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The Development Goals of FitCamp Montenegro

Being a crazy ant is not an easy job. All of us crazy ants know it, but we usually wouldn’t do anything different even if we could turn back the time. 

‘…most of the ants in the nest are creatures of habit (workers). They mark their routes with scent trails and only follow routes where another ant once walked. So they obediently finish their work list. They will mainly work harder and harder but do nothing structural about the problem.

Fortunately, there are always several crazy ants (scouts) in a nest. They deviate from the fixed routes and, therefore, find new places that the ant people need to survive. The crazy ant is the one who will find a new place. But how does he convince the other ants to help him move the entire nest?’

Read the full story about the crazy ant here. 

Lagant.nl

As many in our surroundings characterised us as crazy when we left the coast and headed up to the Adriatic hinterland of Central Montenegro to develop FitCamp, we wished to write this blog and explain our reasons, or better say goals!

GOAL 1 – Local Community Involvement & Development

Seeing the potential and optimal growth in rural tourism development of Montenegro, one of the leading thoughts of our business idea was to include the local community in all that we do. 

Offering only local products to our guests and visitors is what we crave, but taking in mind that our production is not that big to cover all the needs yet, we saw an opportunity for everyone in the village producing anything from fruits and vegetables to cheese, meat, marmalades, juices, rakija, wines and similar. 

This goal includes long-term effects that are equally positive to our business development as to the city’s economic empowerment, a larger tourism inclusion and better rural product placement. 

We frequently hear how the city of Niksic, where we are located, is not touristically developed, so we want to motivate people from this city to understand the potential of the area and plan their agricultural and other activities following all the possibilities that the modern market offers. 

GOAL 2 – Sustainable Environment

The mal-influence of tourism on the environment has become very clear, taking in mind massive movements, cruising travels increase and similar. Some of the greatest minds in sustainable tourism development are now finding a way to regenerate the travel market and decrease the poor effects of the travelling crowds that used to happen from the 70s of the 20th century up to today. 

From the very beginning, FitCamp Montenegro had a clear idea in mind – development in touch with nature! All our efforts to find a remote place and cultivate it further paid off when we landed to today-location of our well-being centre. We clicked with this area and saw all the small bits and pieces needed for the puzzle that we started to put together.  

Firstly, we were enthusiastic that the village where we are now located doesn’t have a city water supply system. Most of the people we work with and our partners told us – oooh, but the water might be a problem there. We nodded and made it one step closer to our vision.

Most of the people living here are collecting the rainfall and snowfall in underground containers from which they distribute it further to their barns, houses and gardens. The same is with us. Our property has a 44 m3 water container built underground in the backyard, and it is connected to the house by an electric water pump. So, when you are inside our premises, you can’t feel the difference as it seems the same as in the urban areas. In reality, it is not the same, as we take as much as nature has given us and reuse it in our daily life. The best about it is the reaction of our guests and visitors and how fast they learn to collaborate in saving water and protecting natural resources.

Furthermore, we started planning a sustainable irrigation system for our gardens, orchard and future cattle. We dag a pool in the valley of 150 m3 size that will soon be our addition to recreation on the FitCamp estate, as well as a secure water supply for all the produce.

The system is planned with a SMART addition so that we can control the water flow even remotely.

A solar plant is something we keep for the near future, but it’s been on our list since the very beginning. The reason for postponing it is the investment that it requires. That piece of the puzzle will close the circle of self-sustainability and give us the title of the possibly only self-sustainable place in Montenegro, especially in the commercial market.

Thus, nature will give us:

– electricity from the power of sun and wind, and 

– water from the rainfall and snowfall.

This will shape our small system as a perpetuum mobile. 

GOAL 3 – Diversified Travel Product   

As parts of our team have been working in tourism for years, we are aware of the clutter and fuzz that follows travelling. The effects of tourism on nature are not flattering, but luckily, the latest generations of travellers seem to see this problem and react to it. 

Even before the pandemic, FitCamp Montenegro’s idea was shaped around the fact that nature has a healing effect and that we should let that fact into urban lives that are stale and dusty. We didn’t want seasonal work or to offer the same services as everybody else in the rural areas of Montenegro, so it took us time to shape the whole program and system with our partners and friends. From 2018 up to today, we didn’t stop working on this idea and sharp-shaping it for the market in the best way we possibly saw it could go.

All our programs are based around the benefits and inspiration that nature gives us, and we invest ourselves in the best combination of silent time within the forest, hiking, swimming, outdoor adventures, yoga, fitness, healthy food & nutrition, and mindful workshops. We immodestly consider that we crafted a unique travel product for the Montenegrin market, and we are fanatical about the reality that our demand is responding so positively to what we created for them! That gives us further inspiration and motivation to never stop and always introduce novelties to our products and the Montenegrin travel market in general.

Avoiding the short seasonal work, our doors are not open only to travellers and our programs are not crafted just for short-term rentals. We are happy to share that winter 2022/23 was more than successful at our estate, with numerous digital nomads who have chosen coliving stay, entrepreneurs and MSMEs who have chosen our team buildings and workshops and last but not least – our volunteers, who help us and at the same time live the life with us, by applying the same set of rules and goals we crave for FitCamp.

We do hope to welcome you here and spread our love for nature and all it gives us with you, introduce you to our elderly neighbours and their delicious products and heal you by being one with our Planet Earth. 

Approaching Earth Day, we wish that this blog enlights you in your future travels and motivates you to only travel with purpose!

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Heritage Depicted in Loving Pieces – Your Easy Path to Learn About Montenegro

We are currently living in a world of chaos. Some of us are aware of it, while some see this chaos as a favourite reality. It is hard to point out the worldly values and all the great things that humankind has achieved, while the planet is shaken by numerous awful events such as the pandemic, wars, climate change, economic crisis, and energy crisis… We wonder when will positive vibes swap all this negativity.

We started our new location preparations and renovation in the middle of this chaos. Was it hard? Supremely hard! Was it worth it? Oh yes! Every step of this road made our team become better persons, better hosts, and better friends. A neverending learning process has started with the opening of FitCamp Montenegro at its fresh-new location, and this is the first blog written from our lovely Community House. We can’t wait to welcome you here so that you can see in person all that you will read in this blog today, plus the beauties of the FitCamp estate.

Led by an idea of restorative and responsible travel, we left the overcrowded Montenegrin coast and settled in the fabulous coastal hinterland, in Central Montenegro, with a promise to give our best to manifest local customs and traditions and include the local community into FitCamp Montenegro development. One of our guiding ideas, since the very beginning, was to motivate locals to join us in the efforts of creating a sustainable environment for the travellers by cherishing and regenerating what the almighty Nature has given us!

So, for the first blog of the year, and the first blog written from the FitCamp estate, let us present you with our favourite literature pieces, manifesting the best of the local community and showcasing the efforts of some great individuals!

Tara and The Magic Tree enjoying their life at FitCamp Montenegro

Tara and The Magic Tree

Written by the Montenegrin author Zarko Vucinic, and illustrated by the students of Petar Lubarda Art School in Cetinje, this book is an eco-tale about fighting for a cleaner Planet while teaching the basic concept of the Zero-waste movement. The main characters of the book are brought to life in the shape of the Znuggle eco toys, handmade of local wool by lovely Montenegrin women, dyed with plant pigments and available at FitCamp for you as perfect souvenirs from Montenegro.

This book is equally important and a good read for children and adults perfectly demonstrating FitCamp’s attitude towards nature. 

You can find more information here.

A Wonderous Collection

Women of Montenegro

Living in a patriarchal society is hard and you see it best when you are a woman. Especially in small, conservative societies like the one in the Balkans. Fighting for equity and equality has become a reality for every woman in the world, nevertheless on Montenegrin women. 

The UN development program in Montenegro together with the European Union, Ministries of Montenegro and the Capital of Podgorica supported the publishing of this piece of art, showcasing the historical timeline of all the great women who lived, created, ruled and influenced Montenegro. 

The local artist, Tijana Todorovic, together with her mother Olivera, has gathered all the information and helped design the book that was published in Podgorica in 2022. The book Women of Montenegro was created with the desire to depict women’s role throughout Montenegrin history and it is the first collection about the identity and women’s struggle for their rights in society. 

The goal of this book creation is similar to one of FitCamp Montenegro’s goals – motivation and encouragement of the modern woman to continue this historic struggle for personal and social progress. It is dedicated to all men and women who are on the path of modern and emancipatory actions.

It gives us a huge joy to be able to offer you to read this jewel showcasing Wise Brave and Special Women of Montenegro, during your FitCamp stay.

Mountainous Flora of Montenegro

Botanical Gardens of Mountainous Flora of Montenegro

Another amusing story comes from the east of Montenegro, a place called Dulovine near the city of Kolasin. There, in the intact mountainous nature, the loving Vincek couple collected living plant materials from around the Montenegrin mountains and brought these to their botanical garden, shaped and formed out of their pure love for nature.

The collection of the plants was continuous for a 2-decade time during which Mr Daniel, together with his wife Mrs Vera, created an angelic permaculture garden that contains 15% of all flora of Montenegro or about 450 different species, including endemic, rare and special ones. Unfortunately, both Daniel and Vera have passed away, but the garden keeps living. This garden is located at 1000 m altitude, and for us at FitCamp Montenegro is a perfect example of how to grow and maintain your garden. 

We hope we will have the similar motivation of these two amazing individuals and grow a botanical garden at our property – smaller in size but with a similar proportion of love!

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Commence your journey of discovery and well-being, and by learning with us, we promise you will leave FitCamp knowing a lot more about the lifestyle, local rural communities and the social structure of Montenegro.

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Living The Dream in Montenegro – Eco Country

Green Country 

Did you know that Montenegro is eco-country by its Constitution? On September 20th 1991, the Declaration was adopted in the city of Zabljak and Montenegro became the first eco-country in the world. The next year, this Declaration was presented in the UN Conference for Environment Protection.

Montenegro indeed has such stunning natural beauties and it’s all clear once you are here why this is eco-country.  Unfortunately, Montenegro experienced 2 wars after the adoption of this declaration (luckily without serious consequences), so the actual actions on this topic were lacking or were minor and performed by some individuals, although the country has this idea as the main goal of the longterm development.

FitCamp Montenegro Developing Sustainable Tourism 

We have a sustainable tourism idea as our top goal for FitCamp Montenegro development. We started building our estate to bring a new dimension and fresh energy to the tourism in Montenegro, by living in accordance with nature and use it only in a proper way by respecting it. 

Our guests are invited to give their input and help us be better, so that is why we are including them in what we do at the estate, from food production, waste management, clean-ups and so much more! We want to bring you to the next level of vacationing – which is all combined in this concept of travelling with a purpose. See more here.

Growing Food

Eco-friendly 

How do we succeed in being-in-accordance-with nature?

First of all, we don’t use city water system, but we collect rainfall in our huge underground containers. These are plugged on e-pumps that are bringing the water inside the community home and accommodation units.

We produce our food in 2 gardens that we have at the moment, with plans of expanding the production area once we have more accommodation units, to be able to supply the food for our guests. We grow fruits and vegetables and we supply milk, eggs and meat from the local community. Other than this, we grow medicinal herbs and we are treating all our guests with professional nutritionists’ classes during their stay.

Our Maggie hunting

Eco Fashion by FitCamp Montenegro 

We want our guests to have an amazing time in Montenegro. With experiencing the next level of vacation, there must be the next level of souvenirs from travels! Thus, we create our souvenirs out of natural materials only and these are available to our lovely guests!

FitCamp Montenegro Clothes

Amongst our team members, we have people talented for various sorts of things, amongst which is drawing too. We came up with an idea to put our drawings on T-shirts, underwear and sportswear, so you can have it as a souvenir from your trip to FitCamp Montenegro.

FitCamp Montenegro Canvas Sack

As we care about nature so much, we are amongst the group of people in Montenegro who started with the petition to ban single-use plastics. This is one of the main polluters of our planet Earth and we want to motivate our guests to use canvas sacks only! We created ones with our logo that are perfect as a present to a dear person, or just for own use.

FitCamp Montenegro Reusable Bottles

To ban single-use plastic is very easy! And it’s even more affordable to live without it, just think of it! At FitCamp Montenegro, we have branded our reusable water bottles, perfect for sports activities, to days in nature and every-day outdoors life!

Sign our petition here.

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Top Reasons To Visit Central Montenegro

1. Excellent position

Source Wikipedia

Being perfectly located probably means being on the Mediterranean coast. Montenegro already is, of course, but once you are in Montenegro it is underrated to visit only the coast! It is such a tiny country, but it has so much to offer! It’s a real catalogue of natural beauties and if you ask us to tell you what place is better than others, we probably couldn’t decide!

Central Montenegro is just in the middle where on the south we have UNESCO protected medieval Kotor and Perast and on the north, UNESCO protected National Park Durmitor, Tara Canyon and other breath-taking beauties.

By staying at FitCamp Montenegro location, you have the position to explore all the corners of the country in a short period. That’s why we choose our location to be central Montenegro, as it’s perfectly connected by the traffic roads, it has railway too and both airports are distanced enough not to make noise, but only a short drive away indeed.

2. Natural beauties for hiking and cycling

Hiking in Nature

Central Montenegro is home to many marked hiking and cycling paths. If you are experienced, you will be good to go on your own, except for the advanced paths where is recommendable to go with a guide. But, the central region has a lot of sports outdoor people, who are more than happy to welcome visitors and show them the most interesting parts of our country.

Only in Niksic, you have marked hiking trails to Budos Hill, paths surrounding lakes Krupac and Slano, that are also marked for cycling; mountaineering trails to Vojnik; hiking and skiing trails in the ski resort Vucje as well as cable car riding and so much more. Podgorica, the capital, hides many parks and hiking routes amongst which the most popular is the Korita Circuit. Also, Skadar Lake region is super-popular for hiking and the old royal capital of Cetinje offers another national park – Lovcen with the Mausoleum at the highest altitude in the world, where our former bishop and ruler is buried – Petar II Petrovic Njegos.

FitCamp Montenegro is located right on the path of one of five Top Bicycle Trails that lead from Niksic to Pluzine. Besides, it is very close to the hiking route of Nozdra, where once a year Montenegro Trophy Relly Race is organised too. Nozdra is well historically known, as well as the Presjeka village, as many battles with the Ottoman Empire took place just here! Pure fun to experience!

3. Lakes

Krupac Lake

The central region is so rich in lakes! Artificial and natural both and equally breath-taking! Only the region around Niksic has 3 artificial lakes that were made during the time of ex-Yugoslavia, for electricity production. Even if these were made for economy, because of the stunning Montenegrin beauty they fast became favourite day-trips spots of fellow citizens as well as the visitors.

Krupac Lake and Slano Lake are very close to FitCamp Montenegro and some activities included in our programs will be done there. Slano Lake is amazing for fishing, while we like Krupac Lake for swimming, sunbathing, outdoor yoga and similar. Both lakes are amazing for hiking and cycling.

Besides these, Skadar Lake is probably the best-known lake in Montenegro, also located in the central region of the country. This is the largest natural lake in the Balkans and it’s partially located in Montenegro and partially in Albania. Here is beautiful to go for a day-trip and do birdwatching, boat riding or just enjoy a delicious dinner and wine.

4. Spirituality 

Ostrog Monastery

For the visitors keen on religion and spirituality, central Montenegro hides the most sacred spot of the country – Ostrog Monastery. It is half an hour drive away from FitCamp Montenegro and it is visited by all the spiritual people, doesn’t matter the religion, even if it’s an orthodox monument.

Besides Ostrog Monastery, all the cities of the central region are famous for churches and monasteries, so you can find plenty in Niksic, Podgorica and Cetinje. Amongst the most popular are Saint Basil’s Church, Cetinje Monastery, Church on Cipur, the Temple of Christ Redemption etc.

5. FitCamp Programs

Yoga Outdoors

Our favourite reasons for you to visit central Montenegro are our programs! We worked so hard to deliver you a high-quality experience of the next level of vacationing and we are sure you will enjoy it!

Even if we started all this some time ago, summer 2020 will be our first season at the very first personal FitCamp location and for us, that’s a special thing!

Our programs will help you renew, rejuvenate, restart and relief stress, plus we will teach you how to respect nature and live by following it. In these hard times with coronavirus pandemic, the most important thing to learn is how to be more respectful to our dear planet!

6. Amazing Nightlife

Central Montenegro is well known for a vibrant nightlife and this is something we highly recommend you to try! While at FitCamp Montenegro, young and enthusiastic team of hosts will be more than happy to show you some of the best local performers bring you to the best pubs in the country and take you to some of the best festivals that are taking place in this region. Some of the most popular ones are Lake Fest, Bedem Fest, Wine & Bleak Festival, City Groove and many others.

7. Hospitality 

Local Household Treats

All of the Balkans are recognised as very tender and kind hosts to their guests, but while in Central Montenegro you will experience what that truly means. At every household you will feel like at your own parents’ or grandparents’, everyone will be willing to help, to share, to give… We can’t wait for you to see that with your own eyes and let us know how it feels!

8. Lazy Mediterranean Lifestyle

Even if Central Montenegro is not connected to the coast directly, here you can meet Mediterranean highlanders and experience what a lazy lifestyle truly means! We are certain that you will enjoy it, but the hosts will be enjoying sharing it with you too!

This is one of the most accurate ways to learn about the new culture and to leave with magnificent memories from Montenegro!

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