Photo by Uros Petrovic

Montenegro’s tourist industry is mostly concentrated along the Adriatic coastline. This is all well and good, but as far as we’re concerned, visitors must make time to see the mountains for which the country is named.

We suggest a bus trip to Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, a place that is literally “under the mountains.” To get there, buses travel over, under, and through high mountains averaging altitudes of 1000 meters above sea level.

As buses emerge from tunnels, passengers are treated to views of seemingly endless mountains as far as the eye can see. As buses wind all the way down into the valleys, passengers see canyon chasms and the clearest turquoise of the Morača River winding its way along the road or train tracks. If you’re into geography, read up on the African Plate—as in plate tectonics—before visiting.

The most amazing scenery can be found along the stretch between Podgorica and Mojkovac. Start either from the north in Belgrade (train: €15) or from the south from any of Montenegro’s coastal tourist hubs at Budva, Kotor, or Bar (bus: €6).

Whichever way you go, don’t fall asleep and end up missing the scenery.

Wandering Cheapo Sunnia Ko is a wanderer at heart and primarily supports this habit as a teacher at Plovdiv University in Bulgaria. She is currently on a cross-Balkan trek from Plovdiv to Sibenik, Croatia, where she hopes to find the Adriatic as splendid and turquoise as she remembers it to be.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Photo by marlandova

The beauty of travel in the Balkans is the authentic experience it provides its visitors. Without much of the tourist infrastructure set up in other parts of Europe, an adventure is always just around the corner.

Like when you want to inquire about transport options to Montenegro from Bulgaria and your handy Bulgarian phrase book only gets you so far with the impatient cashier. After all, how are you supposed to know that locally, Montenegro is known as Crna Gora?

Never fear, it’s ‘ole Wikipedia to the rescue. Consulting this handy Wikipedia directory in advance might just save you the energy you need to climb Ano Poli when you travel from Sofia to Solun (Thessaloniki). We love that the Web site lists city names in most European languages and with a version that uses the Latin alphabet. This way, we can at least approximate the local pronunciation.

Oh, and if you’re in Budapest and want to meet me in Dubrovnik, ask for a flight to Raguza pronto.

Wandering Cheapo Sunnia Ko is a wanderer at heart and primarily supports this habit as a teacher at Plovdiv University in Bulgaria. She is currently on a cross-Balkan trek from Plovdiv to Sibenik, Croatia, where she hopes to find the Adriatic as splendid and turquoise as she remembers it to be.

Popularity: 10% [?]

During our time on the ground in Lithuania, we found ourselves enjoying the Vilnius edition of In Your Pocket. The guide’s listings are animated and hilarious, offering snappy overviews of restaurants, hotels, sights, and nightclubs. We found their review of one restaurant’s cepelinai as “a limbless teddybear drowned in snail slime” breathtaking. (Incidentally, at their fattening best, cepelinai are a heavenly Lithuanian version of the potato dumpling.)

What’s so interesting about In Your Pocket is the range of cities it covers. Quite incredibly, the series includes guides to not one but two cities in Albania: capital Tirana and the northern city of Shkodra. The series does a good job of covering secondary cities in eastern Europe. Among the standout coverage for off-the-beaten track travelers: Pärnu and Tartu in Estonia and upcoming hotspot Podgorica in Montenegro.

But IYP is no one-track beast. The series also has great coverage of German cities (namely, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern, Munich, Ruhrgebiet, and Stuttgart) and surprisingly also extends to Belfast, and, soon, the Isle of Man.

Popularity: 5% [?]