Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. What's This Montenegro Thingie
  3. Getting to Montenegro
  4. Handling Money
  5. Hotels
  6. Taxis
  7. Buses
  8. Trains
  9. Tourist-y Things to Do
  10. Actually Living in Montenegro
  11. Day to Day Needs
  12. Last Words

Introduction

Yes, Google results are getting worse!

The nice thing about the Internet nowadays is that you can find pretty much whatever you want.

The bad thing is that with all of the advertising companies, SEO, scam sites, walled gardens, and everything else taking precedence over real data, it can be really annoying to find current and accurate information regarding what you want.

However, since I have my own website, I can just collect the information that I've found here and read it anywhere that there's an internet connection.

Hopefully, some of these will be helpful for you as well.

What's This Montenegro Thingie

Just northeast of Italy

Montenegro is one of the world's newest countries. It's situated between Italy and Greece on the Adriatic Sea, about the size of Connecticut, and known for its natural beauty with beaches, mountains, lakes, and everything in between. I find it useful to think of it as an European version of New Zealand: compact yet filled with a variety of gorgeous terrain.

It also happens to have one of the lowest tax rates in Europe and is a great place to start a company at the moment, which coincidentally happens to be why I'm living here now. ;)

For a nice, realistic view on Montenegro, I recommend reading Anya's analysis here. She's traveled to more places than I have, but I'm up to 14 countries and counting!

Getting to Montenegro

Direct flights from Europe including Istanbul in Turkey

If you're from a developed country like the U.S., E.U., or such, you can probably just buy a plane ticket and fly straight into the country via Podgorica Airport (TGD) or Tivat Airport (TIV) to stay for 90 days within an 180 day period. Check if your country is on this list for details.

If you're from other countries, you'll need to apply for a visa at your closest Montenegro or Serbian embassy. (Montenegro has an agreement with Serbia that allows you to use Serbian resources in countries where Montenegro does not yet have an embassy)

However, instead of just applying for Montenegro by itself, I recommend that you get a Schengen Visa instead so that you can have access to the rest of Europe as well. It also makes your life much easier when you can fly around without worrying about Transit Visas and such when you're hunting for the lowest prices on plane tickets.

Instead of flying, you can also drive or take buses from Dubrovnik in Croatia, Belgrade in Serbia, Sarajevo in Bosnia, or Tirana in Albania. I myself took the famous Belgrade to Bar train into Montenegro, and although it was a bit slow and plain on the Serbian side, it was very much worth it to see the scenery on the Montenegrin side.

As always when you're traveling abroad, make sure to buy some travel insurance in case you run into some trouble. I got mine from HeyMondo, but Safety Wing and World Nomads are also great picks.

Handling Money

Apple Pay and Google Wallet work well in Montenegro.

If you have a Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, then you'll be fine for most of the tourist areas. Most merchants have the tap to pay terminals where you just place your card or phone on top and wait for the receipt to come out.

If you're like me who finds tourist areas annoyingly crowded and overpriced, and loves to go where the locals go to taste that authentic flavor, then you'll need to carry some cash on you, as many places here don't take cards. Just find an ATM at the airport and get about 200 euros out for your trip.

Hotels

Let Agoda search multiple sites for you.

For cheap hotels, I recommend using Agoda, as they search many travel sites at the same time. booking.com and trip.com are also good as well.

AirBnB is useful for larger accommodations, but if you travel by yourself, I feel that it's much safer and easier getting a hotel where they're actually afraid of what rating you're going to give them. I also like to support the local mom and pop places as well, since they need your money much more than international chains.

When you're booking a lesser known hotel, make sure that you check reviews, locations, and payment details. Some smaller hotels or mom and pop places require you to pay at the hotel in cash, so make sure that you have enough cash on you before you head there.

If you run into a situation where you need to check out of your hotel but you have a late flight, you can avoid carrying your luggage around by going to Radical Storage and looking for a spot near you. They charge around 5-10 euros per day, which is well worth it to give you the freedom to run around as you please without worrying about your luggage.

Taxis

I'm not a big fan of The Sun, but this photo is right on the money.

You might be used to using Uber and Lyft if you're from the U.S., but although those work in some portions of Europe, Montenegro is devoid of taxi apps outside of the Tesla Go app, which might have one or two taxis in your city.

Instead, you should arrange transportation through your booking service a day before you leave for the airport. I had a driver holding a card with my name on it waiting for me at the Podgorica Airport, and it only cost 12 euros to get to my hotel whereas it might have been 20-30 euros from the airport taxi stand.

Inside Montenegro itself, it's the Wild Wild West regarding taxis, as there are a good number of taxi companies and even more scammers. Only take taxis that look official and always ask them how much it's going to take to get to your destination before you ride, otherwise you might lose out on a good bit of money just trying to get to a place that's only three kilometers away.

If you're heading out from the hotel, get the hotel owner to call a taxi for you. It's much easier than trying to figure out the myriad arrangement of local taxi dispatchers and which one might understand enough English to get you to your destination.

If you're traveling alone, in Podgorica or Budva, and can ride a scooter, you can download the Hop app. It's a bit more troublesome than a taxi, but much more dependable. Just be careful of drivers and stay in the bike lanes if possible.

Buses

In Montenegro, buses are the best way to get to other cities.

Montenegro buses can be rather hit or miss, as the ones in the big tourist towns like Kotor are pretty well run and dependable, but the ones in even the capital of Podgorica can come only once per hour, and the bus stops don't even have bus numbers and routes on them! You have to download the KlikBus app on iOS just to see the routes, and if you're not on iOS, then you're stuck using their website.

Going between cities is much better, as their website busticket4.me is actually well designed and has an English option. You can see buses, ratings, and pay online without any problems.

Despite the fact that they tell you to print the bus ticket out, you'll find that to be impossible on a Sunday, as most businesses in Montenegro will be closed. Don't worry though: the bus driver will just scan the QR code off of your phone and go on with his life. It's so much easier in Portugal or Sweden where they don't even bother checking your ticket most of the time. ;)

If your schedule is not too strict, you can book a ride share on www.bebeep.me. Prices are normally a bit cheaper than the bus, and you'll certainly be more comfortable.

Trains

The Belgrade to Bar train is indeed picturesque.

Montenegro being a country full of mountains makes laying train tracks a very expensive proposition. I mean, the name of the country itself literally means Monte (mountain) and negro (black). ;)

So unlike Western Europe where you can just install Omio and get around with no problems, the trains here won't show up on the Omio app, and you're pretty much limited to two tracks in the entire country.

Fortunately, there is a website where you can check the timetables and routes for trains at zcg-prevoz.me, and they even have an English option.

The bad thing is that you'll still need to actually go to the train station to buy the tickets, because that website doesn't have online payment as of the time of this writing.

So why bother with the train at all?

For one simple reason, the scenery that you'll see on the famous Bar-Belgrade route is actually pretty great. For me personally, I would just take the train from Bar to Kolasin, as the rest of the journey is slow and boring, but Skadar Lake and the mountains from Podgorica to Kolasin really are something to see.

Tourist-y Things to Do

Tara river rafting from The Hostel Girl.

I agree with several assessments on the web that if you're just here for the beaches, you'll have a much better and cheaper time in Albania or Turkey. It's not that Montenegro beaches aren't nice, but that if you come during the summer season, everything gets really expensive and crowded unless you take your chances with a small town that might or might not have what you're looking for in a vacation.

Where Montenegro excels, in my opinion, is that this country has beaches, lakes, rivers, forests, mountains, and every activity that you might want to do in those places... all in a small and very convenient area. You can just stay in a nice cheap hotel in Podgorica and be twenty minutes away from Skadar Lake, an hour from the beach, and an hour and a half from the national parks in the north without spending much money while still having access to nice restaurants, cafes, and night clubs at the same time. Just head to the bus station to go anywhere in the country for a nice day trip in an air conditioned bus with USB chargers. Hiking, white water rafting, parasailing, blue cave boat tours, snorkeling... Montenegro has it all.

If you have an International Driver's Permit, then you can have even more fun by renting a car and driving around taking random pictures of the scenery. For a list of places to go, I recommend this list by Wander Lush. Just watch out for narrow mountain roads, spontaneous rainy weather, and angry local drivers who don't speak English.

Despite the small size on the map, it's quite easy to take two or three weeks and slowly explore this country. Your living expenses will be cheap, the locals are very friendly and will go out of their way to help you out, and the natural beauty should be savored rather than rushed.

Actually Living in Montenegro

They're not joking. All you need to do is to send them a Power of Attorney form and show up at the very last steps to receive your residence permit.

So you have visited Montenegro, fell in love, and have decided to make a second home here?

Great!

Quite a lot of people are flooding into Montenegro at the moment, as the government has made it very attractive to foreign investors, businesses, and normal everyday folks looking to retire on a budget.

The two most popular methods of getting a residence permit here are to start a company or to buy property.

The bad thing about buying property though, is that once you buy it, you are suppose to actually live in Montenegro for eleven months out of the year, which can be troublesome if you want to go back home for two or months to visit family or take some time off to visit the rest of Europe.

Therefore, I myself would recommend that even if you just want to buy a house and relax, you should start a company for 2000 euros instead. Executive directors of companies have no limits on how long they're out of the country, since it would be awful inconvenient if they couldn't run around and conduct business to make money for their company.

Starting a company also allows you to buy a house with land instead of just an apartment. For further details, I recommend reading this article from Montenegro Guides.

Of course, once you actually start a company, you'll be on the hook for about 200 euros every month in social contributions and accounting fees, but the low cost of living here combined with the fact that you'll have access to the local healthcare system makes it quite worthwhile to do. Although Montenegro's social programs aren't quite up to the standards of Western Europe, they are functional, steadily improving, and will continue to get better as the country continues to strive toward membership in the European Union.

Day to Day Needs

Despite Reddit going downhill, it's still the best overall resource for your Montenegro questions.

The best help that you could get to figure out day to day living comes from Reddit Montenegro.

There are also quite a few Facebook groups for expats living in Montenegro. Just search for "Montenegro" or your city's name to see what's available. If you see a guy called "Jim Yu," feel free to say hi and buy him some peach juice for making this guide. ;)

To find a house or apartment which you'll need for your residence permit, look at Realitica and estitor.com. Be sure to look at the dates for the ads so that you're not trying to rent a house that was posted three years ago.

In Montenegro, if you're willing to live a bit outside of the city, you can easily rent an entire house with a yard for the same price as an apartment. If you drive or ride a bike, I would definitely recommend getting a house instead, as most buildings here don't have very good sound insulation and you won't have to hear the upstairs neighbors walk around all day.

For delivery on rainy days, install the Glovo app here. When they say that they deliver anything that fits in their box, they actually mean it, so it's quite handy for those times where you just don't feel like going out. Food, groceries, electronics, shoes... you name it; they deliver it.

On the plus side, pretty much every online store over a certain size here will ship anywhere in Montenegro since it's a small country.

For ordering groceries directly, use Idea or Voli.

For home improvement and hardware, use Okov. They're pretty much the Lowe's and Home Depot of Montenegro.

If you're looking for IKEA, they don't have a store in Montenegro, but they do have a website at ikeacrnagora.me where you can order furniture and get it delivered to your door in one or two weeks.

For those of you who don't want to wait, Lubenica is also a store that carries many IKEA products, and is an actual store that you can go to browse.

There are a variety of electronics stores such as

It's good to shop around, as the exact same iPhone 11 will go for anywhere from 600 euros to 480 euros depending on which shop is offering a special sale at the time.

For Apple stuff, iCentar is pretty good and an authorized reseller.

For discounted Apple stuff, try Allo Allo, although it might take a while to actually ship to Montenegro from Hong Kong.

For pets, there's Pet Market.

For sports shoes, clothing, and equipment, there's InterSport and Tempo. The thought of buying a bike for 200 euros and having a guy deliver it to your door is awfully tempting. ;)

For regular clothing in Podgorica, go to the Big Fashion Mall, which has a wide variety of stores at a range of prices. My favorite at the moment is Pull and Bear, which carries nice, comfortable, everyday clothes.

For cheap furniture and home accessories, there's Cungu. You can get things like this stick mounted vacuum cleaner for 45 euros.

Of course, Montenegro has a variety of flea markets and second hand shops. The biggest one that I've seen is on the third floor of the Mall of Montenegro in Podgorica that's strikely similiar to the night markets of many Asian countries where everyone and everything is out for sale and you never know what's around the corner. It's good to ask a local where to buy things, as the people here are very helpful.

If you enjoy visiting Montenegro's picturesque national parks, you can buy an one year ticket to all parks at nparkovi.me for 13.5 euros. When you consider that one single visit to Skadar Lake will cost you five euros by itself, the one year ticket is a really good deal.

Last Words

Tourists having fun at Kotor.

After years of putting up with COVID, the world is slowly returning to a place where you could travel, have fun, explore new cultures, and be a global citizen. Montenegro is still unknown by many people, but thanks to its inclusion on Lonely Planet and many other travel sites, the country now receives several million tourists per year, and is projected to grow in the future.

If you're in the area, come by and see the sights. There's something here for pretty much everyone!


About the Author

Jim has been programming since he got an IBM PS/2 back during the 90s. To this day, he still prefers writing HTML and SQL by hand, and focuses on efficiency and correctness in his work.