My girlfriends grandmother is paying for my girlfriends mother and sister to go on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, where apparently the Virgin Mary has appeared or some such idea. That’s all well and good for them. My main concern is in the safety of such a trip. Is Bosnia still a war torn area? Is this a crazy thing to do, or has it sufficiently calmed down in the region to permit safe passage? You don’t hear as much about Bosnia these days, and Google isn’t helping much except for pointing me to websites shilling sketchy seeming faith information.
There no war going on in Bosnia currently, and I personnally wouldn’t hesitate to visit it (Actually I intend to do so at some future date. I would like to visit again Sarajevo).
Of course, I might be mistaken, but I will certainly be corrected in this case.
AFAIK, the only issue with visiting Bosnia are landmines that are still found in many places, so it’s not recommanded to wander around in the countryside.
In case you wouldn’t know, it’s a good idea to visit the sites intended by the various departments of foreign affairs to inform the visitors of foreign countries. I unfortunately don’t have the sites adresses, but you could want to check, in english, the american and british one (these sites, for obvious reasons, tend to err on the side of caution, and sometimes also mentions not really important details for unknown reasons. But they still are valuable sources of informations).
I don’t see any reason not to go. There’s specific concerns highlighted for travellers by the British Foreign Office and by Lonely Planet, but they’re of a fairly unsurprising nature (“avoid political demonstrations” etc). We don’t hear much about Bosnia these days because it’s just quietly recovering. And Medjugorje is only a few miles from the Croatian coast, which is rapidly becoming a tourism hotspot once again.
The Australian government has set up the SmartTraveller site which tries to inform about possible risks.
The US State Department has travel advisories for every country in the world on its website (www.state.gov).
Bosnia’s fine now, although clairobscur’s point about landmines should be noted.
My in-laws went twice, however, both trips were several years ago. The first trip was part of a large church “pilgrimage”, and there was still some kind of fighting going on. My MIL was quite certain that the Virgin Mary would keep them safe. The second time was a smaller group. They quite enjoyed both trips and I would suspect your girlfriend’s family would as well.
I worked in Bosnia for a time in '98, although I was in the northern part of the country.
On the whole Bosnia’s relatively safe, but landmines are the #1 problem. I’d suggest seeking some sort of mine awareness training. Being near the Croat border increases the likelihood of mined areas.
Whenever possible, walk on concrete or asphalt. When not possible, walk in tire tracks or others’ footprints. “If you didn’t drop it, don’t pick it up.” Everything from old tires to what look like ammo clips could have leftover explosive charges in them. Any number of things can be boobytrapped. X’s, painted or made with crossed trees or anything else, are signs of a mined area, as well as high grass where you’d expect mowing. Ruins of houses, etc could well be mined or boobytrapped. There’s a lot more, I’d say be careful but learn more on this issue and have fun.
The #2 problem is likely to be drunk driving, which was rampant when I was there. You may want to limit your late night cruising outside of cities.
The #3 problem, which causes #2, is homebrew rakija. Whew! Don’t be surprised if they offer a shot or two with breakfast.
Otherwise the average Bosnian is warm and charming (in between the periodic fits of ethnic and religious blood feud, which fortunately largely don’t involve you) and should be very happy to have your business. Removing your shoes when entering a home is customary, that’s a little politeness tip. On the whole I recommend Bosnia as a destination!
I agree with the other postings - the only thing that would put me off would be the huge quantity of tacky religious tourist tat being peddled there 
Here’s a report I found of a trip to Međugorje in 1999, entitled An Oasis of Peace…
An aside you may find amusing.
A mate of mine was out there some years back as part of the UN peacekeeping force. At Sarajevo airport they demanded he go through the metal detector even though he was fully tooled up - rifle, ammo, grenades, helmet, the works.