Bear watching holidays

Our bear watching holidays and tours offer plenty of choice when it comes to destinations, species and budget. They also bust a few myths. The theory goes that bears are solitary creatures. However, if you find yourself around an Alaskan salmon spawning river in late summer, you’ll watch as grizzlies gather en masse to devour fish that look like they were merely invited to dance at the party. Nature is harsh, and nowhere better exemplifies this than the world of bears. Expect gripping scenes, with our expert guides at the helm to ensure you enjoy some memorable sightings.

Bears are shy animals, so the best way to see them is from a hide. In Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, conservation work is helping to reverse deforestation and foster biodiversity, with bears an integral part of the mix. Our holidays take you to high elevations, where comfortable hides await.

The other key element of our bear watching tours are the guides. They know the best places to find these huge, cautious predators, and once they track them down, they can help you understand the way the bears are behaving, too.

In Europe, our top destinations for seeing brown bears include the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, where you can also visit a renowned bear sanctuary; Finland’s Taiga region and Italy’s Apennine Mountains, where you may visit a conservation and reforestation project.

British Columbia in Canada is another fantastic place for bear watching holidays, known as the salmon capital of the world, which makes it a paradise for hungry grizzlies. Head far north for small ship cruises into Arctic regions where polar bears prowl, while on the forested hillsides of Sichuan in China, our expert guides can help you track wild pandas.

You can see many different bear species on our tours. Polar bears are often spotted on Arctic shorelines, while further south huge grizzlies feast on spawning salmon from September through to November. You might also encounter much smaller black bears in American national parks.

European brown bears are making a comeback in remote and mountainous parts of the continent, which can cause tensions in rural communities. These can be offset by the benefits bears bring to ecosystems, as well as the income that our bear watching tours brings to local businesses. You can also see small, endangered sun bears in sanctuaries in Southeast Asia.