Wildlife guide
The perfect introduction to getting your head around the extraordinary life on earth, and where to go to find it.
Top 10 bear watching holidays in Europe
Bear watching holidays in Europe are a great way to unlock the continent’s wilderness regions in the company of local experts. This is your chance to camp out in bear hides, check camera traps and track brown bears using radio technology and good old-fashioned backwoods know-how. Or you can set off on an expedition cruise to the Arctic, where polar bears hunt the ice. From Romania’s Carpathian Mountains to Finland’s Wild Taiga – read about our best bear watching holidays in Europe.
1. Volunteering with bears in Romania
Situated in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, Libearty is the biggest sanctuary for brown bears in the world. Volunteers are needed to work alongside local staff and animal experts to ensure rescued bears have a chance to rehabilitate and be released into the wild. If they can’t be released, the wild forested enclosures provide the perfect place for brown bears to live out their days in peace.
Staying within the medieval city of Brasov, volunteers will have a chance to go bear watching in the Transylvanian woods and learn more about the sanctuary’s conservation and rehabilitation programmes. With opportunities to prepare food and observe everyday behaviours close-up, this is a really rewarding hands-on experience.
Our top selling trip: Volunteering with bears in Romania
All our trips: Romania wildlife holidays
Read more: Romania wildlife travel guide
All our trips: Romania wildlife holidays
Read more: Romania wildlife travel guide
2. Polar bear expedition in Norway
Spend eight days searching out polar bears in Norway’s Svalbard – the best place to see them in Europe. You’ll travel on a small expedition ship of between 50 and 180 passengers, shoving off from Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen island and sailing through the surrounding archipelago. On-board guides will teach you about the calving icebergs, glaciers, ice floes and basalt cliffs you sail and hike past, as well as the walruses, huge seabird colonies and whales that share the polar bear’s fragile and shrinking territory.Our top trip: Arctic icebreaker cruise
See all our trips: Bear watching holidays
Read more: Polar bear watching in Norway guide
3. Bear photography in Finland's Wild Taiga
The wildlife watching potential is exceptional in Finland’s Wild Taiga, far in the north and rubbing up against the border with Russia. There are European brown bears here, some 1,500 of them, but also wolves, reindeer, elk, beavers, wolverines and many species of bird. Guides expert in the region’s ecology, wildlife, history and culture accompany you as you perch in comfortable hides, so you’ll have plenty to discuss while waiting for some amazing sightings.Our top selling trip: Wild Taiga wildlife holiday in Finland
All our trips: Bear watching holidays
Read more: Guide to bear watching in Finland
4. Polar bears in North Spitsbergen
In June, as the ringed seals move north from Spitsbergen on the Arctic Sea Ice, so do the polar bears. As they go in pursuit of their main prey, you can follow them on an ice strengthened ship, on an expedition entirely focused on trying to spot them. The never-ending June sun gives you plenty of opportunities to look for the bears, as well as walrus, whales, and seals, and to photograph the stunning sea ice, too.
This type of expedition requires a bit of patience and flexibility, as Arctic wildlife hides itself well and isn't always easy to spot. Having the best and most experienced Arctic wildlife guides on board with you certainly helps.
Our top selling trip: North Spitsbergen cruise in search of polar bears
All our trips: Bear watching holidays
Read more: Polar bears in Norway
All our trips: Bear watching holidays
Read more: Polar bears in Norway
5. Polar bear cruise in Spitsbergen
One of our travellers called cruising in Spitsbergen “an emotional rollercoaster”. Small ships have panoramic bridges, open deck areas for wildlife viewing, a library and lecture programme, and a fleet of small Zodiac boats at the ready for landings on ice shelves and seal beaches. And where there are seals, there are polar bears. You’re in excellent hands here, guided by marine and natural history experts.Our top selling trip: Arctic icebreaker cruise, Spitsbergen
All our trips: Spitsbergen holidays
Read more: Polar bears in Norway guide and Spitsbergen travel guide
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6. Bear photography in Slovenia
Get to know an area of Europe that’s still wild: Slovenia’s forests. Just an hour’s drive from Ljubljana, the capital, you’ll find the town of Marcovec, your base for five days of wildlife watching and photography from special wildlife hides. This area provides protected habitat for wild boar, deer, lynx, and golden eagles, as well as a good number of brown bears. Go in July for great opportunities to photograph the motherlode of European wildlife photography: mother bears with their cubs.Our top selling trip: Bear photo tour in Slovenia
All our trips: Slovenia holidays
Read more: Slovenia photography travel guide
7. Bears and birds in Romania
How do you know that your wildlife trip isn’t negatively impacting the bears you’ve come to see? In Transylvania, Romania, wildlife researchers have been monitoring how their bears have been reacting to visitors, and then adjusting the regions where trips should run and the activities they do accordingly. By travelling with one of these researchers, in a small groups of six travellers or fewer, you have supreme opportunities to track bears in the wild, and also see them from bear hides – alongside trips to see the region’s gorgeous wetland birdlife.Our top selling trip: Romania bird watching and bear tracking holiday
All our trips: Romania wildlife watching holidays
Read more: Romania wildlife travel guide
8. Bear photography, secret location in Finland
If you go with a specialist photography company into Finland’s forests, they will take you to a secret location, scouted out and chosen for its high proportion of bears. It means the bears remain undisturbed - even with you there, as you’ll be hidden from view by a specially built photography hide. These hides are a great place, not only to see bears, but also wolverines and wolves. Animals normally come out from the afternoon onwards, and you’re guaranteed to spot bears, and almost certain to see them every night. That’s a whole double album's worth of snaps!Our top trip: Bear photography tour in Finland
See all our trips: Wildlife holidays in Finland
Read more: Guide to bear watching in Finland
9. Rewilding & bears in the Italian Apennines
Rewilding is the conservation buzzword of the minute – but what is it? You can find out about it for yourself on this wildlife holiday in the Italian Apennines. Expect unbeatable insights from the people leading the charge on rewilding in Europe. They’ll teach you how boosting the tiny population of Marsican brown bears in the Apennines all depends on enriching the ecosystems they live in, from the smallest insects that pollinate the clover meadows to the tallest beech and yew trees that lend shelter.Our top trip: Italy rewilding holiday in the Apennines
See all our trips: Rewilding holidays
Read more: Rewilding in Europe
10. Cultural tour of Transylvania (with bonus bears)
Short on time? This five-day adventure introduces you to storied castles, the cities of Bucharest and Brasov, and the near-gothic forest reserves of the Carpathian Mountains. Deep in the forests, in the gloaming twilight hours, you’ll get the chance to snoop on bears from a hide. This is the best time to see bears in Transylvania as they wake up from their daytime nap to forage for food.
Our top trip: Transylvania small group short break
All our trips: Transylvania holidays
Read more: Romania bear watching guide
Our top trip: Transylvania small group short break
All our trips: Transylvania holidays
Read more: Romania bear watching guide
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