Yoga & Sound Healing Retreat in Montenegro

Planet

We want our holidays to be high impact in experience but low impact on the environment! Once you are at the farmhouse, transport will be mostly on foot, kayak or bike, with car transfers provided to starting points for excursions or restaurants if needed.

Lake Skadar is a National Park and a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. As such, our instructor, guides and local hosts will ensure you pay all relevant National Park fees and encourage you to behave in an eco-friendly manner at all times by supporting the Leave No Trace principles –travelling on marked paths, disposing of waste properly, leaving what you find (unless it’s other people’s rubbish!), respecting wildlife and being considerate of other visitors and the local community.

We are committed to local conservation projects and have contributed actively as well as financially to local initiatives, most notably a conservation project to help repair and maintain nesting rafts for the local, endangered Dalmatian Pelican colony. As the leading sustainable tour operator in the country, it is up to us to lead by example, protecting the National Parks from over-development and ensuring their beauty can be enjoyed by the next generation.

Your accommodation also respects the environment. With metre-thick stone walls, built before air-conditioning was invented as the traditional Mediterranean way of keeping cool, air-conditioning is neither needed, nor provided. Instead, electric fans are available for occasional use if the naturally cool interior needs a little help in the hottest weeks. To keep emissions down, guests are asked to turn off all electric fans/lights on leaving the room. Guests are also requested to keep water use to a minimum, especially important during the dry summer months. The village has no mains water connection and the farmhouse water reservoir, fed by mountain-spring, needs careful management during the long dry summer.

People

We've built strong links with local communities at Lake Skadar and support their maintenance of historic traditions, from bee-keeping, fishing and carp-smoking to the making of wine, cheese, olive-oil and flavoured brandies. By visiting home-producers and buying their wares, you will build pride, contribute to the local economy and encourage the development of and investment in sustainable agro-tourism. Along the way, you'll meet local people like Tanja and Dragan who produce delicious honey and well as their own wine using traditional techniques. English isn’t widely spoken around the lake, but your guides will be able to translate to make each interaction memorable and meaningful for you and your host community. Your visit, and National Park fees, really count in a remote, beautiful and unknown Balkan destination which is still suffering from decades of impoverishment caused by urban migration and the 1990s Yugoslavian war and now the after-effects of the pandemic which caused a collapse in Montenegro's main economic sector - tourism.