Bulgaria - Walking and Wildlife Holidays

Holiday Profile

Despite its small size, Bulgaria is blessed with an extremely rich butterfly fauna due to its geographical location, geology, favourable climate, great variety of habitats, and very diverse flora. All these factors account not only for the large number butterfly species found within Bulgaria (at least 214 species of butterflies) but also for the fact that Bulgaria provides both a home to an interesting variety of both new endemic butterfly species and a refuge for many boreo-montane butterfly species.

Recently, a network of 50 Prime Butterfly Areas has been established in Bulgaria, covering almost 20% of the territory of the country. These Prime Butterfly Areas are the regions that have been identified as the most important for butterflies in Bulgaria both in terms of their variety of butterfly species, plus the presence of important populations of some 53 key target species of butterflies of international conservation concern.

This private guided mid-summer butterfly tour is offered to individuals, couples or small groups, and is focused in the higher mountains of south-western Bulgaria, one of the richest regions of the country in terms of its butterfly fauna, and a region which supports some of the country’s rarest and most interesting butterfly species. During the course of this mid-summer butterfly holiday, we will be exploring in detail some of the main butterfly habitats in the Rila Mountains, Pirin Mountains and Rodopi (Rhodope) Mountains, with visits to seven of the region’s most outstanding Prime Butterfly Areas: the 'Rila Monastery' Prime Butterfly Area, 'Pirin' Prime Butterfly Area, 'Kresna Gorge' Prime Butterfly, 'Melnik' Prime Butterfly Area’, 'Kalimantsi' Prime Butterfly Area, 'Western Rodopi' Prime Butterfly Area and 'Rila' Prime Butterfly Area.