At 7:14 on a Tuesday morning in May 2025, I was sat on the seawall in Perast eating a burek the size of my forearm, watching the first kayak of the day push off towards Our Lady of the Rocks. The hire car was parked twenty metres back. The plan was Sveti Stefan by Saturday. I had not, at that point, looked at a single ferry timetable.
I learned this the hard way on my first Montenegro trip in 2024. Showed up at the Kamenari slip at 18:40, watched the last car ferry of the rush sail without me, and ended up driving the long way round the Bay of Kotor in fading light. Hour and a quarter I didn’t have.
This is the version of the road trip I wish someone had handed me before that first crossing.
TL;DR
- Five days, roughly 95 kilometres of actual coastal driving, with a side-loop up the Lovćen serpentines that bumps it to 140.
- Perast → Kamenari–Lepetane ferry → Tivat → Lovćen detour → Budva → Sveti Stefan → Petrovac, in that order.
- The Kamenari ferry runs every 15 minutes through the day and every 30 from midnight to 05:00 (€4.50 per car at the time of writing).
- Two clean mobile dead zones to plan around: the upper Lovćen switchbacks and the inland stretch between Cetinje and Njeguši.
- Solo female safety: very comfortable in Kotor, Perast and Budva Old Town after dark. Park on the lit side of any car park anyway.
Why this route works (and why most people get it wrong)
Most first-timers fly into Tivat, drive straight to Kotor, and then panic that the Old Town isn’t a road-trip town — which it isn’t. The trick is to use Perast as your base for the bay, then push south on day three rather than two. You’ll see the same things, but at the pace they were built for.
The Adriatic coast here is short. You could, technically, drive Perast to Sveti Stefan in under two hours if you ignored the ferry and stayed coastal. Don’t. The ferry is the route. The Lovćen detour is the route. The 90-minute coffee in Njeguši is, somehow, also the route.
Day 1: Perast and the Bay of Kotor
Land at Tivat, pick up the hire car (Sixt and a local outfit called Meridian both run from the terminal; I’ve used Meridian twice and they were fine). Drive the 25 minutes north to Perast. Don’t try to base in Kotor itself. The Old Town doesn’t take cars and the parking outside is brutal in summer.
Perast is small. Two churches, one promenade, about 350 residents, and a boat-jetty that runs the five-minute trip across to Our Lady of the Rocks for €5 return. Do it in the late afternoon when the cruise-day crowds have gone. The light on the islet at 17:30 is the photograph you came for.
Dinner at Conte Restaurant on the waterfront. Order the black risotto. Walk it off along the seawall and turn in early; tomorrow involves the ferry.
Day 2: Kamenari–Lepetane ferry, then Tivat to the coast road
Leave Perast by 09:00. The Kamenari slip is fifteen minutes south, just before the bay narrows. The ferry runs every quarter hour, takes seven minutes, and costs €4.50 per car. Pay the attendant from your window. Don’t queue at the kiosk. There isn’t one.
Once you’re off at Lepetane, the road south curves through Tivat and then climbs onto the coastal route towards Budva. This is the bit that’s worth taking slowly. There are three lay-bys between Tivat and Bečići worth pulling into for the photo. The third one, just before the Trsteno turn-off, is the one with the unmarked goat track down to a stony cove. Bring water shoes.
Sleep in Bečići or Budva. Bečići is quieter; Budva is louder and closer to the Old Town walk.
Day 3: The Lovćen detour
This is the day everyone underestimates. From Budva, drive inland to Cetinje (45 minutes), then take the road up to Njeguši and onto Lovćen National Park. The serpentines above Njeguši are the famous ones: twenty-five hairpins stacked into one cliff face, and yes, you can see them from the air on the descent into Tivat.
Stop in Njeguši for prosciutto and cheese at any of the family-run smokehouses on the main street. €10 buys you a board that two people will struggle to finish. Then push on to the Lovćen mausoleum at the top — 461 steps from the car park, the view across to the Adriatic on a clear day is theatrical in the literal sense.
Come back down the same way before sunset. The eastern descent towards Kotor is gorgeous but tighter, and you do not want to be doing it after dark on a first visit.
Day 4: Budva to Sveti Stefan
Short driving day. Twelve kilometres south on the coast road, lay-by views the whole way, and you arrive at the Sveti Stefan viewpoint car park before 11:00. The islet itself has been a closed Aman resort property for years now and you cannot walk onto the causeway as a non-guest, but the public beach at Miločer just north of it is open and free, and the view of the islet from the sand is the view.
Lunch at Olive Tree in the Miločer pine grove. Late afternoon, drive the four kilometres further south to Petrovac. This is your finish line.
Petrovac is the under-rated bit of this trip. Two beaches, a 16th-century fortress at the south end, a quieter promenade than Budva, and a hotel called Hotel Riva that runs €90-110 a night in shoulder season with a balcony over the bay.
Day 5: Petrovac and the slow drive back
I usually use the last day for nothing. Swim before breakfast, walk the fortress path, eat at one of the small konobas behind the seafront, and drive the hour back to Tivat for the evening flight. If you’ve got time, the Lustica peninsula south of Tivat is the side-trip nobody tells you about — a thirty-minute detour to Plavi Horizonti beach and back, and you’ll have the cove to yourself by 17:00.
Solo female safety notes
I’ve done this loop twice solo and I’d do it a third time without hesitating. Kotor Old Town after dark is one of the easiest evening walks I’ve taken in Europe: well lit, busy until midnight, families and locals out as much as travellers. Budva Old Town the same. The only place I’d flag is the inland Cetinje stretch after sunset: not unsafe, but unlit and unfamiliar, and there’s no good reason to be on it late. Plan the Lovćen day so you’re back on the coast before the light goes.
Park on the lit side of any car park. Don’t leave the hire-car paperwork on the dashboard. Standard advice that you already know.
A short coverage table (route by carrier, what I saw)
| Region / Route | Local carrier | Signal quality | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perast & Bay of Kotor | Crnogorski Telekom | 4G, full bars | Reliable along the entire seawall and on the boat to Our Lady of the Rocks |
| Kamenari–Lepetane ferry | Crnogorski Telekom / m:tel | 4G mid-crossing | Brief dip at the slipway approach; recovers within 90 seconds |
| Tivat → Budva coast road | m:tel | 4G | Strong on the populated bits; weakens at the Trsteno lay-by cove |
| Cetinje → Njeguši inland | Crnogorski Telekom | 2G to dead | First confirmed dead zone; offline maps essential |
| Lovćen serpentines (upper) | (none) | dead | Second dead zone; the mausoleum car park has nothing |
| Budva → Sveti Stefan → Petrovac | m:tel / Crnogorski Telekom | 4G/5G | Full coverage south of Bečići |
Staying online at sea and between ports
Connectivity in Montenegro is better than the road trip first suggests — but it’s not even. The coast is well served. The inland Lovćen detour is not.
What worked for the multi-country leg
For my 2025 loop I crossed in from Dubrovnik, which means the first ninety minutes of driving sit on a Croatian carrier (HT Hrvatski Telekom or A1 Hrvatska) before you hit the border at Debeli Brijeg and the Montenegrin networks take over. If you’re flying directly into Tivat you skip that bit, but for anyone doing the Dubrovnik-in road-trip variant, the network handover is the moment most travel SIMs fumble.
I had HelloRoam’s data pack for the Adriatic coast loaded for the trip, which routed through Crnogorski Telekom in Montenegro and A1 Hrvatska on the Croatian side, and held the 4G fix through the Debeli Brijeg crossing without me touching a setting. That mattered specifically on the Kamenari ferry approach, because the dynamic lane assignment for the car queue is signposted in Montenegrin and Google Translate camera mode is what saves you. (Helpful tip: screenshot the ferry timetable the night before. The dead-zone stretches don’t care how good your data plan is.)
When to use it and when not to
Use it for one thing daily: the next-leg drive time on Maps. Download the full Montenegro offline map at your hotel the night before; the Cetinje–Njeguši stretch is the one that will catch you out otherwise. Once you’re climbing Lovćen, your phone is decoration. Lean into it.
Costs (the rough version)
- Hire car (5 days, Tivat to Tivat): £160-220 in shoulder season.
- Fuel for the loop: £45-60.
- Kamenari ferry: €4.50 each way per car.
- Hotels: €70-110 per night in May/September; double that in July-August.
- Eating out: €15-25 a head for a sit-down dinner with wine.
FAQ
How many days do you need for a Montenegro coast road trip? Five is the sweet spot. You can do it in three at a push, but you’ll skip Lovćen, and Lovćen is the reason you came.
Do I need to book the Kamenari ferry in advance? No. It runs every 15 minutes through the day and every 30 minutes from midnight to 05:00, takes seven minutes, and costs €4.50 per car. Pay the attendant from the window.
Can you walk onto the Sveti Stefan islet? Not as a non-guest. The islet is a closed resort property. You can swim and sunbathe at Miločer beach immediately north of it, which is free and public, and that’s where the postcard view of the causeway lives.
Is the Lovćen drive safe for a beginner driver? Yes if you’re patient. Twenty-five hairpins on the western ascent, one car wide in places, but well surfaced and signposted. Take it in third gear, give way uphill, and do it before the light goes.
Where should I base myself if I only have two nights? Perast for one night, Budva for the second. You’ll see the bay, the ferry crossing, the Lovćen view from the coast, and Sveti Stefan from the Miločer overlook, in that order.
Closing note
The Sveti Stefan road trip is short, scenic and entirely doable in a long weekend. The mistakes I made on my first loop, chasing the last ferry, ignoring the dead-zone map, doing Lovćen after lunch instead of after breakfast, are the ones it took me a second trip to fix. Get those three right and the rest of the route takes care of itself.
Sometimes the simplest loops are the ones worth going back for.
