The mountains of Montenegro are some of the wildest, most spectacular and least visited in Europe. Nevertheless, they are easily accessible and many areas have well-marked trails. They present an opportunity to walk through outstandingly beautiful and remarkably unspoilt natural scenery, which as yet sees few visitors.

The routes in this guidebook range from easy day walks to extended and relatively demanding mountain treks, and include both circular as well as point-to-point itineraries between a 1000 and 2500m. They cover the most spectacular mountain areas in Montenegro. It is possible to link a number of the routes to form even longer treks and almost all of the routes are easily accessible by local public transport.

Most of the walks in this guidebook follow clear footpaths through rocky, glaciated terrain, with lower sections passing through forest belts. The route over Biogradska gora (Walk 9) is gentler, for much of its length follows rolling, open tops. Routes closer to the coast have a markedly different character: those on Orjen (Walks 1-2) pass through typical karst terrain, with little in the way of forest cover, while the route on Lovcen (Walk 3) is largely through woodland.

Altitude range varies, but in most cases walks begin from bases between 1000m and 1800m, climbing to peaks and passes between 1600m and 2500m. The areas of greatest altitude are to be found in inland Montenegro, in particular Durmitor (Walks 5-7), Komovi (Walk 10) and Prokletije (Walks 12-15).

Each route in this guidebook is given an overall rating in its introductory paragraph (easy-moderate-difficult), and the difficulty of the individual stage is rated in the information box at the start of each stage. It should be emphasized that the ratings are relative to the other walks, and bear no relationship to the British grades for climbing, or to any other system of climbing grades. A number of sections are very exposed, and some of the areas quite remote, so routes should not be underestimated. A reasonable level of fitness is assumed for all walks in this guidebook.

The stages into which multi-day routes are broken typically reflect a day’s walking between recommended campsites or huts. Some stages are shorter than a day’s walking, allowing for time to reach the start of the route by public transport or taxi, or for them to be combined with other stages depending on individual fitness and ability.