Practical

Travelling Montenegro Alone

Montenegro is easy and safe alone. The friction is not danger — it is that a lot of what you would want to do is priced for two.

Updated · 2 min read

The actual problem

Not safety. Pricing. A great deal here is sold per boat, per vehicle or per apartment rather than per person, and a solo traveller pays the same as a couple.

Priced how
ApartmentsPer apartment. A solo traveller pays the double rate.
Private boat tripsPer boat, €150 – €300
Jeep toursPer vehicle, minimum two people on many
RaftingPer person — fine alone, you join a boat
Shared boat tripsPer person — fine alone
Hire carPer car, and the biggest single cost alone

Hostels, and where they are

Montenegro has a real hostel scene, concentrated in three places: Kotor, which has several good ones inside the old town, Budva, which has party hostels, and Podgorica, which has a couple of quiet ones. Beds run €12 to €25.

Outside those three the picture thins fast. Žabljak and Kolašin have guesthouses rather than hostels, and Ulcinj has a few in summer only.

Meeting people

  • Kotor hostels organise walks, boat days and pub crawls, and they are the social centre for anyone travelling alone
  • Rafting and canyoning put you in a boat with five strangers for three hours, which does the work for you
  • The Peaks of the Balkans trail is walked largely by solo hikers who end up in the same guesthouses
  • The evening promenade in any coastal town — sitting in a café at seven is not a solitary activity here

Safety

Low violent crime, safe to walk anywhere at night in any town, and a culture where a stranger sitting alone is likely to be spoken to out of curiosity rather than anything else. Hitchhiking is still normal in the north.

The genuine risks are the same as for anyone: the road, the sea and the sun. Swimming alone off an unpatrolled beach is the one worth thinking about, because most beaches here have no lifeguard.

Women travelling alone

Common and unremarkable. The main thing anyone reports is being noticed rather than bothered — a woman eating alone in a small inland konoba will be observed, and probably talked to, and that is the extent of it.

Coastal towns in August are as anonymous as anywhere in the Mediterranean.

The car question

This is the real decision. A hire car is €25 to €55 a day plus fuel, and alone you carry all of it. The alternatives:

  • Base in Kotor and use buses and boats — the coast works completely without a car
  • Take the train to Kolašin for the mountains
  • Organised day tours for Lovćen, Ostrog and Durmitor, €30 – €60, which is cheaper than three days of hire
  • Hire for two days only, in the middle, for the north

The short version

Kotor for a week, a hostel, buses along the coast, a rafting day and a boat day booked as shared departures. That is a good solo trip and it costs about €55 a day including the bed.

Book locally

Run by a licensed operator in Žabljak. Send a request, pay the operator on the day.

Tara Rafting 14 km — Durmitor National ParkRafting · ŽabljakTara Rafting 14 km — Durmitor National ParkThe shortest Tara section Tara Kula runs: a half day on the river inside Durmitor National Park, passing under the Đurđevića Tara bridge.from €60 Tara Canyon Rafting 36 km — the Deepest PartRafting · ŽabljakTara Canyon Rafting 36 km — the Deepest PartA full day on the Tara through the canyon’s deepest stretch, with a jeep leg and an optional lunch.from €120 Family Day: 3 h Rafting + 4 h Jeep SafariRafting · ŽabljakFamily Day: 3 h Rafting + 4 h Jeep SafariHalf the day in a jeep, half on the calmer lower Tara, with breakfast and lunch sorted.from €120 Durmitor Retreat — Apartment in ŽabljakStay · ŽabljakDurmitor Retreat — Apartment in ŽabljakA renovated apartment in the middle of Žabljak, two minutes on foot from the rafting agency.Book on Airbnb

More in Practical

PracticalMontenegro Uses the Euro but Is Not in the EUHow a country outside the eurozone ended up using the euro, where cards stop working, and what the cash machines charge you. PracticalEight Mistakes First-Time Visitors MakeUnderestimating driving times, arriving without cash for the north, missing the registration slip, and five other things that go wrong on a first trip. PracticalChoosing a Base in MontenegroSix towns compared on price, noise, and how far everything else is. Pick the base that matches the trip you are actually taking.