Hiking

MONTENEGRO Among my favorite countries!!!!

We all think we can do it all on our own. Sometimes, like a few days, first trip, to Paris ... you absolutely can. Other trips like hiking in the Mountains of a country that still isnt on the tourism radar are a bit harder to google your way to sucess in.

I got pretty often to the Balkans. I will be fly fishing in Montenegro in May - just finalized it this morning. I can solve all of my needs with interent searches or I can all a tour planner I know and she will do it for me and find resources that are less expensive and she trusts. So I let her do my trips to the Balkans.

Dijana Krkotic, Guide & Tour Designer, Doclea Travel, +382 69 277 749, [email protected], www.docleatravel.com

But do some front end work first. I would start with googling "Hiking in Montenegro". You will get a lot of hits like these.

https://www.alltrails.com/montenegro
https://www.moonhoneytravel.com/europe/montenegro/hiking/

Then come up with some ideas and some likes and dislikes then contact her, tell her your thoughts and ask what she can do for you and how much. If it seems reasonable and helpful, go for it. But I promise it is.

• Tara River Canyon: https://youtu.be/9aGMZB8hB5Y?si=NFKsf6YtGAX2uVCa
• The P1 Mountain Road: https://youtu.be/QSz5hZVNxQ8?si=kAUpMBWDbSSztzt5

Here is a pretty fair views of the Montenegro high country:

• https://youtu.be/TC8q0G8JxZE?si=PDJQIK7lJwoGQrAe
• https://youtu.be/07i9U_Ar5f0?si=9hi6BkTkssv1Ylxi
• https://youtu.be/es1OxAfAUbs?si=ptvBcOslD5SjHpoh
• https://youtu.be/s4gNnpVX708?si=u9ho4lqttLyH0EFB

I will bump you up. Maybe you get more responses.

So an interesting tidbit about Montenegro. The official currency is the Euro. If you google "Countries in the EuroZone" you will see ................ well, you wont see Montenegro. After the war the economy and the banks were in a mess, so they unilaterially decided to scrap everything and use the Euro. The EU said, "wait, you cant do that!" Montenegro said, "Watch us". And its has been the Euro ever since 2002. Of course its more complicated than that but bottom line, they didnt ask, they just did

Bosnia on the otherhand fixed their currency was German Mark before the Euro came along, and now is their own money called the Convertible Mark which is fixed to the Euro (roughly 2 to 1) and have apparently misspelled their word for the subdivision of the Mark, but seem to like it that way. Isn't the world interesting?

Durmitor National Park IS amazing! I stayed overlooking Piva Canyon. I didn’t make it to the Tara River Canyon, but stayed in Kolasin in the mountains on that side of Montenegro.

I drove, but the roads are small and narrow. The person driving does not get to look at scenery and pullouts aren’t frequent. No trains. There ARE busses but I don’t have any info on that beyond seeing them along the coast. I’m sure some go less frequently into the mountains.

I stayed 2 weeks and saw quite a bit. I used some private guides for places with particularly interesting history - but that were also places I had no desire to drive……

Dijana planned my trip for me and then I implemented. She arranges a lot of 7-8 day outdoor activity trips. I talked to an Italian couple she had planned for who were staying a couple of nights where I was - they went cycling, hiking in the mountains, and boating on 3 of their days that we talked about. (I don’t hike.) She can basically arrange what you want, make suggestions, and have everything ready to go. You definitely could go on your own, but it’s harder to find info so getting help works too.
Here’s my trip report if it helps.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/16-nights-in-montenegro

There’s tons on the forum about Croatia so I won’t address that.

Montenegro is awesome for hiking. In terms of how to find good hiking trails we used the following resources:

1) Alltrails
2) Books on the Via Dinarica------the Via Dinarica is a lengthy trail that runs from Slovenia through various countries including Montenegro into Albania

Hiking is rugged. You will need sturdy hiking books---but it is worth it as the scenery is stupendous and there is just enough infrastructure now to make it all work----also means WAY less tourists once inland than along the coast.

Aside from Durmitor---which is awesome---we spent time along the Albanian border in the South/SE region near Gusinje-----unbelievable scenery and terrain---and we actually liked that area better because that area is predominantly Muslim so culturally it was a bit different than up in Durmitor. If you hike in the area along the Albanian border in theory need to be wary of accidentally crossing into Albania as supposedly border control could stop you and ask for a pass allowing it----from the homework we did in advance, this never happens in practice as once you get up there, who is going to be walking around checking passports and passes----but nonetheless, check with online sources and worst case, I think you can get a pass stamped in Gusinje if really necessary.

Driving inMontenegro was easy BUT really adhere to the speed limits and they like to abruptly change the speed limits coming in and out of the little towns and set up speed traps---we got caught in one.

We wished we had more time there and we spent 11 total days in Durmitor and Gusinje regions.

Enjoy, it is an awesome place!!

Excellent!