YUGOTOUR was officially born in the head of its founder Ralph in 2010. Although being a Dutchman, he did feel pretty Yugo-nostalgic and loved searching for the traces of Yugoslavia throughout the Balkans. In 2011 he moved from Holland to Belgrade, former capital of Yugoslavia. Every day he saw those traces of Yugoslavia, such as old billboards, street-names and traditional kafana’s disappear from the streets. At the same time less and less Yugo’s were rolling through town.
In 2014 friend Milos , born and raised in Belgrade, convinced him to start Yugotour together before it would be too late and all Yugo’s would have disappeared from the streets and all socialist buildings that should be protected as cultural heritage would be destroyed. So, the search for a car began and many miles were driven through Belgrade to come to the best route. On 25 May 2015, not coincidentally Tito’s birthday, Yugotour was officially launched.
After several tours and adding two more cars to the fleet it was Harm, another Dutch guy, who proposed to also show the history of Yugoslavia in his city: Sarajevo. With its remnants of the Olympic Wintergames of 1984 and interesting monuments and architecture it too is a treasure of Yugoslav history. Harm left Sarajevo, but our friends of Funkytours Sarajevo still run the tour!
If you can’t get enough of riding aound in a Yugo and want to find out more about Yugoslavia, also visit Dževad and his Yugotour in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Or our friends of Yugocar Adventure in Zagreb, Croatia!
The goal of Yugotour is to preserve all that depicts a part of the story of Socialist Yugoslavia and showing it to visitors by driving them around in one of the country’s most symbolic icons: the Yugo!
If you want to learn more about Yugotour and the people behind it, please check out our media section or contact us via info@yugotour.com or call at +381669008386.
