Benedikt booked us a Hotel in Sarajevo that had good reviews, a parking lot and was big enough, so that we expected that they would have three-phase outlets. We arrived Sarajevo pretty low in battery (6-7%). At first the hotel offered us a three-phase outlet (it found it in the back of the building). Though, we did not have the right plug at that point of time.

Until we returned after the visit of some do-it-yourself-stores without having found the plug the hotel called the manager and owner of the hotel to find out that this person is scared of an electric vehicle taking too much electricity. Benedikt already started to improvise with the outlet (opening it to take out the phases and adjust them directly to our adapter), when some hotel person came up and told him to stop working. Even our offer to pay for electricity did not convince them. The Tesla had at that point of time about 4-5% of its battery left. I thought to myself, if this is, how every “electricity-search” is going to look like, the trip is not going to be fun.

One of the reasons why we were in Sarajevo was, that I really wanted to see the tunnel museum. It is a museum about the resistance of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war that is now 25 years ago. I read about it not long ago in the NZZ.  The museum was really interesting, but unfortunately it could not offer us any electricity.

Our last hope was the Marriott hotel in downtown Sarajevo that is offering a 22KW charging station to their guests. Hoping that they would also offer it to us, we drove to the hotel. For 12,50€ we could charge for 3 hours up to 95%. This was enough to make the journey to Kolasin, Montenegro the next day. Only after we parked our car at the Marriott hotel and started charging, we found out that the underground garage of the shopping center, that is only 500 meters from the Marriott, has plenty of 22KW three-phase outlets that we could have used for free… I guess the pretty low battery made us decide for the first best option.

That day realized that we made a few pretty bad beginner’s mistakes in Sarajevo:

1. booking a hotel when depending on electricity to charge. One never knows if a hotel has a three-phase outlet available and if it wants to offer that to us. Having already booked a room minimizes the room to negotiate.
2. not going right away for the hotel that offers charging. Even if the hotel is more expensive, the time and nerves one is saving with an easy-charge-solution is priceless.
3. not searching in a large underground garage for electricity. We found so far in every large garage electricity (11 or 22KW). It is a shame, if one isn’t searching there for three-phase outlets as the first thing.

We left Sarajevo the next day almost fully charged and a bit smarter. Let’s hope it helps for the next “electricity-searches”.