Why an airport runway has a tunnel under it
For most of the siege of Sarajevo, the city was surrounded on every side. The airport, on the southern edge, was nominally controlled by United Nations forces and closed to military and civilian movement alike — but the strip of land beneath its runway was the one place where the besieging lines on either side did not quite meet. In 1993, that gap became the only way in or out of the city that did not cross open ground under fire.
The solution was a tunnel: 800 metres long, roughly 1.5 to 2 metres high and under a metre wide for most of its length, dug by hand from both ends and connected on 30 July 1993. It ran from a house in Donji Kotorac on the free-territory side, under the runway, to a house in Dobrinja inside the besieged city. People, food, weapons, mail, fuel piped through a separate line, and eventually a narrow-gauge rail cart moved through it. It was wet, cramped, and dug mostly by volunteers and soldiers working in shifts, often standing in water. It stayed the only land route in or out of Sarajevo for most of the siege’s 1,425 days, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996.
This page covers what remains to see today, what it costs, how to get there, and where it fits alongside the rest of the city’s siege-related sites — Sniper Alley, the Historical Museum, and the War Childhood Museum among them.
What survives today, and where
The house that held the Sarajevo-side entrance did not survive intact, and that section of the tunnel is inaccessible. The house on the Butmir side — owned by the Kolar family, whose basement held the free-territory entrance — still stands, and it is here that the museum operates. Roughly 20 metres of the original passage have been preserved and reinforced to their wartime dimensions, low enough that most adults need to duck. Above ground, the house itself holds a small exhibition: photographs from the digging and use of the tunnel, personal items, wartime documents, and a short film with period footage.
It is a modest site by design, not by neglect. There is no attempt to recreate a full 800-metre walk-through, and the exhibition does not extend much beyond a few rooms. What it does well is make the mechanics of the tunnel legible in a way that written description struggles to: the width you had to turn sideways to pass another person in, the slope where the water table sat highest, the beams that shifted as convoys and later the rail cart wore the passage down. Visitors typically spend 30 to 45 minutes on site, closer to an hour with an unhurried look at the exhibition.
The one practical wrinkle worth flagging before it flags you: the site sits in Butmir, on the southern edge of the airport, away from the city centre entirely. It is not walkable from anywhere useful, and it is easy to underestimate how disconnected it is from Sarajevo’s public transport network.
Getting there: the site everyone underestimates the distance to
Butmir is about 12 kilometres from central Sarajevo, close to Sarajevo International Airport but not served by it in any useful way for a museum visit. There is no tram line out here, and the bus routes that pass nearby require a change and still leave a walk of a kilometre or more to the museum door. In practice, three approaches work:
| Option | Time from centre | Approximate cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taxi, one way | 20–25 minutes | 15–20 KM | Ask the driver to wait, or arrange a pickup time — taxis don’t cruise past the site |
| Taxi, return with waiting time | 45–60 minutes total | 35–50 KM | The straightforward option for a solo or small-group visit |
| Guided siege tour that stops here | Varies, usually half-day | Included in tour price | Removes the transport problem entirely |
| Rental car | 20–25 minutes | Parking is free and easy | Worth it only if you’re already driving that day |
Public transport does exist in theory — a bus and a short walk — but it is slow enough, and the walk unshaded enough in summer, that almost nobody without a car or a booked tour chooses it. If you are relying on Sarajevo’s tram and trolleybus network for the rest of your visit, this is the one site on most itineraries where it makes sense to break that habit and book a taxi or a tour instead.
Combining the tunnel with a guided tour
Because the site is awkward to reach independently, most visitors see it as one stop on a longer guided tour rather than a dedicated trip. Several operators run half-day itineraries that link the tunnel with Sniper Alley, the former front lines, and sites in the city centre, which solves the transport problem and adds route-level context — where the lines actually ran, which buildings were fought over, what neighbourhoods changed hands.
For visitors who prefer to combine the tunnel with something more active, a guided bike route through the city that includes entry to the tunnel covers a wider stretch of ground than a walking tour can, useful if you also want to see how far the siege lines actually stretched.
If cycling isn’t for you, a general walking tour of the old town and surrounding history is a reasonable primer before or after a separate tunnel visit, and covers the Bascarsija and Austro-Hungarian core in more depth than a siege-focused itinerary usually allows. For a slower look at residential Sarajevo away from the main sites, a walk through the traditional mahala neighbourhoods on the hillsides shows the kind of streets that were under direct fire from the surrounding hills throughout the siege.
None of this is necessary — the museum is open independently, with its own ticket desk, and no guide is required to walk in. A tour simply removes the transport question and adds narration the on-site panels don’t have space for.
How to approach the visit with the right frame of mind
This is not a place built for spectacle, and it helps to arrive with that in mind. The Kolar house was a family home before it was a museum, and the people who passed through the tunnel were mostly ordinary residents trying to bring food home, reach relatives or get a message out. Walking the preserved stretch slowly, rather than treating it as a photo stop, is the way the site reads best. Take a moment in the exhibition rooms too: the photographs and personal items carry more weight when you give them time than when you move through at tour-group speed.
If you have not yet read much about the war, the guide to the war context for visitors is a useful short primer, and the guide to visiting Sarajevo respectfully covers the tone that suits sites like this one. For a longer reading and viewing list to prepare, see the siege books and films guide. Many visitors find the tunnel lands harder after they have already stood on the streets it was meant to bypass, so seeing Sniper Alley first is a sensible order.
For a narrative-led option that centres on the tunnel itself, a storytelling-style visit built around the tunnel and the siege suits travellers who would rather hear the story told than piece it together from wall panels. The guide to the siege tours on offer compares what the different formats cover, and the dedicated Tunnel of Hope visiting guide goes further on practical detail.
The siege, briefly, for context
The tunnel only makes sense against the broader siege it served. Sarajevo was encircled from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 — 1,425 days, the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. Roughly 11,000 people were killed, including close to 1,600 children, from shelling and from sniper fire along streets like Sniper Alley that ran directly in the line of fire from the surrounding hills. Utilities were cut for extended periods; food, medicine, and fuel were rationed or absent. The tunnel was, for most of that period, the only way any of these supplies — or any person — moved between the city and the outside world without crossing open, exposed terrain.
That context is available in more depth at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which focuses specifically on the siege, and at the War Childhood Museum, built around objects donated by people who were children during the war. The Gallery 11/07/95 covers the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica, a separate and later event, with the same sobriety this page tries to hold to. None of these places are stops on a checklist. They are where Sarajevo asks to be understood on its own terms, and the tunnel is one part of that, not a headline attraction.
Planning a realistic visit
The tunnel museum works best as a deliberate, planned stop rather than something added on impulse, precisely because of the transport gap. A few points worth settling before you go:
- Confirm opening hours before travelling out. The museum keeps shorter hours than city-centre sites and can close for maintenance without much notice; a phone check or a look at a current listing saves a wasted taxi fare.
- Bring cash. Entry (10–15 KM) is paid on site, and Butmir has no useful cash infrastructure nearby.
- Decide on transport before you leave the centre. Ordering a taxi app or agreeing a return time with a driver at the outset avoids standing in Butmir without a way back.
- Pair it with something else nearby, since the trip out is the same whether you stay 20 minutes or 90. Some visitors combine it with an airport pickup or drop-off; others fold it into a half-day guided route through the wider siege sites.
- Set expectations on scale. This is a compact site — a preserved stretch of tunnel and a few exhibition rooms — not a large museum complex. Visitors expecting an hours-long experience are usually surprised by how quickly it’s covered, which is exactly why pairing it with a tour or another stop makes for a better use of the trip out.
If you’re building a wider one-day Sarajevo itinerary or working from the general first-day guide to the city, the tunnel sits more comfortably on a second day or a dedicated half-day given the extra transport it requires — most compressed one-day plans leave it out for exactly that reason.
Shaping the rest of the day around the tunnel
Because the trip out takes real time, it is worth deciding what surrounds it. Some travellers prefer to go in the morning and return to the centre for a quieter afternoon in Bascarsija, where the old-town streets offer a gentler counterweight to what the museum shows. Others like to follow the tunnel with a sit-down meal; the Sarajevo food guide and the burek guide are good places to start once you are back in the city.
Families and groups with different energy levels can read the guide to Sarajevo with kids before deciding whether the visit suits everyone; the subject is sobering, and it is reasonable to judge for each person. If you are building a longer stay, the two-day and three-day itineraries both leave room for a trip out to Butmir without squeezing the rest of the city.
Finally, the tunnel is a good anchor for thinking about the wider region. The guide to the best day trips from Sarajevo and the Srebrenica day trip are natural next steps for visitors who want to go deeper into the history, while the guide to the Sarajevo war museums compared helps you choose which indoor sites to prioritise if time is limited.
Frequently asked questions about the Tunnel of Hope
What is the Tunnel of Hope in Sarajevo?
The Tunnel of Hope (Tunel spasa) is an 800-metre tunnel dug by hand in 1993 beneath the airport runway, the only route between besieged Sarajevo and free territory during the 1,425-day siege. Around 20 metres of the original passage are open to visitors on the Butmir side, next to a small museum, for an entry fee of roughly 10–15 KM.
How much does it cost to visit the Tunnel of Hope?
Entry is around 10–15 KM (about 5–8 EUR) per adult, paid on site in cash. Guided tours that include the tunnel as a stop bundle the entry fee into their price, so check whether it is included before you pay twice.
How do you get to the Tunnel of Hope without a car?
There is no direct tram or bus line to the museum in Butmir. Most independent visitors take a taxi from the centre (20–25 minutes, metered, roughly 15–20 KM each way) and ask the driver to wait or arrange a return pickup, since taxis rarely pass by on spec.
How much of the original tunnel can you actually see?
About 20 metres of the original 800-metre passage remain open to the public, reconstructed to the original dimensions inside the Kolar family house that served as the wartime entrance. The rest of the route, which ran to Dobrinja on the city side, is either collapsed or built over.
Is the Tunnel of Hope worth visiting?
For anyone trying to understand the siege of Sarajevo, yes — it is the clearest physical explanation of how the city survived without being encircled by evidence of the war on every corner. It is a short visit best paired with the transport to get there, not a half-day destination on its own.
Can you visit the Tunnel of Hope without a guided tour?
Yes. The museum is open independently with its own ticket desk; a guide is not required to enter. Most visitors who lack a car choose a guided siege tour anyway, since it solves the transport problem and adds context that the on-site panels cover only briefly.
