Until recently, Montenegro was a blank spot on the map for me. The name itself sounded like it belonged to a fairytale, but I couldn’t have told you where it was.

That changed one late night after watching a Yes Theory video and realizing I hadn’t said yes to something unfamiliar in far too long. Within days I had booked a trip to the Balkans. Not to visit Montenegro’s famous coast, but to the north, into the mountains, to a small town called Žabljak.

Žabljak sits high in the Durmitor range, a rugged corner of the Balkans where forests, canyons, and peaks dominate the horizon. It’s a place far removed from the bustle of Kotor or Budva, where life moves slower, closer to the rhythms of nature.

A Farm in the Highlands

I found my base on Airbnb: a place called Charming Pony, a family farm just outside of Žabljak and minutes from Durmitor National Park. The photos promised ponies grazing in wildflower meadows and a simple farmhouse surrounded by hills. What I didn’t expect was how quickly it would feel like home.

The moment I arrived, I was handed slippers and poured a cup of tea. Cartoons played on the television as the children curled up on the couch, while their aunt and mother worked quietly in the kitchen. I wasn’t a guest anymore; I was folded into the life of a household. Language barriers melted away in gestures and smiles. Hospitality here didn’t come wrapped in brochures. It came in small kindnesses, in food offered before questions, in the immediate sense that I belonged.

The Rhythm of Žabljak

Days on the farm unfolded with a certain ease that feels so foreign to me back home in Canada. Morning meant feeding cows and pigs (to be fair, I just watched the cows and pigs be fed). Listening to chickens scatter across the yard. Taking in deep breaths of crisp mountain air that carried the sound of buzzing bugs and cowbells instead of traffic. Afternoons stretched into walks that led me through forests where trails dissolved into the undergrowth. Evenings carried the soft clink of dishes, laughter from the children, and the quiet presence of ponies grazing just outside the window.

Meals held everything together. Homemade cheese, bread and pastry still warm from the oven, vegetables from the garden. Everything I ate there was a clear reflection of the land it came from, and was truly a highlight of my entire trip to the Balkans. Eating here was more than just nourishment; it was a gentle sort of communion. A reminder that food tastes different when you can trace it back to the hands that made it.

Into Durmitor National Park

Just beyond the farmhouse, the land rose sharply into Durmitor National Park. This UNESCO World Heritage site is a wilderness of jagged peaks, glacial lakes, and canyons so deep they steal your breath when you lean over their precipices. I joined a Jeep tour one morning with an incredible guide named Nikola (please take his tour if you’re ever in the area). We watched the landscape shift with every bend in the road, from high meadows dotted with shepherd huts called katuns to the vast sweep of the Tara River Canyon, one of the deepest in the world.

Standing on the edge of that canyon, with mountains stretching endlessly ahead, I felt both small and infinite. The scale of Durmitor is overwhelming, but it’s also grounding. You realize how thin the line is between human life and wilderness, how generations of Montenegrins once lived with these mountains as their anchor.

Black Lake: The Still Point

If Durmitor is the heart of the highlands, then Black Lake is its soul. Known locally as Crno Jezero, it’s the most famous of Montenegro’s glacial lakes. It’s made up of two bodies of water joined by a narrow strait, ringed by pine forest and overlooked by towering peaks.

The walk there felt almost enchanted. Sunlight broke in shafts through the trees, the air thick with the scent of pine. After hours of hiking, the water suddenly appeared in front of me. Almost like a secret slowly being revealed. It was a busy day at the lake, with a few buses of tourists snapping photos from the shore. But it didn’t take long for me to follow the trodden path along the bank to find a moment of seclusion.

Locals say the lake is enchanted, guarded by spirits, and standing at its edge it’s kind of easy to believe. It feels a bit like a fairytale here. Like some dashing knight should pull a sword from its depths as a nymph stares on in intrigue. The surface shifted colour with the sky… turquoise one moment, almost black the next. I sat with a peach iced tea, the simplest of rewards, and felt the silence of the forest wrap around me. It was total and complete serenity.

Carrying It Home

On my last morning in Žabljak, slippers waiting by the door and ponies grazing in the meadow, I thought about what I’d carry back with me. Not just the taste of homemade bread or the sight of Black Lake’s still waters, but the feeling of being welcomed without condition.

Travel here wasn’t about spectacle or luxury. It was about kindness that needed no translation. About saying yes to a place I barely knew and discovering that simplicity could be the greatest gift.

Montenegro surprised me. Žabljak surprised me. And what I found in its highlands—connection, stillness, and a reminder of how wide the world really is—will stay with me long after the mountains fade from view.