Family volunteering with bears in Romania

A unique opportunity for your family to help rehabilitate rescued bears at Romania’s largest bear sanctuary. You’ll work alongside locals, immersing yourselves in their stories and culture as well as the magnificent wildlife and scenery of the Carpathian Mountains

Work at bear sanctuary near Brasov (min age 10) Feeding and monitoring bears Over eighty bears to care for Carpathian Mountains Brasov city Important conservation work in Romania Visit to Dracula's Castle

Price

£925 excluding flights

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Duration

7 Days

Type

Tailor made

Reviews

Accessibility

More info

Adults: (16+): 1 week £1025pp Children: 1 week £925pp. Extra weeks £185pp pw.
Save £100 per person when your trip is between October and May. Minimum age 10.
Includes all transfers, accommodation and a trip to Dracula's Castle

Description of Family volunteering with bears in Romania

Combine volunteering at a bear sanctuary with a family holiday on this unique project in Romania. Volunteer with your family in a bear sanctuary which provides a home to over 120 abused bears.

For many years, bears in Romania have been forced to dance in the streets, trophy-hunted and trapped in cages outside restaurants. Existing in cruelly cramped conditions and regularly abused by their owners, these bears have now been rescued and brought to this inspiring sanctuary on the outskirts of Brasov.

Volunteers have been helping at the bear sanctuary ever since its creation in 2006. The sanctuary is now home to over 100 bears. This is a safe haven for them, with densely forested enclosures with pools and plenty of food.

Helping alongside the full time members of the sanctuary staff, you will become part of this ongoing rescue story to bring more bears to safety. Your days will be spent around the sanctuary, ensuring the best rehabilitation and care possible for these bears. You will be helping at the bear sanctuary from Monday to Friday, preparing food, assisting with feeding and monitoring, caring for the resident dogs and horses and getting stuck in to conservation.

This is a fantastic opportunity for a slightly older family to get stuck in to something meaningful together. In your free time you can enjoy visiting Dracula's Castle, Rasnov Hill Fortress, the beautiful medieval city of Brasov, the Carpathian Mountains and much more. There is no chance to get bored here!

Accommodation and food
Brasov is a vibrant city with winding cobbled streets and brightly coloured buildings. You will be living in the old centre of the city, either in a flat or a hotel. All restaurants, bars, cafes, museums and amenities are within a short walking distance.

There is access to our rented flat with wifi, fully equipped kitchen and washing machine.

Itinerary

Day 1	Arrival day is a Friday. You will be collected from Bucharest airport and transferred up to Brasov.
Day 2-3:	Enjoy exploring Brasov and the surrounding areas over the course of the weekend.
Day 4 -8:	Get stuck in up at the bear sanctuary for the week. If you are staying for one week only you will return to the airport on the Friday.
Day 8+:	If you are staying for more than one week, you will enjoy the same as week 1 and leave on the second Friday.

Price information

£925 excluding flights

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Contact Us

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one, we're very happy to help

01273 823 700

Call us until 6pm

Calling from outside the UK rosy@responsibletravel.com

Departure information

This trip can be tailor made throughout the year to suit your requirements

Contact Us

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one, we're very happy to help

01273 823 700

Call us until 6pm

Calling from outside the UK rosy@responsibletravel.com

Travel guides

2 minute summary Best time to go

We are not sure that ‘holiday’ is the right word, really, when it comes to family volunteering abroad, given that its etymology is ‘a day of exemption...

Holiday information

SINGLE USE PLASTIC-FREE:

Our Destination Manager volunteered at the bear sanctuary in Romania for 3 months in 2009. She was sad to see a large amount of litter strewn across the country and when she tried to recycle her household waste, there were no facilities available.
Not much has changed today and recycling in Romania is still not common place. In light of this, the bear sanctuary that this project takes place in wants to make a difference where it comes to eliminating plastics and recycling its waste - something that makes it stand apart.

BAGS & SHOPPING:

We provide all volunteers with cloth bags that they can use to do their shopping, avoiding the need for using plastic bags in shops. We encourage volunteers to do as much shopping as they can in a local produce market, located just 4 minutes' walk from the accommodation. This means that they can avoid pre-packaged fresh items that are normally purchased in supermarkets, whilst investing in the local community. This is communicated pre-departure and once in-country.

PRESERVING FOOD:

We no longer provide cling film or sandwich bags in the volunteer accommodation. Instead, we have purchased glass containers for food storage in the accommodation, and reusable tupperware containers for lunchboxes.

IN THE ROOMS:

Items that are provided in the accommodation, such as cleaning products and hand soap are bought in large refill containers, rather than lots of little containers. We believe that this will reduce the amount of plastic in circulation. There are no single use plastic shampoo bottles, soaps etc in the accommodation.

WATER BOTTLES:

We request that volunteers do not buy single use plastic water bottles, and ask that they bring a reusable bottle with them to Romania. This is communicated pre-departure and once in-country.
Clean drinking water is provided both in the accommodation and at the bear sanctuary.
We are also looking into purchasing hydro flasks for all volunteers so that they can choose to take hot or cold beverages out with them, avoiding the need to purchase water bottles or coffee on the go.

STICKING POINT:

The bear sanctuary itself relies on local supermarkets to donate food for the bears. The food that is provided is fresh produce which has passed its sell by date. Currently some of this comes in plastic wrapping which the sanctuary has little control over given that they rely on the food donated. The bear sanctuary does all that it can to ensure the plastic packaging from the supermarket food is recycled. As recycling facilities are not widely available in Romania, the sanctuary pays a company to come and take away the waste for recycling. It isn’t perfect but they are doing what they can to eliminate food waste by giving unsellable produce to the bears, and dispose of the packaging in a way that no consumer or supermarket currently does as standard in the country.

CHANGE MAKING:

As a result of this campaign led by Responsible Travel, we got in touch with the supplier who handles our t-shirt distribution to talk about packaging. They used to send out all our T-shirts in a plastic envelope - upon our suggestion they have agreed to stop putting the t-shirts in plastic wallets and were really pleased to be able to help reduce single use plastic in some way. Thank you to Responsible Travel for giving us the motivation to ask for this - a question which would have been met with a lack of comprehension a few years ago!

US pricing:

The currency converter above works on todays exchange rate. We do take bookings in USD but the price is set at a rate confirmed months in advance and is typically above the current exchange rate. Please enquire for details.

LGBTQIA+

Our partners behind this holiday promote inclusivity on all their trips and across their business and we are all committed to ensuring travellers face no discrimination on any part of the trip they control.

Accessibility

Accessible overview:

There are challenges associated with volunteer travel, and these can make accessible travel difficult. However, we are very keen to chat with travellers with specific needs to see if we can make a trip possible.

Reviews

2 Reviews of Family volunteering with bears in Romania

5 out of 5 stars

SHOW

Reviewed on 05 Dec 2019 by Rhiannon Lewis

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

Being around the bears all day and particularly when the tourists had gone we had the place to ourselves. Walking around for the full feeding circuit was amazing

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Warm clothes! Plenty of marigold gloves and be aware you will get messy at work!

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

We supported the sanctuary and the local people with our tourist activity during our free time.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

Superb for all the family

Reviewed on 08 Aug 2018 by Heather Jain

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

I think we will all remember watching the cubs not so gently nursing with their mom; "bread bear" running out at feeding time to stealthily take a loaf of bread
and scurry back into the bushes while other bears happily ate the other food together; the mucky, fun mess of making bear ice cream; just watching the bears be bears.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Be prepared to get dirty and smell the expired food (but you'll get used to it). Bring an apron and rubber gloves and don't bring nice clothes. Be ready to go with the flow and take time to relax and observe the bears when there is a lull in your duties. Have fun!

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Yes! The food is diverted from landfill or waste. The bears are lovingly and ecologically/responsibly cared for in as natural an environment as possible given
their pasts in captivity. And the operator and sanctuary employees are all locals.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

Excellent. A great, unique program that can only be experienced in Romania at this sanctuary. And a fulfilling and mutually reciprocal volunteer experience:
we got as much satisfaction and enjoyment out of the experience of helping the bears and the sanctuary as they hopefully benefited from our work. It's very
fun!

Responsible Travel

As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we've screened this (and every) holiday so that you can travel knowing it will help support the places and people that you visit, and the planet. Read how below.

Planet

Supporting local wildlife
It almost goes without explanation to state how strongly this project supports local wildlife. The staff at the sanctuary can very rarely say no to animals that need to be taken care of, and as such you may find that you are also helping rescued dogs, horses, wolves and donkeys - and maybe other creatures - whilst you are there. This is the largest bear sanctuary in Europe and has rescued well over 100 bears since it came into operation in 2006. Volunteers are not allowed to interact with the bears as this can hinder their rehabilitation.

Protecting the world
We are passionate about encouraging our travellers to be kind to the environment as they travel. Each participant receives advice about how to care for the environment whilst they are away. This includes water usage, how to avoid single use plastic, and electricity usage.

We insist that all participants bring their own water bottles when they travel with us, and clean free water is always available. We have even created a water bottle that can be purchased before departure and encourage people to use it at all stages of their journey including at the airport, on flights and whilst on their project. We are striving for all of our projects to be free of single use plastic.

People

Meeting local needs
The whole project is geared towards helping the local community. Romania is not wealthy and institutions like the bear sanctuary rely on volunteers. We have been running programmes in this area since 2000 and have long-standing relationships with local people. This means we have a good idea of where help is needed, and can ensure volunteers make a real contribution. The educational emphasis on the sanctuary is important, as it helps children from this area of the world to understand the importance of caring for wildlife and in particular the bears - which will help to preserve wildlife going forward, and enable children to have a healthy relationship with their natural environment.

Impact on the local economy
The project also helps the local economy. Our participants spend money on food and leisure; we pay rent and employ a local Romanian as our representative. In addition, we donate money regularly to the various projects in response to their needs.

Cultural sensitivity
Our pre-departure briefing includes a special session entitled ‘Responsible Tourism’ where we discuss cultural differences and sensitivities as well as advising volunteers on appropriate conduct. People are briefed on what is considered polite in terms of eating, greeting and dressing. It is encouraged that all volunteers learn some Romanian prior to departure, and they get a helping hand whilst out there as well.

Family volunteering with bears in Romania