After Tour Ends in Dubrovnik

What's on the tour agenda?
What time of year?
Are you open to driving or do you prefer to stick to public transport?
Are you flying out of Dubrovnik?

Thank you for the responses. What about the islands just outside Dubrovnik. Any fun places to stay the night? Looking forward to the trip. Thank you again!

I vote for Montengro too. My first trip was after a visit to Dubrovnik and was limited to the towns along the Bay of Kotor. We stayed in Perast and it was unforgetable. Kotor the town was only so-so after Dubrovnik. But I fell in love with Montenegro. So I returned the next year and did the coastal towns of Budva, Stari Bar and Ulcinj before moving up to the mountains. (see my post about that here: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/montenegro/stuff-to-do-in-montenegro-steve-didn-t-have-time-to-tell-you-about-june-2019

Got my fly rod and headiing back in a few months....

I had just one day after the tour, and took a day tour to Montenegro. Enjoyable, but not special. Certainly more time, staying some nights in Montenegro, and venturing inland from the coast, would make the visit much richer. Be careful climbing the Great Wall of Kotor. While hiking there by myself, I fell off, and was lucky to not have spent some nights in a Montenegro hospital, with all my stuff in a hotel room in Dubrovnik. Scary just thinking about the possibilities.

RE islands off Dubrovnik (knowing the answers to my previous questions would result in better advice, but here goes!)
Mljet, mostly nature
Elafiti islands, ditto, with some nice sandy beaches
Korcula--if your tour does not include it, or only visits it briefly, this would be my choice, but it's four hours away.
You may wish to spend you last night in Cavtat, which is close to the airport.

If you prefer staying in Croatia, Split, Rovinj, Zagreb, Korcula, Plitvice National Park, or Mljet National park are all great options and definitely worth visiting.

If you want to visit another country, Montenegro is close by, and the Bay of Kotor is the more tourist oriented, especially Kotor, Budva, Suto More, Tivat, Our Lady of the Rocks and St. Stephen island.

Larry is sort of correct.

After seeing Dubrovnik, I just don't think the town of Kotor is worth the effort. On the other hand, Perast where the two islands Larry pointed out are located is worth the stop for a night after a late morning drive from Dubrovnik. The Conte Hotel & Restaurant is one of my favorite R&R places. Then you take the high road over the mountains to Budva (its not on Kotor Bay as implied above). Budva has about a third the tourist density as does Dubrovnik. In Budva the Hotel Astoria made for a realy nice stay for a few nights. The coastal fishing was good too. We carried one fish back into town where we had it prepared for dinner at a local restaurant. This guy was good.

Then a bit further down the coast was Stari Bar, home to what is claimed to be the oldest tree in Europe. If you are a tree hugger its great. The town itsself is pretty amazing too. Ulcinj is the next town and its a perfect example of where east meets west now that you have entered Muslim Europe. Stayed at the Apartments Timoni; basic, but great and kind owners.

On the way inland The Ostrog Monastery is well worth the stop and the roads and scenery leading up to it are memorable.

The capital, Podgorica (aka Titograd) has fairly good discount airline connections to Europe. What brought me there was Wizzair from Budapest for about $50

The rest is in my other post.....

Thank you all for the fantastic info. Next is google earth exploration to check all these places out. Linda

Once the tour ends in Dubrovnik we would like to rent a car and head to Montenegro. Is it best to rent a car at the airport since we will be flying out of there four days after the tour ends?

I have never rented a car in Europe. Is there anything we need to know about car rentals?
Thank you for all the responses. They have been VERY helpful and we are going to Montenegro as so many of you suggested.

Linda

Yes, from the airport would be convenient. If your departure is early in the morning, you could still drop the car and taxi to Cavtat for the night. Herceg Novi, just over the border, also looked like a nice place for a night, if you don't want a long drive before departure.
You do need an IDP for Croatia, available from AAA.
Unless you were planning on getting way up into the hinterlands, four nights in the Kotor area would be lovely, easy to day trip around the bay, down to Budva on the coast, up to Cetinje (a windy road, so you might want to preview it with the viamichelin website).
I can't remember if you said what month, but in summer there can be traffic at the border but otherwise I cannot think of anything notable about the drive.