Budva Riviera Beaches: How to Get There and Where to Park

Almost every guide will tell you Jaz is two and a half kilometres from Budva. Measured on a map with a ruler, that is true. Driven, it is six and a half, because the road has to climb over the headland and come back down the other side.

That gap between the map and the road is the whole reason this guide exists. Below is every beach worth the drive between Ploče in the north and Buljarica in the south, in the order you meet them, with what the surface is actually made of, how far it really is, and the thing nobody prints: where to leave the car.

All distances are by road from Budva Old Town and all times assume the road is moving. In July and August, double them.

How much does parking cost in Budva?

Get this out of the way first, because it catches more visitors than anything else on this coast.

Budva runs zoned street parking at 0.60, 0.50 or 0.40 euro an hour depending on the zone, and in peak season a full day near the centre can reach thirty. That is survivable. What is not survivable is forgetting to pay: an unpaid space converts automatically into a fifty euro daily ticket, and the wardens are efficient.

Payment is by e-kiosk or SMS, which is where visitors come unstuck, because an SMS payment needs a Montenegrin number. If you are on a foreign SIM, use the Digitalni Kiosk app instead, and set it up before you need it rather than standing in the sun arguing with a card form. Our guide to SIM cards and mobile data covers getting a local number in ten minutes, which solves this and several other things at once.

Beaches west of Budva

The western beaches are the big open ones. They are further than they look, and worth it.

Ploče

Nine point eight kilometres, twenty-one minutes. Ploče is not really a beach at all but a set of concrete platforms cut into the rock of Cape Platamuni, with pools, loud music and a reputation as the party address of the riviera. There is a calmer family section away from the speakers, which surprises people who only know it by reputation.

Parking is free, which on this coast is worth saying twice. Strictly speaking Ploče sits in Kotor municipality rather than Budva, though everyone sells it as a Budva beach.

Trsteno

Eight point two kilometres, seventeen minutes, and also technically Kotor. Two hundred metres of genuinely white sand in a cove under Aleppo pines, which means shade without an umbrella, and no hotels behind it.

The approach is a small road that drops down through Jaz bay off the main highway, and it is the sort of turning you miss the first time. Go early: the cove is small and it fills.

Jaz

Six point three kilometres, fourteen minutes, and the one everybody asks about. Jaz is long, wide, part sand and part fine shingle, with room for everyone even in August, which is exactly why it hosts concerts. Parking is the most generous on the riviera.

It splits in two. The main stretch is families, loungers and water sports; the far end is the naturist beach, which is signposted and which you will not wander into by accident. We have a longer piece on getting to Jaz from Budva including the bus, which runs every fifteen to thirty minutes for a euro or two.

Beaches in Budva itself

These you walk to. Bringing a car into central Budva in August, to park it and then walk to a beach you could have reached on foot, is a way to spend forty euros on nothing.

Slovenska plaža

One point three kilometres from the Old Town, or about fifteen minutes on foot along the promenade. At roughly 1,600 metres this is the town beach, a mix of sand, shingle and rock, with every service you can think of and a wall of bars and restaurants behind it. Loungers run around fifteen to twenty-five euro a pair with an umbrella. There is parking behind the beach, and in high season it is full by mid-morning.

Mogren

A kilometre and a half by road, but the point of Mogren is that you do not drive. From the Old Town you walk a cliff path for about ten minutes and arrive at Mogren I, and then a passage cut through the rock takes you to Mogren II behind it.

They are pebble, clean, and dramatic in the way a beach at the foot of a cliff always is. In peak season there is a small entry charge of about two euro. Go in the morning or late afternoon; the cliff throws the whole beach into shade earlier than you expect.

Ričardova glava and Pizana

Both are small, both sit right under the Old Town walls, and both are more about the setting than the swimming. Ričardova glava is about a hundred metres of pebble with the fortress above it, which is why it appears in every photograph of Budva ever taken and why it is shoulder to shoulder by ten in the morning. Street parking nearby is gone by then too.

Beaches east of Budva

This is the stretch most people actually spend their week on, and where the car earns its keep.

Bečići

Five point four kilometres, eleven minutes, and at 1,950 metres the longest beach on the riviera. Fine pale shingle, gentle entry, Blue Flag, and wide enough that even a full August day does not feel like a queue. Parking is available and, unusually for this coast, not a fight.

Bečići and neighbouring Rafailovići, half a kilometre further along at 5.5 kilometres, run into one another along the same bay. Rafailovići is the smaller, older half, a line of fish restaurants along a series of little coves, and quieter in the mornings.

Kamenovo

Seven kilometres, fifteen minutes. Pebble, turquoise, Blue Flag, and the prettiest of the mainstream beaches. Two ways in: the paid car parks up on the E80, at about seven euro a day, from which the descent is steep enough that you will feel it on the way back up; or on foot from Bečići through a pedestrian tunnel cut through the headland, which is the better arrival by some distance.

Jet skis operate here, so it is not the quiet cove the photographs suggest.

Pržno

Seven point nine kilometres, fifteen minutes. Three hundred and forty metres of sand and rock running between the Kamenovo and Miločer headlands, wrapped around a working fishing village that has somehow kept its character while everything around it was rebuilt.

Parking is street only and genuinely difficult in season. If you cannot find a space in the village, do not circle. Park up at Sveti Stefan and walk back along the coast.

The Sveti Stefan beaches

These changed this summer, and most of what is written about them online is out of date.

Aman Sveti Stefan reopened on 1 July 2026 after five years closed, a closure caused by a long dispute over public access to the beaches. Under the settlement that reopened it, Sveti Stefan beach and King's Beach are open to the public, and Queen's Beach is not.

Sveti Stefan beach

Ten point two kilometres, nineteen minutes. Pink-tinged pebble on both sides of the causeway that runs out to the island, and one of the most photographed views in the Adriatic.

The northern half belongs to the hotel, where a pair of loungers is around 220 euro. The southern half is public, where loungers run thirty to sixty, and where there is free space on the pebbles if you arrive before nine. Parking at the beach is four euro an hour; the Miločer Park car park is two, and the walk is pleasant.

The island itself is a hotel and is not open to visitors. The view is the thing, and the view is free.

Miločer, the King's Beach

Eight and a half kilometres by road, but the sensible arrival is a five-minute walk north from Sveti Stefan under the pines of the old royal park. Sand and fine pebble, about three hundred metres, and open to everyone.

Queen's Beach

A hundred and twenty metres of pebble in a cove of pines and old olive trees, and as of this summer, reserved for Aman guests. Included here only because you will read elsewhere that it is free, and it is not.

Beaches towards Petrovac

Further out, quieter, and the reason to have a car rather than a bus ticket.

Drobni Pijesak

Twelve point nine kilometres, twenty-four minutes. A 250-metre crescent of sand and pebble in a cove of its own, regularly listed among the best beaches in the country and still, somehow, not crowded. Parking is about seven euro a day and the descent is steep.

Petrovac and Buljarica

Petrovac is 19.3 kilometres and a little over half an hour. Buljarica, just beyond it, is 23.9 kilometres and about forty minutes, and at 2,250 metres is the longest beach on the riviera and the second longest in the country. It is undeveloped, backed by a wetland, and if what you want is space, this is where it is.

Which Budva beach should you choose?

For a family that wants space and no drama, Bečići. For the best-looking swim within fifteen minutes, Kamenovo. For a day where the drive is part of it, Trsteno or Drobni Pijesak. For the photograph, Sveti Stefan, arriving before nine.

And if you are staying in Budva itself, walk to Mogren at least once. It is ten minutes from the Old Town, and it is better than any of the beaches you can park at.

Getting around the riviera

The Mediteran Express bus runs south along the coast every fifteen to thirty minutes for one to two euro, calling at Jaz, Bečići, Pržno and Sveti Stefan, and for a single beach day it is genuinely easier than parking.

A car changes what is possible rather than what is convenient. It is what gets you to Trsteno, to Drobni Pijesak, to Buljarica, and to the cove you find yourself between two of them. Distances here are small and the roads are slow, which is a good combination for a day spent looking for somewhere to swim. Our guide to driving distances has the same honest arithmetic for the rest of the country, and if you are planning the drive rather than just the swim, the panoramic roads start right above these beaches.