5 days in Montenegro
A five day Montenegro route that gives the mountains two days, because that is the half of the country with no queue.
Last updated . Mountain seasons, ferry and bus timetables, fares and cash acceptance all change, and the seasonal notes here are the fastest moving of them. Recheck the official sources below before travelling.
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Start with Montenegro, dates and travellers
Compare the travel services first, then use the itinerary below to plan each day.
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Montenegro gets described in two flatly opposite ways by people who both went, and the explanation is not taste, it is geography. In summer the Bay of Kotor absorbs cruise traffic onto a road built for villages, and it is as congested as anywhere in the Mediterranean. Ninety minutes inland, Durmitor is close to empty. Almost everyone who came away disappointed spent the whole trip on the coast.
How many days do you need in Montenegro?
5 days: 3 for the bay and the coast, and 2 for the mountains behind them.
Two days is enough for Kotor and Perast if you time them around the ships. What visitors regret is giving the north nothing at all, because that is where the country stops feeling crowded.
How bad are the crowds in Kotor?
In high summer there is rarely a day without a cruise ship in port, and for the 6 or so hours one is docked the old town and the bay road jam together.
It is a timing problem more than a scale problem. Ships unload in the morning and leave in the late afternoon, so the same streets that are unwalkable at 11am are pleasant at 6pm. Plan Kotor for early morning or the evening and the complaint mostly disappears.
Is driving in Montenegro difficult?
On the bay yes, in the mountains no. Those are effectively 2 different driving countries, and the northern roads are wide and nearly empty.
Locals point out, fairly, that most complaints come from visitors used to wider roads. The honest version is that the 2 halves of the country drive completely differently, and a car that feels like a liability around the bay is close to essential once you head north.
The plan at a glance
- Day
- 1
- Where
- Kotor
- What needs booking
- Nothing fixed
- Day
- 2
- Where
- Perast and the bay
- What needs booking
- Nothing fixed
- Day
- 3
- Where
- Lovcen and north to Zabljak
- What needs booking
- Car, if you want one
- Day
- 4
- Where
- Durmitor
- What needs booking
- Nothing fixed
- Day
- 5
- Where
- Tara Canyon and back
- What needs booking
- Nothing fixed
| Day | Where | What needs booking |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kotor | Nothing fixed |
| 2 | Perast and the bay | Nothing fixed |
| 3 | Lovcen and north to Zabljak | Car, if you want one |
| 4 | Durmitor | Nothing fixed |
| 5 | Tara Canyon and back | Nothing fixed |
The route at a glance
6 mapped stops · 5 days
Live route map
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Route stops
Follow the numbered order through each day.
Day 1: Kotor
- 1Kotor old town · about 2 hours
- ·San Giovanni fortress · about 2 hours
- ·Kotor after the ships leave · about 2 hours
Day 2: Perast and the bay
- 2Perast · about 2 hours
- ·Our Lady of the Rocks · about 90 minutes
- ·The bay road · about 2 hours
Day 3: Over Lovcen and north
- 3Lovcen and the Njegos mausoleum · about 3 hours
- ·North to Zabljak · about 3 hours
Day 4: Durmitor
- 4Black Lake · about 2 hours
- 5The Durmitor ring road · about 4 hours
Day 5: Tara Canyon and back
- 6Durdevica Tara bridge · about 2 hours
- ·The drive back to the coast · about 4 hours
Day 1: Kotor
A walled town at the head of the bay, best seen at the two ends of the day rather than in the middle of it.
- On foot
- About 4 km, and the fortress climb is genuinely steep
Early morning
Kotor old townabout 2 hours
Small enough to walk in an hour and worth doing before the first ship unloads. The lanes are medieval and the crowd tolerance is correspondingly low.
San Giovanni fortressabout 2 hours
The switchback climb up the cliff behind the town, roughly 1,350 steps. Do it early: there is no shade and it faces the morning sun.
Evening
Kotor after the ships leaveabout 2 hours
The same streets, without the queue. This is when the town is what the photographs claim it is, and it is the single most useful piece of timing on this trip.
Day 2: Perast and the bay
The prettier and quieter end of the bay, and a boat to a man made island.
- On foot
- About 3 km on foot
Morning
Perastabout 2 hours
A single street of baroque houses with no room to expand, which is why it has stayed as it is. Far calmer than Kotor even in season.
Our Lady of the Rocksabout 90 minutes
An artificial island built up by sailors dropping stones over centuries, a few minutes offshore by boat from Perast.
Afternoon
The bay roadabout 2 hours
The loop around the inner bay is the drive people come for. It is also the road that jams, so do it outside the middle of the day.
Day 3: Over Lovcen and north
The transition day, and the one where the country visibly changes.
- On foot
- About 3 km on foot, and a long drive
- Book before you go
- A hire car, if the rest of the trip depends on one
Morning
Lovcen and the Njegos mausoleumabout 3 hours
The serpentine road up from Kotor is the classic Montenegrin drive, and the mausoleum at the top has the view that covers half the country. The road is narrow and the hairpins are tight.
Afternoon
North to Zabljakabout 3 hours
Several hours of driving on progressively emptier roads. This is where the traffic stops and the trip changes character.
Day 4: Durmitor
The reason to have come north, and the day with no queue anywhere in it.
- On foot
- About 9 km if you walk the Black Lake circuit and beyond
Morning
Black Lakeabout 2 hours
The easy introduction to the national park, a flat circuit under the peaks a short walk from Zabljak. Busy by Durmitor standards, which is to say not busy.
Afternoon
The Durmitor ring roadabout 4 hours
A loop through the high plateau past glacial lakes and limestone peaks. This is where the emptiness is most obvious after three days on the coast.
Day 5: Tara Canyon and back
One of the deepest canyons in Europe on the way south, then out.
- On foot
- About 2 km on foot
Morning
Durdevica Tara bridgeabout 2 hours
The arched bridge over the canyon, and the standard viewpoint into it. Rafting trips leave from below if you would rather see it from the river.
Afternoon
The drive back to the coastabout 4 hours
Several hours. Leave a wide margin if you are flying out, because the last stretch rejoins the coastal traffic you spent the week avoiding.
Montenegro in outline
The busy half and the empty half
A bay that jams and a plateau that does not, ninety minutes apart.
Illustrations generated with FLUX for RoamWeek, August 2026. Stylised artwork rather than photographs of the places named.
The options below are separate choices rather than a package. Read how RoamWeek chooses and orders suggestions before using any of them.
Book the separate parts
Book the parts that need booking
Nothing here needs a ticket in advance. The decision that matters is transport, because the northern half of this route is difficult without a car.
You book each service directly with its supplier. These separate bookings do not form a RoamWeek package.
- Flights
Podgorica and Tivat both serve this route and sit on opposite sides of the country, so which one you fly into changes where the trip should start.
Search on Aviasales
- Stays
This route deliberately splits between the coast and the mountains, and Zabljak has far fewer beds than the bay, so the northern night is the one to fix first.
Search on Booking.com
- Activities
Our Lady of the Rocks needs a boat and the Tara canyon rafting has to be run by an operator, so these are the two parts that cannot be assembled on foot.
Search on GetYourGuide
What is worth the time, and what is not
Worth your time
- Kotor at either end of the day. The town is genuinely good and the crowd problem is confined to a predictable window in the middle of it.
- Two days in Durmitor. It is the half of the country with no queue, and one day there is mostly spent driving to it.
- The Lovcen road. The climb out of the bay is the drive Montenegro is known for, and it doubles as the way north.
Skip it
- Basing the whole trip on the coast. That is what almost every disappointed review describes, and it is a choice rather than a fact about the country.
- Budva in high season. It is the busiest and least distinctive part of the coast, and it competes for the hours Kotor and Perast use better.
- The bay road in the middle of the day. It is the same road the cruise coaches use, and it is a single lane in places.
Why this order
The route front loads the coast so that the crowds are dealt with while you still have the patience for them, and so that the trip finishes in the emptier half. Lovcen sits on day three because it is both a sight and the road north, which saves a whole transfer. Durmitor gets two nights rather than one because a single night there is really an afternoon once the drive is counted. The last day runs south rather than north so that the long drive ends at the airport instead of starting there.
Read next
- 7 days in Albania
Directly south and easy to combine overland through Shkoder.
- 5 days in Bosnia
The usual third leg, reachable from the bay through Trebinje.
What we checked
- Montenegro, national tourism organisation read 29 August 2026
- National Parks of Montenegro read 29 August 2026
- Visit Montenegro, travel information read 29 August 2026
Why this page exists. This is the only RoamWeek route that explains why Montenegro reviews contradict each other so violently, which is that the bay and the mountains are effectively two different countries in summer.