Emma Carmichael

Driving Tito: Through the Balkan Backroads with a Celebrity Emma Carmichael

When Emma Carmichael announced to her colleagues that she was buying a Zastava - the Yugoslavian answer to an Italian Cinquecento - to travel across their Balkan peninsula, they laughed uproariously and warned her she would not get very far in such an archaic vehicle with no mechanical skills, and little understanding of the language.

Undeterred, Emma set off on a 4,677 kilometre journey through the backroads, across the mountains, and along the coastlines of ten Balkan countries in her Zastava 750, determined to prove to her colleagues that the Balkan vintage car was made of sturdier stuff than they thought.

Encountering border crossing bureaucracy, breakdowns and the Bosnian Army on manoeuvres, her car, affectionately named Tito, became an unlikely hero of the road and people were charmed by him wherever they went.

Driving Tito is an honest and heartfelt tale of a woman travelling solo in a world known for its machismo. It is a bumpy ride at times, but Emma captures the true spirit of lone travel, expressing her moments of comedy, mishap and paranoia with descriptive ease as she takes us off the well-trodden track and into the heart of the Balkans.