Montenegro Travel Tips: Everything You Need to Know for Your Trip

Montenegro Travel Tips at a Glance

• Location: in Eastern Europe between Croatia and Albania
• Best time to visit: May, June, and September
• Getting there & entry: up to 90 days visa-free, with a national ID or passport
• Getting around: best by rental car or your own vehicle
• Costs: about 10–20 percent cheaper than Western European countries
• Safety: safe travel destination, including for solo female travelers
• Highlights: Kotor and the highlights of the Bay of Kotor, old towns, Lovćen National Park, Durmitor National Park, Lake Skadar, Sveti Stefan, Tara Canyon, Blue Cave, Porto Montenegro, and Ostrog Monastery

Best Time to Visit Montenegro

We recommend traveling to Montenegro in May, June, or September. During these months you can look forward to pleasant temperatures for sightseeing, swimming, and hiking. It’s not too hot, but not cold either. Plus, there are fewer tourists around than during peak season.

July and August work as travel months for Montenegro too, but it gets very warm and the coast in particular gets extremely crowded.

April and October are a solid shoulder season — especially if you’re focused on sightseeing in Montenegro. For skiing, we recommend the winter months of December through February.

Getting to Montenegro

Most visitors fly directly to Montenegro. The main airports are Tivat on the coast and the capital Podgorica near Lake Skadar.

We recommend flying into Tivat. You’ll land right on the coast and can reach Budva in just under an hour — the ideal base for day trips and the first stop on our road trip through Montenegro.

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You can also easily combine Montenegro with a road trip through the Balkans and enter the country overland. For example, you could fly to Tirana in Albania or Dubrovnik in Croatia and travel to Montenegro from there. From either city, you’re only one to two hours from the border.

That said, budget an extra one to one and a half hours for the border crossing to be safe. During peak season especially, things can get busy. At the border, your national ID or passport and vehicle documents will be checked. You can enter visa-free for up to 90 days.

Getting Around Montenegro

The best way to get around Montenegro is by rental car. You’ll have the flexibility to reach places that public transportation or organized tours simply can’t.

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Go for a smaller car rather than a larger one — Montenegro has a lot of narrow roads. And make sure it comes with full insurance coverage, since some roads are more like gravel tracks than proper tarmac. You don’t need an international driver’s license in Montenegro.

If you’d rather not drive, you can get around well by bus. Tickets can be bought on the spot at the station counter or directly on the bus. If you’re paying on board, make sure you have cash on hand.

Accommodations in Montenegro

Tourism in Montenegro has only really taken off since around 2010. That means the accommodation options aren’t as extensive as in Italy or Spain.

You’ll mostly find vacation rentals, but also some hotels. There are also plenty of campgrounds, especially in the mountain regions and around Lake Skadar. Wild camping is officially prohibited, but outside of Montenegro’s national parks it’s generally tolerated.

One important heads-up: for vacation rentals, small hotels, and campgrounds, you’ll usually need to pay in cash on-site. More on that in the next section.

For your road trip through Montenegro, we recommend booking one place to stay on the coast (ideally in Budva) and one inland. From Budva you can easily reach all the coastal highlights. For the inland must-sees, your best bet is somewhere near Durmitor National Park.

Montenegro isn’t large. Two bases are plenty to explore the whole country on day trips.

Our hotel pick in Budva: Hotel Villa Gracia — a modern hotel with a great location for day trips

Our hotel pick near Durmitor National Park: Forma Lux Žabljak — charming apartments right near Durmitor National Park

Travel Costs for Montenegro

Montenegro is often described as a budget-friendly destination — and that’s partly true. But in some areas, prices are slowly creeping toward Western European levels.

Accommodation is about 10–20 percent cheaper than in Western Europe. A night in a vacation rental during peak season runs around 50–70 euros. For a hotel double room, expect to pay between 100 and 150 euros.

Restaurant meals are roughly 1–3 euros cheaper than in comparable Western European countries, and activities in Montenegro are generally priced similarly.

Rental cars, on the other hand, are very affordable. Book two to three months ahead and you can get a compact car for a week for 100–150 euros. Gas is cheap too — during our trip in July 2025, we paid 1.45 euros per liter at every station we stopped at.

Direct flights to Montenegro are available in peak season from around 150 to 200 euros.

How do you pay in Montenegro?

In Montenegro, the currency is the euro.

At most restaurants, supermarkets, and ticket counters, you can pay by card. One of our top tips for planning a trip to Montenegro: get yourself a free travel credit card with no foreign transaction fees before you go.

At small shops, vacation rentals, guesthouses, and smaller hotels, you’ll usually need to pay in cash on-site. This is especially important to plan for your accommodation — even if you booked through Booking.com. At larger hotels, paying through the platform is generally fine.

There are ATMs for cash withdrawals around Montenegro, but you’ll almost always pay a fee of around 5–6 euros. ATMs at Universal Capital Bank are said to be fee-free. We never actually used one ourselves, since there are very few of their machines in the country — but feel free to share your experience in the comments!

Safety in Montenegro

Montenegro is a safe travel destination. We traveled as two women and felt comfortable everywhere we went.

As always, watch out for pickpockets in busy tourist areas — but we didn’t encounter any incidents ourselves.

Honestly, the biggest hazard for visitors is traffic. Montenegrin drivers can be unpredictable and tend to drive fast. That said, all the roads we drove were perfectly manageable — even the narrow and winding ones.

Communication in Montenegro

The official language of Montenegro is Montenegrin, which is very closely related to Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian — the languages are often virtually identical.

Most locals speak English well, so you won’t have trouble getting around.

Food and Drink in Montenegro

Montenegro has a strong culture of meat and fish dishes. Vegetarian options are always available, though. The cuisine is typically Balkan-style, but you’ll also find plenty of pizza and pasta thanks to Montenegro’s proximity to Italy.

Here are some of the most popular Montenegrin dishes:

• Ćevapi/Ćevapčići: grilled minced meat rolls served in various ways (usually with onions and flatbread)
• Pljeskavica: spiced ground meat patty, often served with onions, ajvar, and flatbread
• Burek: pastry filled with ground meat, cheese, spinach, or potatoes
• Sarma: ground meat and rice rolled in cabbage or grape leaves
• Pastrmka: grilled trout
• Crni Rižot: black risotto with squid and seafood
• Kačamak: hearty cornmeal porridge with potatoes, butter, and kajmak (fresh cheese)
• Palačinke: thin crepes, filled sweet or savory

Can you drink tap water in Montenegro?

Yes! In most regions — especially the tourist ones — the tap water is completely safe to drink, as it comes from mountain springs. This applies to hotels, vacation rentals, and restaurants alike.

Just be a little cautious in rural areas or after heavy rainfall.

Internet, SIM Cards, and Power Outlets in Montenegro

Most accommodations offer Wi-Fi, but in our experience it often didn’t work reliably and our phones frequently dropped connection. That’s why we were really glad to have our travel eSIM.

We got our eSIM from Montenegrin Telecom and were happy with the connection. You can find it on their official website. It’s super affordable — 500 GB for 15 days costs just 15 euros, plus an extra 9 GB usable across other Balkan countries.

For 20 euros, you can upgrade to 1 TB for 30 days, plus 11 GB in neighboring Balkan countries.

The plan is also available as a physical SIM card at most supermarkets or directly at the border or airport. We’d recommend the eSIM, though — it’s more convenient and you can set it up before you even leave home.

As for power outlets, no worries there. Standard European plugs fit all Montenegrin outlets without an adapter.