Montenegro is small. The choices are not.
Which Blue Cave boat stops long enough to swim. Whether the day trip in from Dubrovnik is worth the border queue. What a wooden boat on Skadar Lake costs. Every tour in the country, reviewed.
From the Blue Cave to the black mountain.
Six places carry most of a Montenegrin week: a cave that turns the sea electric, an island somebody built by hand, a lake full of pelicans, and the peaks the country is named after.
Kotor, Perast, Budva, Lovcen: the loop that fits a week.
Lovcen
Durmitor & TaraBlue Cave: the boat you pick decides the day.
Every Blue Cave boat →
The cave itself takes ten minutes. What separates the boats is how long you get in the water, what else they call at on the way, and whether you are on an open speedboat or under a canopy with forty other people.
Cave, Mamula and the submarine tunnels
Out of Kotor or Tivat at speed, into the cave while the light still turns the water electric, then the abandoned island fortress on Mamula and the tunnels the navy cut into the cliff at Rose.
Boka Bay end to end, cave included
Past Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks, through the narrows at Verige, into the cave mid-morning before the fleet builds up, then a long swim off Zanjic on the way home.
From Herceg Novi, nearest the cave
Herceg Novi sits closest to the Lustica headland, so the crossing is quick and the ticket is the cheapest on the coast. The pick if the cave is the only thing on the list.
The tours that fill up first in Montenegro.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else on this coast, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip
Review of the $70 Dubrovnik to Montenegro day trip, with Perast, Kotor, optional island boat ride, border tips, and honest value advice.
From · $70
Read our review →
2
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Boat Tour from Perast to Kotor
from $68
3
Swim in the Blue Cave + Lady of the Rocks Tour
from $53
4
Blue Cave, Submarine Base and Lady of the Rocks Tour
from $53
5
Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base
from $39
6
Skadar Lake National Park: Guided Boat Tour to Kom Monastery
from $37
7
From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day Trip with Boat Cruise
from $62
8
Boat to Blue Cave & Lady of the Rocks &Submarine Base
from $32
Kotor ends up as the base whether you planned it or not.
Every boat leaves from the quay under the walls, the old town is a ten-minute maze with four churches in it, and the fjord road out of the gate reaches half the country before lunch.
The bay built one of these. The mountain built the other two.
Walled old towns and clear water run the length of the Adriatic. An island laid by hand, a tomb above the cloud line and a canyon deeper than anything else in Europe belong to this country alone.
Our Lady of the Rocks
Two Perast sailors found an icon on a reef in 1452, and the town has been dropping stones on the spot ever since. The reef became a shoal, the shoal became an island, and the island now carries a blue-domed church whose walls are hung with silver votive plates left by men who came home. On 22 July the boats still go out at dusk and throw rocks over the side.
- 1Swim in the Blue Cave + Lady of the Rocks Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,462 reviews
- 2Blue Cave, Submarine Base and Lady of the Rocks Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,869 reviews
- 3Blue Cave Swim Stop, Lady of the Rocks & Submarine Base★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,914 reviews
The Njegos Mausoleum
The old road out of Kotor turns twenty-five times in eight kilometres, and at the top of it Mount Lovcen carries the tomb of the poet and prince-bishop who ran the country from a monastery. Four hundred and sixty-one steps through a tunnel bring you out between two granite caryatids, with roughly two thirds of Montenegro laid out below on a clear morning.
- 1Great Montenegro Tour-Lovcen NP,Mausoleum Lovcen,River of Crnojevic,Sveti Stefan★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 637 reviews
- 2Private National Park Lovcen with food and wine tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 33 reviews
- 3Private Excursion to Lovćen National Park & Budva★★★★★★★★★★ 3.7 · 17 reviews
The Tara Canyon
North of Zabljak the Tara has sawn 1,300 metres down through limestone, which makes it the deepest canyon in Europe and second in the world only to the Grand Canyon. Rafts run the calm summer section between May and October. The bridge above it was blown up in 1942 by the engineer who built it, and rebuilt after the war.
- 1North Montenegro, Durmitor, Tara & Ostrog Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 413 reviews
- 2TARA BRIDGE: Tara River Rafting Trip with Jeep Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 55 reviews
- 3Durmitor – Black Lake & Tara River Canyon – North Montenegro tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 41 reviews
Budva sleeps late and swims early.
A walled old town you can cross in four minutes, a strip of bars behind it, and a run of beaches south towards Sveti Stefan. The islet is the photograph everyone takes; the water on either side of it is where you actually get in.
Twenty minutes inland, Montenegro stops being a coastline.
The largest lake in southern Europe sits behind the coastal wall, half of it in Albania. Wooden boats leave Virpazar through channels of water lilies, pelicans nest in the reeds, and the villages on the slopes above make the Vranac that the whole country drinks.
- 1Skadar Lake National Park: Guided Boat Tour to Kom Monasteryfrom $37
- 2Skadar Lake National Park: Guided Boat Tour with Wooden Boatfrom $26
- 3Skadar Lake National Park Guided Boat Tourfrom $25
What a day out in Montenegro actually costs.
The whole catalogue in three price bands. The cheap end here is not the compromise it is further up the Adriatic.
Cave tickets, old-town walks, kayak mornings and the shared boats that leave the Kotor quay through the day.
The full days: Boka Bay cruises, the Lovcen and Cetinje loop, Skadar Lake with lunch and a tasting at the end.
Private boats and chartered cars. Most of these are priced per group rather than per head, so a car of four splits the number.
The bay does its best work in the hour before dark.
All evening tours →
Private Blue Cave Tour – Swim & Relax at Your Pace
Read our review →
The Montenegro days that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be booked from the apartment the night before. These run on a season, a wind forecast or a border crossing, and none of them care when your flight lands.
- 01TARA BRIDGE: Tara River Rafting Trip with Jeep TransferThe Tara only takes rafts between roughly May and October, and the water runs highest in late spring.
- 02Epic 25 Turns Downhill Bike Descent w/ Panoramic Cable Car AscentCabins up to Lovcen are sold in timed slots and the line stops in high wind, so fair-weather mornings go first.
- 03From Dubrovnik: Montenegro Day TripIt starts in another country. Coach seats are finite and the border queue is at its slowest through August.
- 04Swim in the Blue Cave + Lady of the Rocks TourSmall boats, and the run is cancelled when the sea gets up. The colour inside is strongest before midday.
Wet week in Montenegro? Go inland and go underground.
The mountains behind the Bay of Kotor wring more rain out of the sky than almost anywhere else in Europe, and most of it falls between November and March. The answers are all under a roof: a lit cave walkway, a konoba above a vineyard, the churches inside the Kotor walls, and a monastery built into a cliff face.
By base — where you sleep decides your day
Kotor199 tours
Budva58 tours
Podgorica33 tours
Herceg Novi13 tours
Skadar Lake34 tours
Perast41 tours
Durmitor & Zabljak4 tours- All Montenegro tours →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
The newest Montenegro reviews.
All recent →
Gastronomy and Sightseeing in Montenegro – Lake Skadar & Cetinje Private Tour
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Private Transfer from Tivat airport to Tivat city or Porto Montenegro
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Private Transfer from Tivat airport to Budva or Becici
Read our review →
Enjoy Private Transfers by Car or Van from Tivat Airport to Kotor or Budva
Read our review →
Blue cave Mamula Tunnels Speed Boat Tour From Herceg Novi
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Perast,Kotor, Porto Montenegro Private Tour from Herceg Novi
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Durmitor National Park, Northern Fairy Tail -private tour from Podgorica
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