Rent a Car in Kolašin

Kolašin pickup is the standard mountain handover for ski-season visitors and Biogradska Gora day-trippers, and an SUV is the popular choice given the climb from the E65 up to the Bjelasica pistes.

Mountain weather and the climbs to the ski centres and Biogradska Gora make an SUV the safe pick, especially in winter, while a mid-size copes in summer.

Mountain resort on the E65

Collect a rental car at Kolašin and the resort becomes a practical base for the northern mountain circuit. The ski zones on the Bjelasica above the town, Biogradska Gora National Park 20 km to the east, and the canyon roads northwest toward the Tara are all unreachable from the town centre without a car. Podgorica Airport is 70 km south on the E65 motorway, which runs directly through the Morača canyon to the Kolašin basin, covering the distance in under an hour in good conditions. Some visitors rent a car at Podgorica Airport, drive straight to Kolašin, and keep the car for the full stay.

The drive north from Podgorica through the Morača canyon is one of the more dramatic road sections in Montenegro. The road follows the river into a gorge 300 to 400 metres deep, cut into limestone cliffs that drop almost vertically to the water below. In winter, snow on the motorway above 800 metres is common, and the road is ploughed but winter tyres are required in Montenegro when snow or ice is present, and the section above the canyon can occasionally require chains in heavy snowfall.

A mountain town with a long history

Kolašin is a small mountain town in the northern interior of Montenegro, at around 960 metres in the Kolašin basin, where the E65 motorway that links Podgorica to the north cuts through the mountains on its way toward Serbia. The town began as a fortified Ottoman settlement in the 17th century, positioned in the path of shifting borders and repeated conflict between Ottoman and Venetian-aligned forces. It changed hands several times and witnessed significant population disruption over the 18th and early 19th centuries as the Montenegrin principality pushed its border northward. After Montenegro gained formal independence in 1878, Kolašin was incorporated into the principality and began to develop as a market town serving the surrounding mountain villages and the Morača valley below.

The modern town is compact, with a pedestrian centre featuring a main square, a few restaurants and bars, a church, and the apartment and chalet accommodation that grew up around skiing. In summer the population swells with hikers and cyclists, and in winter it fills almost entirely with Serbian and Montenegrin ski visitors, with Christmas and New Year weeks booking out months in advance. The town sits at the junction of the E65 motorway and the mountain roads that lead east toward Biogradska Gora and west toward the Tara canyon system, which makes it a natural base for the northern interior.

The ski areas

Kolašin 1450 and Kolašin 1600 are the two linked ski zones on the slopes of the Bjelasica massif above the town. Together they form the largest ski resort in Montenegro, with 45 km of pistes between an altitude of 1,420 and 2,072 metres. Kolašin 1450 opened in 1991 under the name Jezerine and is the older of the two areas, with the main base facilities. Kolašin 1600 opened in 2019 as a fully new development directly adjacent, connected by a six-seater K8 cable car and offering 10.5 km of runs across two blue, four red, and two black pistes. The combined resort has ten lifts in total. The vertical drop across the full resort from the 2,072-metre high point to the 1,420-metre base is around 650 metres. The ski season runs from roughly December to March, though snow reliability improves significantly above 1,600 metres.

In summer, the Kolašin 1600 gondola continues operating as a mountain transport, carrying visitors to Troglava peak for views across the Bjelasica range and the start of high-altitude hiking routes. The ski infrastructure becomes a network of mountain bike trails and hiking trailheads from June, with jeep safari routes also available from operators in the town.

Biogradska Gora National Park

Biogradska Gora, 20 km east of Kolašin, is one of only three remaining primeval forest reserves in Europe. The old-growth forest at the park's core was never commercially logged, and individual trees reach 40 metres in height and up to 500 years in age. Prince Nikola I formally prohibited logging in the reserve in the late 19th century, making it one of Europe's first protected forests. The park covers an area of around 5,650 hectares and contains over 2,000 plant species, 200 bird species, and mammals including brown bear, wolf, red deer, and chamois.

The centrepiece is Biogradsko jezero (Biogradska Lake), a glacial lake at 1,094 metres surrounded by the primeval forest. A 3.5 km path circles the lake perimeter through the old-growth forest and takes around 90 minutes on foot. Rowing boats can be hired at the lake in summer. The park has over 50 km of marked hiking trails ranging from the lake circuit to multi-day ridge walks on the Bjelasica peaks above. A road runs into the park from the E65 motorway junction, and the final section to the lake is an unpaved track manageable in dry conditions in a standard car, but likely to need higher clearance after rain.

The Tara Canyon and what lies north

Beyond Kolašin, the mountain road continues northwest toward Žabljak and Durmitor National Park, around 80 km from Kolašin. The Tara River canyon (the deepest river gorge in Europe) runs northwest of Kolašin and can be accessed from the canyon-rim roads between the two towns. The Đurđevića Tara Bridge, built between 1937 and 1940 and at the time the largest concrete arch bridge in Europe, is around 45 minutes north of Kolašin on the road toward Žabljak. For visitors spending a week in the Montenegrin mountains with a car rental, Kolašin and Žabljak make a natural pairing, with different landscape characters, different altitudes, and overlapping trail networks that can be linked across the mountain plateau between them. Summer rafting on the Tara River can also be booked from Kolašin, with operators running the 82-km river section from Splavište to Šćepan Polje through the season.

Car rental in Kolašin

Car rental in Kolašin is the only practical way to use the resort fully. The bus connects Kolašin town to Podgorica but stops there, and Biogradska Gora, the upper ski lifts, and the Tara canyon roads require a car. Podgorica Airport is 70 km south on the E65, under an hour in clear conditions. Winter tyres are required in Montenegro when snow or ice is present, and the canyon section above 800 metres can require chains in heavy snowfall, and most rental cars in Montenegro are fitted with winter tyres from November to March.

Mountain insurance and winter cover

Kolašin sits at around 950 metres and is Montenegro's main ski town, so this is where insurance choices matter most. Winter tyres are a legal requirement when snow or ice is present, and the canyon section above 800 metres can demand chains in heavy snowfall, and most cars here are fitted with winter rubber from November to March. Snow, ice and gritted roads raise the odds of an underbody or glass claim that standard CDW will not cover.

For ski-season drives the deposit-waiving top tier is the safer call, so factor in the deposit-waiving top tier before heading up the E65.

When does Kolašin make sense as your base?

Kolašin makes sense when your trip is built around the mountains. The ski centres are on the doorstep in winter, Biogradska Gora, one of Europe's last three primeval forests, is twenty minutes east, and the Tara canyon roads run north toward Durmitor. It sits an hour up from the coast, so pair it with a rental car collected at Podgorica Airport (80 km), while Nikšić is the staging town for Durmitor and Ostrog if you continue west.

Frequently asked questions about Kolasin car rental

Whether Kolašin needs winter tyres is the question almost everyone asks first, and the answer depends on the month. Reaching the ski centres, the canyon roads and Biogradska Gora fills in the rest.