Responsible tourism is at the core of our business.

In 2011, we were accepted as a member of Responsible Travel, passing strict screening to become their first member with trips in Montenegro. We have been guided by their guidance ever since. Our Balkan itineraries are designed to keep our footprint small while delivering a big experience that supports local people.

How?

• Our minimum stay is 7 days because we believe in making the emissions generated by travelling abroad count.
• We take a slow travel approach, meaning even on our multi-centre holidays you will spend days, not hours, in each location.
• All our partners are small, locally-owned businesses and accommodation providers because we want our money to stay where we put it.
• All of our activities are human-powered: hiking, kayaking, SUP boarding, canyoning, rafting, wild swimming, yoga or painting. Transfers between locations are by shared petrol car or minivan because public transport options are limited in the Balkans, especially in rural areas.
• We keep our groups deliberately small: our cap for organised tours is 15; something we occasionally waive on tailormade itineraries for a club or community.
• We give every guest pre-travel advice on being a more responsible visitor in the Balkans, such as how to minimise waste.
• We put our name to the causes we care about, using our brand and platform to back campaigns to protect nature in the Balkans.
• Through our Book to Give Back scheme, we donate 1% of our profits to vital conservation and community projects in our destinations. There’s more information on that below.

Why? The Balkans are developing faster than they create legislation to protect their precious natural assets and vulnerable communities against overtourism, so we’ve taken it upon ourselves to lead the way in travel for good.

Our pledge

Undiscovered Balkans is committed to running high-quality adventures that keep our environmental impacts small, while actively supporting local conservation, tradition, culture and people. It’s up to us to lead by example, showing that a more responsible travel model makes good business sense, creates better experiences for travellers and locals, and offers a lasting future for tourism in national parks, rural areas and for communities across south-east Europe, a region still rebuilding after communism and, in some areas, conflict.

We’re always striving to do better. Scroll down to find out more.

Our actions

Through our Book to Give Back scheme, we help to fund vital conservation efforts in the Balkans. Our founders are also active voices in the conservation community, backing campaigns to protect lakes, rivers and national parks in our destinations.

Supporting Dalmatian Pelican & bird conservation

The rare Dalmatian Pelican is the emblem of Lake Skadar National Park, where we began our business in 2008, but it’s a bird in peril. We donate a proportion of our company profits each year to the NGOs helping their vulnerable colonies flourish, which means by booking with us, you’re protecting the very pelicans you see out on our kayak safaris. In 2023 and 2024, we supported CZIP, the Montenegrin equivalent to the UK’s RSPB. They’re leading pelican conservation and campaigning to protect many other critical species in Montenegro. Read more about our work with CZIP here.

Save Skadar Lake campaign

As part of the Save Skadar Lake campaign, we helped publicise and promote a petition to fight the construction of two large luxury resorts in an untouched area of Skadar Lake National Park.

In December 2019, as a result of this campaign, Europe’s nature watchdog the Bern Convention opened a case file to ensure the site concerned is made a top level nature protection zone. The file remains open, but for development has now been halted for years and Lake Skadar, with its connected wetlands, has become a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, among the world’s most valuable nature areas.

Save Vjosa Narta campaign

In 2026, we backed the #HandsOffVjosaNarta campaign to protect the Vjosa-Narta wetlands in Albania from development for luxury tourism. We featured the petition in two editions of our newsletter and shared it on Instagram and TikTok, where our posts have had over a million views, and our main Instagram post alone was shared more than 8,000 times. We encourage everyone who loves wild places to add their name.

Local area clean-ups

Each year we arrange and support regular clean-up initiatives. In 2016, our campaigning led to getting the first ever waste bins and collection services for some of the local villages around Lake Skadar which dramatically reduced the amount of litter out on the streets.

In 2019, our founders took the cleanup operation nationwide and co-founded OcistiME! (CleanME!), a movement to campaign for government action and inspire citizens to arrange clean ups in their local areas. We also launched a petition to ban single use plastic bags in Montenegro; and that ban has come to fruition, in 2024.

Filtered water bottles

Understandably, many of our guests opt for bottled water when travelling in the Balkans to reduce the risk of an upset stomach. A cleaner, greener and cheaper solution is to use a filtered water bottle.

We’ve partnered with Water-to-Go to provide branded filter water bottles at a discounted price to our guests. Each bottle is made with 100% recyclable materials and biodegradable filters which remove 99.99% of waterborne bacteria and parasites. The filters are good for around 200 litres, meaning each litre costs you just £0.06p. Head to our brand page on Water-to-Go’s website and use code UB15 to get 15% off.

Supporting local communities

All our partners are small, locally-owned accommodation, restaurant and activity providers, and we work only with local registered guides to deliver our trips, helping to boost local economies in our destinations. This ultimately brings a richer experience to our guests and an invaluable cultural exchange between guests and hosts as well as bolstering the local economy.

Tara Kayak Fest

We proudly sponsor the Kayak Fest Tara, a fun, nature-based event which aims to raise environmental awareness of and protect wild rivers in Montenegro. The festival has helped bring together activists from across the region for the Montenegrin leg of the Balkan River Defence.

Zero Waste Montenegro

Developing countries are doing their best but still have some way to go when it comes to waste management and awareness about recycling and reducing plastic pollution. As such, we’re proud to be sponsors of a new and much-needed campaign called Zero Waste Montenegro. Current projects include campaigning for a ban on plastic bags, encouraging the use of recycling centres, and bringing to market the first reusable bags made out of recycled materials for Montenegrin consumers. Read more here.

Overland travel to the Balkans

Avoid the red eye wake-ups, the faff at security and the ungodly flight times in favour of this pleasant meander across countries and borders – and that’s not even taking carbon emissions into the equation! You can travel via Paris, Munich, Zagreb and Belgrade to reach most of our holiday destinations, avoiding hotel costs with sleeper trains and seeing some amazing scenery to boot! A 15 day interrail pass is just £412pp, around the same price as a summer return flight. Reach us by train/bus in 2026 or 2027 and we’ll knock 15% off the cost of your holiday, and also support you along the way.