Responsible tourism is at the very core of our business.

As the founding member of the Responsible Travel movement in Montenegro and a pioneer in sustainable travel in the Balkans, our focus has always been on creating small group adventures which have low impact on the environment while delivering a high impact experience.

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.
• We only work with locally owned businesses and accommodation providers because we want our money to stay where we put it.
• All of our activities are low or no emissions and we always aim to consume locally produced food and products.
• Finally, through our Book to Give Back scheme, we donate 1% of our turnover 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

In January 2020, we joined industry leaders in signing a declaration of a climate emergency and committing to five actions to work towards carbon neutral tourism:

1. Develop a climate emergency plan
2. Share our commitment and progress publicly
3. Cut carbon emissions
4. Collaborate, share our successes and best practices within our industry
5. Advocate for change. 

We have always kept a close eye on our carbon emissions and we’re already doing a number of things to achieve this, from offering low-impact activities like hiking and kayaking, longer stays, and locally-sourced food to reducing emissions at our accommodation with LED lights, fans instead of AC, harvested rainwater and zero-mile breakfasts at Villa Miela.

We encourage our guests to make more eco-friendly choices by recommending no-fly routes to our destinations and, where flying is unavoidable, recommending guests make an offset donation to ClimateCare.

We’ve taken it upon ourselves to prove that a responsible travel model makes good business sense, creates better experiences for tourists and locals, and offers a sustainable future for tourism in national parks across the Balkans.

We’re always striving to do even better and we’re on our way to becoming Travelife certified for sustainability best practice.

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 RSPV. 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 now development has halted and Lake Skadar, a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance and candidate ‘Emerald’ site for Europe, is safe for its wildlife and future generations to enjoy.

Local area clean-ups

Each year we arrange and support regular clean-ups in Virpazar, our base in Montenegro. In 2016, our campaigning led to getting the first ever waste bins and collection services for some of our local villages which dramatically reduced the amount of litter out on the streets, but the situation is still not perfect.

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’ve also launched a petition to ban single use plastic bags in Montenegro. We would be so grateful if you could take two minutes to sign it.

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

Unlike other tour operators which put profit before people, we are committed to boosting the local economies in our destinations. We only partner with small, locally-owned accommodation, restaurants and tour companies and we employ and train local guides to deliver our tours. 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 is 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. This inspiring gathering of music, culture and paddling is organised by our amazing guide, Gigo, who also leads our kayaking holidays across Lake Skadar and into Albania.

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.