Notre Flotte

Our fleet is built around what renters actually drive in Montenegro rather than what looks impressive in a brochure. Eight cars, each chosen for a specific kind of trip: a Fiat 500 and VW Polo for the cramped medieval lanes of Kotor and Perast, a Skoda Octavia or Toyota Corolla Hybrid for the long coastal loop down to Ulcinj, a Mercedes C-Class for the Aman Sveti Stefan / Porto Montenegro set, a Jeep Renegade and BMW X3 for anyone heading inland to Durmitor, Biogradska Gora or the Piva canyon, and a VW Transporter for groups arriving together off a single flight into Tivat.

Two things matter more in Montenegro than most renters expect. The first is size. Old town parking at Kotor, Budva and Herceg Novi was laid out for 1970s Yugoslavian cars — modern mid-size SUVs scrape mirrors in the bastion gate. The second is gradient. The drive from Kotor up to Lovćen climbs 900 metres in 25 hairpin bends, and the road to Žabljak in the Durmitor massif pulls 1,450 metres over the course of the afternoon. A 95 hp three-cylinder can do it, but the Octavia's 2.0 TDI or the X3's xDrive makes the same drive roughly 40% quicker and a lot less busy on the gear lever.

If you are not sure which car fits your trip, two rules of thumb work for most visitors: one, match the car to the furthest point on your itinerary, not the first — a Fiat 500 is magic in Kotor but miserable on the Piva road. Two, over-spec the boot rather than the engine. Fuel is around €1.50 per litre and there is almost nowhere in Montenegro where you need the full 200 hp of a C-Class, but most people underestimate how much luggage a two-week Balkans trip generates once you add snorkels, hiking boots, a cooler, and a bag of laundry picked up in Budva.