I rode variations on these southern/eastern European routes in 2008 and 2007. I carried a green card which excluded Albania, Ukraine, Moldova, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Turkey, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo. I paid a lot (±80 euros) for brief coverage in Serbia, almost as much in Macedonia (±50 euros), and quite a bit in Turkey (can't remember). I paid nothing in Albania, Croatia (2x), Montenegro (2x), Kosovo and Ukraine. Moldova was cheap (±10 euros with some bargaining involved), and Bosnia charged me once (±30 euros) but not the other time. Apparently, I was supposed to pay in Kosovo, where the UN border guards were friendly but incompetent, and Albania, where they just told me "you should really have insurance; maybe you'll stop at the next town and buy some, hey?"

If I was on a serious budget, I might skip Serbia and Macedonia....but why am I traveling? Serbians are friendly and it's fascinating to talk to them about sanctions, Nato, the EU, the various wars, secession movements....all the stuff we've been reading about (and paying for) for years and years. Sometimes a thinly-veiled streak of genocidal fascism is evident, with roots going back centuries, making it easy to see how this civilized country descended so abruptly into war and chaos. This glimpse alone was worth the price of admission; the fact that I over-paid for an essentially worthless piece of paper at the border hardly matters in the end.

Mileages vary.

Mark