. Those are not heavily touristed countries and RS barely touches on some of them. So there may not be many people here that can help. In addition to the drop-off fees, you'll need to check if rental agencies will allow a car to be driven in any or all of the above countries (including Croatia of course). That is likely another MAJOR roadblock. As I said, before pursuing this too far, check into the realities of the rental car.

Thanks so much for your response. Very helpful, sensible and sound suggestions. Fred

In Rick's Athena and the Peloponnese book he says that even though Greece and Croatia are fairly close, the best way to get between them is to fly. The overland route is supposed to be arduous.

This the general situation of roads on your way. Greece - major highways at Western Europe level, good-ish country rodas (GPS essential anyway) Croatia - modern roads as like in Czech Rep., Slovenia etc. The hurdle, in terms of route/routes, is what is between them. The theoretically shortest route (480 miles) is via Albania, but I doubt any car location agency located outside Albania would let cars be driven there! The second route option is via Macedonia (FYROM), where it is ok to drive but English speakers harder to come by and Serbia and Kosovo. You don't want to drive in Kosovo in the middle of prolonged civil unrest (neither will car companies allow you to), so that means yet-another-detour, taking you to the southern tip of Croatia via Montenegro (where it is also ok to drive), bringing the trip to 950 miles. All these backside areas of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro can be eye-catching and beautiful, but language barriers will be hard to overcome, border formalities time-consuming (especially going in/out of Serbia), and there is the question of finding a car rental company allowing you to drive that way.

I think this would be difficult if not impossible, and very costly. In addition to the high drop-off cost for the car rental, the flight from Dubrovnik back to Athens will also be very expensive. If you want to visit both Greece and Croatia, I would suggest that you check out http://balkanology.com/. You'll see the various options available to travel between the two countries. And if you decide to try it, I would suggest flying back to the US from Dubrovnik, instead of making the return trip to Athens. We travelled from Dubrovnik to Athens two years ago. It was a three-day trip involving a bus from Dubrovnik to Budva, Montenegro; a day tour bus (which we just took one way) from Budva to Tirana, Albania. And then an Aegean Airlines flight from Tirana to Athens. Montenegro is very beautiful, as is Croatia. But I might suggest saving them for a future trip, and just concentrating on Greece while you are there. We just returned from 4 weeks in Greece, on our 5th trip there, and we feel like we've barely scratched the surface.