Sarajevo to Travnik & Jajce: Bus and Driving Guide

Centrotrans runs the bus both ways: Sarajevo to Travnik for 26.50 KM (about 1 hour 50 minutes to 2 hours, six departures every day and two more on weekdays) and Sarajevo to Jajce for 45.50 KM (about 3 hours 35 to 45 minutes, four departures a day, every day of the week). Drive it yourself and the same road corridor takes about 90 minutes to Travnik and 2 hours 50 minutes to Jajce, no timetable required. Here’s the part most guides skip: four of those Travnik departures are the exact same coach continuing on past Jajce, to Banja Luka or to Bihać depending which one you catch. Fares and times come off Centrotrans’s own booking system and the government’s licensed stop table for the road, both checked 22 August 2026 - confirm your date before you buy.

Don’t go looking for a train, either. Federation Railways’ current 2025/2026 timetable doesn’t put Travnik or Jajce on the map: the passenger lines north of Sarajevo run local trains to Visoko, Zenica and Maglaj, but none of them continue past Visoko toward Travnik, and the country’s one scenic passenger route is the separate run south to Mostar. So it’s a two-option trip, bus or your own wheels, and which one wins depends on whether you want one town or both.

The bus to Travnik

Centrotrans’s coaches leave from Sarajevo’s main “AS” station by the railway, not from East Sarajevo (that’s the Republika Srpska-bound terminal for Belgrade and the coast; our getting around Bosnia guide untangles the two-station split if you haven’t dealt with it before). Six departures run every day of the week - 07:30, 09:15, 10:00, 13:30, 15:30 and 19:00 - and two more join them Monday to Friday only, 14:00 and 17:30. All eight sell at 26.50 KM flat. Journey time sits at 1 hour 50 minutes to 2 hours, the difference coming down to how many villages a given coach stops at along the way.

Buy at the station window, through Centrotrans’s own booking page, or on the usual Balkan ticket apps. Other carriers work this corridor too - Globtour, Croatia Bus Zagreb and a handful of smaller regional lines show up on aggregators, and between them all there can be sixteen or more departures once you count carriers besides Centrotrans. If you’re not buying direct from Centrotrans, don’t assume the 26.50 KM fare carries over: check the operator name printed on your ticket instead, because it doesn’t always.

Travnik’s own bus station sits about 910 metres from the fortress and the old town centre, a 12-minute walk with a climb at the end of it - close enough that you don’t need a taxi even with a bag. Our Travnik guide covers the fortress, the painted mosque and Plava Voda spring once you’re there. And if Travnik is really just a stop on a longer haul, you’re riding the first leg of the same road our Sarajevo to Banja Luka guide covers in full.

Same bus, a fresh ticket to Jajce

Not every Travnik-bound coach keeps going, and Centrotrans’s own booking system settles exactly which ones do. Pull up the 07:30 departure’s line details and the stop list reads SARAJEVO 07:30 - VISOKO - KAKANJ - VITEZ - TRAVNIK 09:30 - DONJI VAKUF - JAJCE 11:15 - then keeps rolling past Jajce to Ključ, Bosanski Petrovac and Bihać. The 13:30 departure runs that identical route a few hours behind it. The 09:15 and 15:30 departures share the same trunk as far as Jajce, then split off north to Banja Luka instead - the route our Sarajevo to Banja Luka guide covers end to end. All four also sell the Travnik-Jajce leg on its own, for 20.00 KM, 1 hour 35 to 45 minutes. The remaining four Travnik departures - 10:00, 14:00, 17:30 and 19:00 - never touch Jajce at all; past Donji Vakuf they carry straight on to Bugojno. Don’t wait at the Travnik stop expecting one of those to show up in Jajce, because it won’t.

That leaves two ways to reach Jajce by bus. Book Sarajevo-Jajce straight through for 45.50 KM and you’re committed to one coach, fine if you’re not stopping. Or buy Sarajevo-Travnik, spend however long you want in town, then buy the onward 20.00 KM ticket at the Travnik counter for whichever later coach suits you - a single convertible mark more than the through-fare, for the freedom to choose your own Travnik window. Whether a through-ticket lets you break the journey partway isn’t spelled out anywhere in Centrotrans’s own published sale terms, so treat the two-ticket approach as the confirmed way to do it, and ask at the counter if you’d rather try interrupting a through-fare instead.

Jajce’s own bus station, “Autobusni kolodvor Jajce”, is about 965 metres, roughly a 13-minute walk, from the waterfall and the old town. Our Jajce guide has the fortress, the catacombs and the waterfall platform once you’re there.

Both towns in one bus day

It’s possible, and here’s the actual chain: take the 07:30 from Sarajevo, arriving Travnik 09:30. Instead of staying on the same coach, let it carry on and take the 11:15 Travnik-Jajce departure instead, arriving Jajce 12:50. That gives you roughly 1 hour 45 minutes in Travnik, enough for the fortress and a coffee by Plava Voda, not much more. You’re then free in Jajce until the 17:25 departure back to Sarajevo, landing around 20:55 or 21:05 depending which of the two 17:25 services you catch. Total door to door: about 13 and a half hours, with close to 4 and a half hours in Jajce itself.

That’s a genuinely long day, and it’s honest to say so. Our day trips from Sarajevo guide calls doing both towns on public transport “a stretch” - fair enough, this is the stretch, laid out with real numbers so you can judge the arithmetic for yourself. If you’d rather not compress two good towns into one long push, the 2-day Travnik and Jajce route is built for exactly that: an overnight in Jajce, and time for the Pliva watermills, which sit about 3 km west of the old town on a spur the bus doesn’t serve. With four and a half hours in Jajce you could still reach them by taxi there and back, but the scheduled bus itself won’t take you.

Driving it yourself

The road runs Sarajevo, out past Ilijaš, Visoko and Kakanj to the Lašva junction, then Vitez into Travnik: 96 km, about 90 minutes. From Travnik it continues through Donji Vakuf and Vinac to Jajce, another 70 km and roughly 80 minutes, for 166 km and about 2 hours 50 minutes door to door if you drive straight through without stopping. Those distances match the licensed coach timetable almost exactly, cross-checked against a routing engine forced onto the same road through Donji Vakuf. It’s the same corridor our Banja Luka guide describes continuing north, so if that’s eventually your destination, you’re driving the first leg of a longer run, not a separate road.

The stretch past Ilijaš, Visoko and Kakanj to the Lašva junction carries the A1 motorway classification - not a new opening, just how the Federation’s road authority categorises an already-built stretch for tolling, so don’t expect a dramatic difference from what a routing app already shows. Past Lašva it’s ordinary two-lane road into Travnik, the kind our driving in Bosnia guide covers generally - tolls, winter tyres and all, not repeated here.

Driving saves real time either way: close to half an hour over the slower buses to Travnik, and closer to fifty minutes over the bus schedule through to Jajce. It’s also worth checking the discount fares before you rule the bus out - Centrotrans’s own board lists 32.00 KM for pensioners and students under 26 against the standard 45.50 KM to Jajce, and 18.50 KM against 26.50 KM to Travnik. For picking up a car instead, car rental in Sarajevo and the country-wide car rental in Bosnia guide cover deposits, paperwork and one-way drop fees, worth pricing before you assume a hire car beats the bus for one person travelling alone.

A private transfer or your own driver

A private transfer answers a narrower question than “bus or car”: can you actually stop in Travnik without either one’s downside? The bus combination costs 46.50 KM but ties you to four fixed through-departures out of Travnik; a self-drive rental is flexible but wants a deposit, paperwork, and somewhere to leave the car if you’re not looping back to Sarajevo. A transfer sidesteps both - the driver waits at Plava Voda while you look around, then carries on through Donji Vakuf, no connection to time and no vehicle to sign for. Door-to-door time tracks the drive itself, about 90 minutes to Travnik and 2 hours 50 minutes through to Jajce, and there’s no schedule to catch, which matters if you land on a late flight or you’re travelling as a group that doesn’t want to split across bus seats.

Get a live quote for your date; prices move with vehicle size, season and how far ahead you book. For one traveller or two with light bags, the bus is almost always cheaper. For a family, an odd-hours arrival, or a hotel pickup far from either bus station, the transfer earns its price.

What to pick

Two decisions actually drive this trip. The first is what you buy before you leave Sarajevo:

• Just Travnik - the bus, 26.50 KM, with six departures every day and two more on weekdays.
• Just Jajce, no stop needed - book straight through for 45.50 KM.
• Both towns, and you’re not sure yet how long Travnik deserves - buy only as far as Travnik for 26.50 KM, decide once you’re there, then add the 20.00 KM onward ticket at the counter.
• Both towns, unhurried, no bus timetable at all - hire a car, or book a driver for the day.

The second decision waits until you’re standing in Travnik: catch the next through-coach and keep the whole day to thirteen and a half hours, or let two or three pass and turn the trip into the overnight our 2-day Travnik and Jajce route is built around. Heading on past Jajce toward Banja Luka is the same corridor a stop further; our Sarajevo to Banja Luka guide picks up exactly where this one leaves off.