Rent a Car in Žabljak

Žabljak sits at 1,456 metres on the Durmitor plateau, so we recommend a higher-clearance vehicle in winter and during shoulder season, and pickup is in town with free delivery on most cars to lodges and chalets.

The roads up to Žabljak are genuinely mountainous, so a 4x4 with winter-ready tyres is the right call, and a comfortable saloon only really suits the summer months.

Collecting your hire car in Žabljak

Žabljak is a direct car hire pickup point, so you collect here and are on the national park access roads within minutes, without travelling to an airport first. The pickup serves visitors arriving overland from Serbia on the E763, from the Montenegrin coast through the Morača canyon, or via Nikšić from the southwest, and anyone already in the area who needs a vehicle for the duration of their stay. From Žabljak the Black Lake trailhead is 3 km, the barrier-controlled national park entrance is a short drive from the town, and the canyon rim road to the Ćurevac viewpoint is 10 km north. Flying in, you can rent a car at Podgorica Airport, another of our pickup points 140 km south, and drive the E65 north through the Morača canyon in around two hours in clear conditions, and the gorge is worth taking slowly.

The Durmitor plateau has no useful public transport to any of the sites that define the area. The canyon rim roads, national park access tracks, the glacier lakes beyond Black Lake, and the Nevidio canyon approach are all car-only. A standard car handles the main paved routes, including the Kolašin approach road and the road to the Đurđevića Tara Bridge. For unpaved tracks to the more remote lakes, a higher-clearance vehicle gives useful margin in wet conditions. Winter tyres are mandatory under Montenegrin law when snow or ice is present, and the mountain road above Kolašin can require chains in heavy snowfall, so factor this in if you are collecting or returning in January or February.

The highest town in the Balkans

Žabljak sits at 1,456 metres above sea level on the Durmitor plateau, making it the highest town in the Balkans and among the highest in Europe. Its origins are modest. The first Slavic name for the place was Varezina voda, referring to a strong local spring. The settlement was then known as Hanovi (a stopping point for caravans on the mountain routes) before the modern name emerged. The town formally took shape in 1870, when a school, church, and administrative building were all built in a single day to mark its status as a settlement. During the Second World War the town was burned to its foundations, and what exists today was built after 1945, rebuilt around the mountain tourism and winter sports that have defined Žabljak ever since.

Durmitor National Park, established in 1952 and added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980, covers 390 square kilometres of the plateau and the canyons below it. The Durmitor massif has 48 peaks above 2,000 metres, the highest being Bobotov Kuk at 2,523 metres. The landscape is glacially shaped limestone, a karst plateau scoured by ice-age glaciers into a series of ridges, cirques, and basins, with the Tara River cutting its canyon through the western edge over millions of years.

The Tara River Canyon

The Tara Canyon is the deepest river gorge in Europe, reaching 1,300 metres from canyon rim to river at its deepest point and running for around 82 km through the northern Montenegrin mountains. The river carries clear turquoise water from the Durmitor snowfields northwest toward the Drina and eventually the Danube. The canyon section most visited from Žabljak is the upper gorge between the Đurđevića Tara Bridge and the Ćurevac viewpoint. From Ćurevac, on the canyon rim road 10 km north of Žabljak, the view drops vertically for several hundred metres to the river below, one of the most immediately vertiginous viewpoints accessible by a standard car in Montenegro.

The Đurđevića Tara Bridge, 45 km north of Žabljak by canyon-rim road, spans the gorge at 172 metres above the river. Built between 1937 and 1940 by engineer Mijat Trojanović, its 365-metre length and largest span of 116 metres made it the largest vehicular concrete arch bridge in Europe at the time of completion. In 1942 a Yugoslav Partisan group, with the help of engineer Lazar Jauković who had worked on the original construction, blew up the southwesternmost arch to halt an Italian advance, the only feasible crossing of the Tara at that point. The arch was rebuilt after the war. Today the bridge carries road traffic and a zip line operates from the span for those who want a closer view of the canyon floor.

Black Lake and the glacial lakes of Durmitor

Durmitor contains 18 glacial lakes, known locally as planinska oka, or mountain eyes. Crno Jezero (Black Lake), 3 km from Žabljak town centre at 1,416 metres, is the most visited, a double lake divided by a shallow reed bank into a larger section (Veliko jezero) and a smaller one (Malo jezero). A 3.6 km footpath circles the perimeter through old-growth black pine forest and takes around 90 minutes at a moderate pace. The lake is backed by the Meded peak at 1,905 metres and the Jablan at 2,171 metres.

Beyond Black Lake, the other glacial lakes are reached on foot or by vehicle on mountain tracks. Zminje jezero (Snake Lake), at 1,520 metres, is named for its sinuous shape and sits in dense coniferous forest southwest of Black Lake. The walk from Black Lake to Zminje takes around 45 minutes. Barno jezero, at 1,489 metres, is a shallow lake set in a peat bog surrounded by conifer forest, with darker water than the larger lakes due to the peat content. Valovito jezero, at 1,695 metres, sits in a rocky basin below the Stožina ridge. The Three Lakes walk (Barno, Zminje, and Black Lake in a circuit) takes 5 to 6 hours and is one of the standard marked routes from Žabljak. Entry to the national park costs a small daily fee collected at road barriers.

Skiing on Savin Kuk

Žabljak's ski area covers the slopes of Savin Kuk, the main ski mountain at 2,313 metres above the town. The resort has a vertical drop of 750 metres and around 4.6 km of mapped piste, smaller than Kolašin in total distance but at significantly higher elevation, with more reliable snow. There are three blue runs, one red, and one black, plus a beginners' slope. Lift infrastructure includes two two-seater cable cars (the lower "Savin Kuk I" is 1,550 metres long, the upper "Savin Kuk II" reaches 2,213 metres) and two double chairlifts. Night skiing is available on one slope. The season typically runs from late December to March. In summer, the gondola carries hikers to the Savin Kuk ridge for walks across the upper plateau toward the Bobotov Kuk summit route and the Škrčka jezera lakes above.

Rafting and Nevidio Canyon

White-water rafting on the Tara River is one of the main summer activities based from Žabljak. The standard section runs 82 km from Splavište to Šćepan Polje, a full-day trip of 6 to 8 hours on the river. The water is typically grade II to IV depending on season and water level, with the most demanding rapids in the upper canyon section. The season runs from April to October, and May and June offer the highest water levels and the most consistent rapids. Several operators based in the canyon villages below Žabljak run trips, and most pick up from Žabljak town and provide all equipment.

Nevidio Canyon, around 30 km south of Žabljak near the town of Šavnik, is a 2 km gorge cut by the Komarnica River through the limestone, discovered in 1965. The organised canyoneering crossing involves wading, swimming, and scrambling through the narrow passage (in places only 25 centimetres wide) over polished limestone. The crossing takes 2 to 4 hours and is run by licensed operators from June to September, when water levels are manageable. Participants need neoprene wetsuits, provided by operators, and must be comfortable in water. The approach road from Žabljak is a narrow mountain track, and a higher-clearance vehicle is useful, but a standard car can reach the canyon starting point in dry conditions.

Žabljak car rental

A hire car in this area is not a convenience but a requirement. The plateau has no useful public transport, the canyon rim roads and national park barriers are not served by any scheduled service, and the full range of what makes the area worth visiting depends on independent wheels, including the Tara gorge viewpoints, the glacier lakes beyond Black Lake, the Savin Kuk ridge, and the Nevidio approach track. Those arriving by air typically collect at Podgorica Airport and drive up through the Morača canyon as part of the journey. An SUV is worth considering given the mountain tracks and the unpaved sections to the more remote lakes, and in winter it is the only sensible choice on the road above Kolašin. A week gives enough time to cover the Tara Bridge, the main lake circuits, the ski area or summer gondola, and at least one full day on the river.

For those combining Žabljak with the Montenegrin coast, the road south through Kolašin and down the Morača canyon reaches Podgorica in under two hours, making one car rental viable across an itinerary that covers both the mountains and the coast.

Mountain insurance for Durmitor

Žabljak is the highest town in the Balkans and the base for Durmitor, where the roads are paved but genuinely mountainous, with steep gradients, hairpins and sections with steep unguarded drops. Winter equipment is essential and snow is likely well into spring, and this terrain carries the strongest case on the whole network for the widest cover, because underbody strikes and glass damage are real risks here, not theoretical ones.

Full Coverage Plus removes the deposit and the accident-damage liability that mountain driving makes more likely, so size up the accident-damage cover before you tackle the Durmitor roads.

When does Žabljak make sense as your base?

Žabljak is the base for Durmitor, the glacial Black Lake and the Tara canyon, worth it when hiking, rafting or the high peaks are the point of the trip rather than the coast. The roads in are genuinely mountainous, so allow time and the right season, and Nikšić is the nearest sizeable town to the west for fuel and supplies before the climb, and the drive up from the coast at Tivat Airport is a long but spectacular run through the canyons, the kind of day that justifies the rental on its own.

Zabljak car hire FAQs

There is no flat way into Žabljak. Tyres, timing and the condition of the climb all come back to the mountains and the season you are driving in.