All About Boundless Life Montenegro

Looking for Boundless Life Montenegro Reviews?  We spent 3 months with Boundless Life in Kotor Montenegro, attending their Fall, September through November cohort.  This is all the information that I would have loved to know when deciding whether or not to attend Boundless Life in Kotor!

Below, we’ll provide you with insight into the Boundless Life Education Center in Kotor, community activities, afterschool activities, Co-working Hub, Boundless accommodations in Montenegro, safety, local recommendations for organic farms, food and family activities in Kotor. We hope this information helps you best prepare for Boundless Montenegro, should you decide to attend!

Pros and Cons about attending Boundless Life Montenegro

If you’ve read our travel posts and seen our videos, we tend to approach travel with open minds and aim to find the positive in each experience.  However, there are inevitably pros and cons for each experience and each destination. 

I also want to reiterate that as a family, you’ll want to decide which things are important to you, what are make or break items on your travel checklist.  In addition, each cohort is going to have a different feel, based a lot on the families that are attending. This can seriously be an experience of a lifetime (as is absolutely that for most families), but it takes coming to the cohort with a positive attitude and participating in the activities with the community!  

Below, we’ll give a quick overview of some of our favorite and least favorite things about Kotor and Boundless Montenegro.

Our favorite things about Boundless Life Kotor

Here is a brief recap of some of the best things about Boundless Kotor.

• Feels really safe. Much moreso than we even expected!

• Boundless Community Building Accommodations:  We weren’t sure how we would like living in the Boundless Community Building in Kotor, but we absolutely LOVE it.  We love the updated apartments, we love being right at the school for drop off & pick up, we love having the families right here to play (but also the ability to shut our door and have quiet family time), we love the convenience of the location to Kotor old town, shops, grocery, etc. 

• Boundless Education Center in Montenegro is on the first level of the community building. There is so much lovely natural light in each classroom, typically nice Boundless classrooms and a little playground (hopefully this will be expanding soon).

• The Boundless Kotor Team:  We’ve come to realize what an important role the Boundless team plays in making a location exceptional.  The team in Kotor is fantastic. The location is running super smoothly!

• We had absolutely gorgeous weather during our Fall cohort. We expected rain and instead had mostly sunny days in the 70s (F)… perfect! Even into late November, we had high 50s (F) & low 60s (F). The sun makes it really warm!

• You have easy access to the water (boats, paddleboarding, kayaking) and the mountains (lots of hiking) and old town.  

• Stroller-friendly:  We find Kotor to be extremely stroller-friendly. There are beautiful waterfront promenades to walk.  Even Old Town is quite stroller-friendly, which was surprising to us!

Our Least Favorite things about Boundless Life Montenegro

As I mentioned above, we try to travel with a positive lens because life is too short to point out all the negatives. But, every place has its cons. Here is a brief recap of some of our least favorite things about Kotor & Boundless Montenegro.

• The majority of the locals are not super friendly and warm. They aren’t mean, they just don’t tend to smile a lot and be overly friendly.

• Food: In general, we didn’t fall in love with the food in Montenegro. It felt harder to find our way into local organic farms and find our needs at the grocery store. HOWEVER, within a few weeks, we got the lay of the land and were to find some great organic food and some produce delivery (I’ll list below).  Grocery stores aren’t great, but they have the basics and nearby, which is truly helpful.

• Harder to travel:  I say this with a bit of hesitation because while it was a bit harder to figure out where to take side trips & day trips, it was also nice that not all the families were scattering during every free minute (which can happen when it’s really easy to grab a train or taxi).  I think it seemed more daunting than it ended up being to travel around.  Taxis are a bit more expensive for longer trips, but renting a car was easy and affordable. 

• Tourists:  Hey, we are them, but Kotor is a very popular cruise port, as well as day trip spot for bus tours. Loads of tourists pack Old Town in the busy season for day trips.  By evening, the tourists are gone.

• Prices:  Prices for tourist spots & restaurants tend to be higher than what you would expect, given it’s a country not many people can place on a map.  However, we found groceries and other local spots quite affordable.

• Smoking: Ugh. It’s everywhere. Like most of Europe and much of the world. But literally, it’s everywhere. Restaurants, malls (they vape, but still)…

Would we recommend Boundless Life Kotor Montenegro?

To be honest, this is absolutely one of my favorite cohorts. I love the proximity of the living, co-working hub and education center (at the moment, all in one building)… it really feels like a close-knit community!  This Boundless Life setup is unique to Kotor and is truly a gem!

I will say that Montenegro is a harder place to travel than some of the other locations. I think first time traveling families may find it a more difficult location. However, if your family is used to traveling to places and cultures that are quite different from what you may be used to, Kotor has a lot to offer.

The sea with water activities, some of the most majestic mountain backdrop and beautiful hikes, cute (but touristy) Old Town, easy to walk everywhere, it really has a lot to offer.

So, would I recommend Boundless Life Montenegro?  If the above sounds like something you would enjoy too, then YES! Like I said, I think the Boundless set up here is one of the best!

Location of Boundless Life in Kotor Montenegro

Boundless’ location in Montenegro is in Kotor. It’s about 15 minutes from Tivat airport, about 2 hours from Podrigorica Airport or about 90+ minutes from Dubrovnik, Croatia.  

(Note that it can take hours from Dubrovnik depending on time of year and time of day because you do have to endure a border crossing. For us it was easy, we breezed right through arriving late in the evening in early September. Apparently, summertime can be hit or miss.)

Montenegro was part of the former Yugoslavia. After the Cold War, Montenegro became independent. Because this is all recent history, many people can’t picture where Montenegro is located.  

Montenegro is located south of Croatia and north of Albania.  You can reach Croatia, Bosnia and Albania all within a couple hour drive. 

Kotor is located on the coast in Kotor Bay surrounded by truly majestic mountains. 

While in Kotor Montenegro, we rented a car a few times to explore nearby coastal and mountain towns, we took a day trip to Lake Skadar to paddleboard, we swam in the bay, we walked along the waterfront promenade, we took a boat to Blue Cave, the Submarine Tunnels and Lady of the Rock, we played Padel, we went on an Alpine Coaster, we took the Cable Car to the top of the mountain with absolutely gorgeous views, we attended a weekend Forest School foraging for chestnuts, we explored the narrow paths of Old Town, we hiked the Fort Walls, we climbed up waterfalls and we went to huge caves.

The location of Boundless within Kotor is right outside the Old Town walls. The Mall is literally UNDER a 1-minute walk from the Boundless Life Community Apartment building. It has a gym, an organic cosmetic shop (which also has a decent selection of organic goods!), a pharmacy (which also has some organic goods), a grocery and some kids stores too.  While it took us a couple of weeks to really find where we wanted to get out food, there are lot of grocery store options within a 2-15 minute walk, which makes it super convenient. 

While I do feel like Kotor is missing some wide open green spaces for kids to run, there are several playgrounds all within a 5-15 minute walk.

Boundless Life School Kotor / Education Center

Boundless Life School in Montenegro is located right outside of Old Town Kotor.  It’s a fantastic location where you can easily walk to so many places.

As I mentioned above, one thing we love about the Boundless Life Education Center in Kotor is that we had a Boundless apartment right above it – at the community apartment building. Before we arrived, we weren’t sure if we would like this set up, as we do like our family time / quiet time / space to ourselves … but we ended up LOVING it.

It made dropping off and picking up from school so easy. (Plus, for my 2 year old, it was his first time going to school, so the transition was harder and I could be there to easily pick him up earlier during the first couple of weeks. BTW – he then LOVED LOVED LOVED school and would run there every morning!)

Each of the classrooms are bright with lot of natural light, light wood design, collaborative tables, Montessori look and feel – they are beautiful classrooms. 

There is also a library in each classroom. Families can check out books to bring home, which is so nice for traveling families to be able to get our hands on real books!

There is a little playground at the school, but not a lot of space for the kids to run and no green space.  However, the kids often go to the playground down the street for recess and Boundless is planning to expand the outdoor play space at the education center.

Though there isn’t a large play area at the education center in Montenegro, the kids do spend a lot of time outside, holding classes, doing art, etc. 

The Boundless Schools now use an app called Toddle to track each of the kids’ progress, daily school work and activities that your child is partaking in.  It’s a nice glimpse into what the kids are doing each day and photos to go along with it!

Like other locations, Boundless Kotor has Cultural Time (where the kids learn about location, culture and an intro to the local language – Serbian).  

As with other locations, the kids also have a Boundless Hour (where they can work on any self-directed project of their choice).  In addition, they work towards a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) throughout the 3 month cohort, as well as learn core academics.

For us, we appreciate the combination of core academics, along with the self-directed learning and bigger picture projects (such as the SDG).  This Boundless Life Kotor school was fantastic.  We continue to be impressed with the new skills that our kids walk away with after the cohort. 

ECAs at Boundless Life Montenegro  (aka, Afterschool Activities)

Boundless Life offers afterschool activities at each of their locations.  They vary by location and local offerings.  We didn’t partake in any of the ECAs in Montenegro, though they all seemed to be really well run.  They offered chess, archery, spartan/kids games, and more.  Typically, they have local organizations or people come in for the afterschool activities, which make these activities more unique and you get more of the local culture. I do wish I would have signed my kids up for Chess. It looked well run and seemed that all the kids were really engaged.  

I know they were hoping to offer water polo as an ECA but it didn’t work out for our cohort because it’s hard to find pool time.  This would have been a fun ECA for the kids to learn (fun tidbit: I used to play water polo)!  

I would just suggest that if you want to do an ECA, you ask questions about it first. Make sure your expectations are in line with what the actual activities will be. 

Boundless Life Kotor Accommodations

One of the best parts about Boundless Life is that they offer a package, which makes travel easier. They provide accommodations, co-working space, communities, activities and school.

Boundless Life Kotor Community Building (called Scurda) is one of our favorite Boundless accommodations!  I don’t necessarily recommend all the community buildings in each Boundless location (Bali isn’t great), but this one in Kotor is fantastic.  

We had an absolutely blast staying in Scurda. It is located just a 3 minute walk to the waterfront and a 5 minute walk to Old Town and 5 minutes to the start of a nice hiking trail.  Truly, a  fantastic location.  

Oh, and did I mention, it has an elevator!!

There are currently six 3-bedroom units & two 2-bedroom units in Scurda (the community building accommodations).  Each one has recently been renovated and provides some outdoor balcony space.  The layouts vary a bit, but we absolutely loved our unit.  Below is a video of Scruda 2, which was our 3-bedroom unit in the Boundless Kotor community building. 

The walls and doors are thick, so noise transfer between units is minimal.  You can hear footsteps above you if you aren’t on the top floor.  And if kids (or adults) are in the hallways yelling or even talking, it does echo a bit.  

Every room in the apartment has black-out shutters which is amazing for sleeping in 🙂  They all have a lot of fantastic natural light as well. 

In off-school hours (and when there isn’t an afterschool activity utilizing the space), the little school playground can be used by Boundless families.  This is another bonus of the community building – to have a little outdoor play space onsite!

The community building also offers a fun bond between the families – the ease of letting kids run to each other’s homes, having a bunch of neighbors if you need a quick ingredient, holding adult get togethers and game nights after putting the kids to sleep, quick easy playdates, etc!

As I mentioned above, the thing that is unique about this Kotor Boundless Life community building here in Montenegro is that it is home to not only the 8 apartment accommodations, but also to the education center (school) and to the hub (co-working space).  

A quick note that the plan is to try to add more accommodations to the community building, expand the school (into the hub) and move the hub to another location. 

There are a few other Boundless apartments in Kotor besides the community building apartments.  Each has their pros and cons.  Some have spectacular views of the water and mountains.  

MY RECOMMENDATION:  If you need a 2 or 3 bedroom unit during your Boundless Montenegro stay, I would suggest the community building!

Co-Working Hub

Each Boundless location has a Hub.  This is the co-working space for the parents.  The Boundless Hub in Kotor is at the community building.  It has a little kitchenette, a few sound-proof booths and community tables.  

The location is super convenient after dropping the kids off at school.  The internet is very fast and lots of natural light, but still a cozy feel.  

I have heard that the plan is for the hub location to move to a larger space in the near future, but still be very close.

Boundless Life Safety in Montenegro

We often get asked about safety in these Boundless Life locations.  I always hesitate with this question because crimes can happen anywhere, and I don’t want to be responsible for telling someone that a place is safe or not.  However, with that caveat, I will say that our experience has been that we feel extremely safe here. 

We haven’t heard or experienced tales of crime here in Montenegro.  

I think the only issue we heard when we first arrived is that some of the taxis try not to go by the meter and then overcharge. Make sure they go by the meter OR that you agree upon a set price.

In fact, we felt so at ease here that we were able to give our kids (ages 9 & 11 years old) some more freedoms, which isn’t always possible in every country we travel. We felt comfortable with them heading to Old Town together for lunch dates or going to the grocery to pick up food or to the Mall to walk around. Of course, we eased into all of that (at first accompanying them to the Mall), but ultimately felt comfortable and safe enough to let them go with friends.

Recommendations in Kotor: Organic Farms, Food, & Family Activities

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Conclusion: Boundless Life Montenegro

Hopefully all the information above gives you a good sense of Boundless Life Montenegro and our review & recommendations.

I truly think Boundless Life Kotor offers a unique setup to really bring the community together, easy access to all Kotor has to offer, and beauty of having both sea & mountains so close.

On one hand, I think this Boundless set up here in Montenegro is perfect for families because everything you need is within a 5 minute walk. On the other hand, I do think the culture a bit harder to adjust to (especially for first-time traveling families).

Boundless Kotor will go down as one of our favorite Boundless Life cohorts for sure!

If you have additional questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Instagram: @MichelleSchomp

Want more? Here, we go into more of our Boundless Life Kotor Montenegro Review: