So you thought you head on to Montenegro and relax for a couple of days, in peace and quiet and wild, beautifull, untouched and unspoiled beaches? Wrong. Montenegro is not a quiet place and most beaches are either too crowded or spoiled by terrible architectural solutions. Nightlife is virtually non-existant unless you love turbofolk or know where to look.
So, here are couple of things you must do/have/get in order to have a good time in Crna Gora.
1. Car, bike, truck, minivan – anything that can get you from A to B on dry land. Montenegro is a small country, but not so small that you can go by foot. Bus transport is cheap but often unreliable. You can also use the train from Belgrade to transport your car to Montenegro. Driving from Serbian capital will take you some 10 to 12 hours, 6 of those only through Montenegro’s 250 km of windy roads. But in freedom to easily conquer the entire coastline in the end is very much worth it.
2. Friend among the locals – you know, someone who can take you to the best beaches without getting lost. Tourist guides are virtually non existant or pretty superficial when it comes to pointing you to places where you can actually relax, whether it is a quiet beach or a normal club/cafe/city.
3. Boat – I know this is a tough one, but if you can indeed somehow get to one, you are on a high horse. Some of the best beaches are reachable only by sea.
4. Accommodation with separate backup sources of water and electricity – unless you like it like that, power and water shortages in Montenegro are still a common thing.
As you can conclude from these recomended items, Montenegro is still not so quite user-friendly, and unfortunately tourism is gone bad in most towns on riviera, probably due to the fact that the locals are guessing how it should look like instead of copying the more experienced countries, and also to the fact that the coastline is too small to fit all of those who are not given any choice due to visa restrictions.
I’m sure I’m missing something in my list, but i believe that these are the basics. If you think of something else that would help an unsuspecting tourist, than by all means contribute in the comments.
Oh, and hopefully you didn’t think the blog was dead – it just smelled that way 
Don’t worry, not only we are alive and well, but there is an redesign on the way and some new exciting features on the site – forum, to name the most important one.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hm. I had a great time in Montenegro, but you are right – maybe due to being there with locals.
I can highly recommend Montenegro in June and in Dobre Vode.
Welcome back Viktor! I couldn’t seem to access the site for a while and I worried the blog had come to an end.
Hello everybody, its been a hell of a Summer…
Hmm particularly number 3. A boat is the best way to get about – not that I’m speaking through experience, but it means you can avoid the crowds, bad roads and as you say get to places with are difficult to access.
Oh and somebody who has a license and doesnt drink is a great help. Its great going from one place to the next.
Its a pity that Montenegro isnt do more to remedy the situation – particularly in tourist areas such as Budva.
If my advice is worth anything the best places to stay are Kotor, Tivat and Ada Bojana.
Thanks for your valuable contribution!
I’ll limit my comments to Budva only.
Speaking as someone who grew up in Budva and still has some family there, my advice when it comes to that city in July and August is – pretty much – stay away unless you’re currently a teenager or have been a teenager within last 5 years.
Over the last decade, Budva ballooned from a cute & sleepy seacoast community to a ridiculously overgrown and sprawling almost-city (basically, one big bloated town stretching along the coast from Jaz to Petrovac that every summer plays host to a herd of some 200,000+ vacationing souls – most of them from Serbia). Saying Budva is overcrowded is a huge understatement. Every year they seem to manage to physically jam, squeeze and shovel more and more people into this very limited area. It’s gotten to a point where I don’t even bother going there before late August – I simply can’t deal with all the crap (continuous water supply outages caused by oversized demand, lineups and crowds wherever you go, noise, car pollution, etc.).
The architecture and urban planning of this “new Budva” is a whole new depressing topic. Urban development plans either don’t exist or are very vague so most take them only as suggestions, by which I mean “they ignore them”. Furthermore, like any good Balkan city, local government is as corrupt as they come so getting your way is very easy if you’re willing to grease the wheel – and plenty of wheels offer themselves to be greased so that’s never a problem. A friend who works in one of Budva’s real-estate agencies told me that by his estimate some 80% of buildings in Budva either don’t have the proper building permit (gradjevinska dozvola) or the proper usage permit (upotrebna dozvola) or often both.
The way urban development works in Budva is the following: a perspective “developer” (usually a rich Balkan gastarbeiter based in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland) scopes out a piece of land where he thinks a new building could be built and asks: “who owns this parcel”. The answer in most cases is “oh, it’s so-and-so from such-and-such family” (usually an “old Budva” family that’s been there for a while). Gastarbeiter then goes to the head of the household and asks “how much for this thing, domacine”. Domacin names his price, the gastarbaiter pays out in cash on the spot (no banks, no lawyers) and sometimes even says: “listen, for being so nice I’ll even give your son/daughter a nice two-bedroom apartments in the building once it’s built”. Needless to say, gastarbeiter has already buttered everyone who needs to be buttered at the municipal authorities in order for them to turn a blind eye to the fact that a building is going up at an arbitrary spot that’s against all urban plans for the municipality.
I can only imagine the extent of bribing now that all these rich cowboy Russians and Ukrainians have come, seeing that they have a lot more money at their disposal than your average rich cowboy gastarbaiter.
The result of this wide practice is a new Frankenstein town with buildings basically on top of one another. One local had a good line (I don’t know if it translates well into English): “basically this city looks like someone took dozen sacks full with building seed and emptied them across this valley so that every building started growing where it wanted”. There are some truly bizarre examples with buildings being so close to each other and bunched up: from being able to shake hands with your neighbour from across the street if you stretch over your balcony and he stretches over his, to being able to hear your next building neighbor snore.
PS: Having said all that, Budva is still great if you’re in the 17 to 22 age bracket. Mommy and Daddy sent you off on a summer vacation with some spending money. You left your worries and your brain (if you had any to begin with) at home, which means that you don’t care were you sleep or what you eat and are just looking to get drunk/stoned and to get laid without catching any STDs.
C’mon guys…you’re tooo severe…
Last September I’ve spent a few days (4 nights, tacno) in Montenegro. No boat, no house, no car, no locals, no room where to sleep. Just me, my friend and THANK GOD my tiny little Serbian spoken( Da li ti si nasa, was the most common question I received from anybody…and I’d love to be Vasa) . I’ve met a dobar domacin, some funny guys on the beach trying to convince us making out with them (but this is sooooooo Summer, anywhere!) and wonderful sea, for such a few money.
I mean, of course, a whole Summer is …hell, but a few days, just to relax doing nothing…it’s great! I loved it!
I’ve been to Komovi mountain few weeks ago. Typical montenegrin hospitality, with sugar served on spoon, endless waiting for the bill to pay, and very “kind” waiters. Really beautiful country, but without any sense of hospitality, tourism and service.
I loved Montenegro!!! It’s your fault that you’ve chosen most advertised places in peak of a tourist season! Try Biogradsko lake, Ada Bojana, Kotor (4 a night life), Zanjice, and all beaches between Budva and Tivat!