Tara Packrafting: Unique adventure in Europe's deepest canyon
Recommended by 94% of travelers
Badge of Excellence
Zabljak, Montenegro
- 4 hours (approx.)
- Mobile ticket
- Offered in: English
Explore our promoted experiences
Overview
What's Included
- Professional guide licensed by International Rafting Federation (only one in Montenegro)
- Entrance fee - National park entrance fee and river taxes of 25€ per person
- Full high-end equipment: packraft, wetsuit and anurak, neoprene booties, helmet, paddle, dry bag.
- Photos
- Transfer from end point to meeting point
- Intro packrafting clinic: learn strokes & safety before you paddle your packraft.
- Insurance and tax
- Drinks
- Transfer to the starting point
Meeting and Pickup
Meeting point
- 48H5+CV Bitine48H5+CVV Bitine, Montenegro
We will meet you at the parking which is on your right side when you arrive from Zabljak, 3,2 kilometre from Djurdjevica Tara Bridge. From your left side you will see National Park Durmitor wooden house at the river bank.
End point
This activity ends back at the meeting point.Start time.9:30 am
What To Expect
1
Tara River Canyon
2
Durdevica Tara Bridge
Additional Info
- Confirmation will be received at time of booking
- Not wheelchair accessible
- Not recommended for travelers with back problems
- Not recommended for pregnant travelers
- No heart problems or other serious medical conditions
- Travelers should have a moderate physical fitness level
- Not suitable for non-swimmers
- Weight limit 110kg
- This tour/activity will have a maximum of 10 travelers
Supplied by
Cancellation Policy
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
Traveler Photos
Reviews
4.7
based on 35 reviews
T_M, Jul 2026
It didn’t need to be like this.
My wife and I booked Nenad as a small group, but it turned out just to be us.
We are both fit and decent swimmers. Whilst we had not pack-rafted before, we have rafted, paddle-boarded, been canyoning etc, collectively activities that suggest this wasn’t an entirely novel pursuit. The Viator ad specifically says “No experience, no problem”, as long as you are “moderately fit” etc.
The kit was good, the safety briefing the expected (but adequate) 30 seconds of “if you fall in, swim to the side or wave and I’ll come and help you”. This was fine.
The instruction, however, was effectively non-existent - it happened in the less than a minute it took me to get into the water after my wife had got her boat into the water. Nemad had not asked whether or not we had done this before to judge how much instruction might be needed in the still water where we got into the river. All I heard was “let’s go”.
The boats were good quality, but were very sensitive and skittish.
It was obvious my wife hadn’t got the hang of it in the first minute of paddling, so I shouted forward to Nemad. I was ignored and he paddled into the rapid.
We went through the first rapid (not aggressive, but white water and my wife going sideways) to the next flat water.
I called to Nemad again to share further instruction. He said he had already given instruction, we were behind schedule and “let’s go”. We are on the water less than 5 minutes at this point.
The current took us through the next rapids, similar to the first, but my wife sideways again in these very tippy boats.
In the next flat water, I paddled over to Nemad and said he needed to give more instruction. He said that he had already given instruction, that “everyone” “got it” by this point and that we were running late. I insisted that he give more instruction.
He watched my wife for a second and should “you are lazy paddling – you need to stop lazy paddling”. I later translated this to her (I am not an instructor and wanted to defer to our guide) as drive the paddle more deeply, rather than at the surface, and pull more strongly.
We drifted into the next rapids and into the next flat water. I again stopped Nemad and said we needed a small amount of time on flat water to practice and gain confidence. Nemad was more concerned that we were saying his initial guidance hadn’t been perfect, recoiling at the criticism, said we were late and needed to go – we could stop at the next beach, beyond the rapids.
As we went through the rapids, Nemad was ahead (fine, but rarely looking back), my wife was going through OK and I was back-paddling to make sure I stayed behind her. My back-paddling meant I went sideways, hit a rock and fell into the river. This was fine, fun, not a problem, so I gatherer my paddle and the boat and started to swim out of the current and towards the shore. Nemad arrived, held my boat and I jumped back in. All fine.
As we exited the rapids before the beach. Nemad paddled himself to the beach and got out.
My wife – having lost confidence by going through various rapids sideways, without instruction and seeing me fall out – was paddling towards the beach, but the current was taking her beyond it. She called for help / instruction, but Nemad yelled back that the beach was “just there” and turned away.
When she got close enough, she stepped out into thigh-high fast running water and lost her footing. The current took her boat and paddle and she jumped to retrieve them, but was now up to her neck in the fast water and was scrambling for the kit (boat and paddle) so that it did not all float downstream.
She called for assistance again, so I paddled towards her and a tourist from a group raft that happened to be on the beach ran towards her, into the water and helped her with the boat and paddle. I paddled to the shore. Nemad, looking away until this point, went and retrieved the boat and paddle from the tourist who had helped my wife.
The three of us (Nemad, my wife and I) had a reasonably heated discussion on the beach. I was angry, but calm, my wife was angry and frightened and Nemad was offended that we disagreed that his initial instruction hadn’t been up to scratch. Nemad was also offended by the tone – he was keen to be “respected”. Our tone was angry, but there was nothing offensive, or incorrect, in what we said. Nemad focused on wanting more respect.
At this point, Nemad said that he wasn’t sure we should continue to the end of the itinerary, as the rapids would become more pronounced further downstream. This was HIS observation / recommendation, although he later says we simply decided to end the tour early, not that we felt unsafe and felt compelled to end the tour because of this – simply that we chose not to continue.
While Nemad was calling for the transport to pick us up at the next beach, a km or so downstream (but still well before the Tara Bridge), I spent time – since we would need to paddle there – to talk my wife through the very basics of the paddling.
We paddled downstream to the getting out point under much better control (despite the built-up loss of confidence).
We got out and were taken back to the start point and returned out kit.
At this point, I had a conversation with Nemad about what had gone wrong. I said that there had been zero assessment of experience, inadequate instruction at the outset, no practice on flat water to trigger initial necessary remedial correction. I said he had appeared to be very aware of the time from minute 1 on the water, since we entered the water late (despite us arriving half an hour early) and that he had been more focused on making up time (presumably to meet the return driver) than giving guidance. I said it was a problem that he had refused to respond to requests for instruction (there had been some – and some performative stuff at the very end which he was recording) and that this had caused the draining of confidence. I also said that his inattention when my wife was struggling to get the boat to shore, needing the intervention of a bystander undermined our confidence that he was paying attention to safety.
He refused to acknowledge any validity in any part of this.
He said “I would apologise if I felt it was right, but I don’t, so I won’t”. That is verbatim.
He then asked me if I had felt safe. I said that this was missing the point – a group should go at the rate of the least confident, feel the security of the least secure. I also said he had caused the loss of confidence by his lack of guidance. He said that he was an excellent river guide.
I said that I thought he had fallen short of reasonable expectations and was missing the point.
When I said I would be seeking a refund, Nemad said that he would give us a full refund, but would not be able to do so because he had not been paid by Viator.
We think a refund is warranted, because he failed to provide the tour advertised – very specifically the “learn strokes & safety before you paddle” and “[we] ensure you move at your own pace”. Neither of these happened – and these caused the subsequent problems.
More importantly, we think Nemad should acknowledge that he hadn’t set the tour up properly in terms of assessment or instruction – I will say with confidence, not arrogance, that my 2 minutes of guidance (vs formal instruction) on the penultima beach before our exit was more thorough and effective for my wife than anything that Nemad had bothered to do – not because of anything positive that I did, but because of the lack of anything useful from Nemad, who instead kept on insisting how good he was and how perfectly he had done everything, despite our requests from minute 1 (initially polite and eager before developing into frustration, fear and anger).
Nemad and I subsequently exchanged WhatApp messages in which I said I would be writing a negative review and complaining to Viator, seeking a refund (subsequently offering to waive the park and river fees he had paid).
Nemad replied that I was “blackmailing” him by saying I would leave a negative review and seeking a refund. I disagree. I was simply explaining the steps I intended to take following what I believed was an unsafe and poorly delivered tour. Ironically, Nemad threated to publish videos of our argument – with the aim of embarrassing us – to discourage us from making a public complaint.
So far, Viator have offered a 10% refund (I presume about half of their commission) and just appear to have copied and pasted what Nemad has written to them (similar to what he wrote to us directly) about us simply deciding to terminate the excursion early.
This could have / should have been a great activity, BUT Nemad didn’t do his job properly at the beginning and is too arrogant to recognise any of the (initially very polite) feedback.
It is this arrogance that makes me worried that someone could drown whilst Nemad focuses on his watch and being given adequate respect than the enjoyment and safety of his clients.
Viator haven’t covered themselves in glory, either.
Response from Host, Jul 2026
Dear Mr. Toby,
While we always welcome feedback from our guests, we have a zero-tolerance policy for blackmail, threats, offensive behavior, and untruths. I understand that your intention is to discredit our tour and company through an untrue review, after repeatedly threatening us that you would do anything to destroy our business if we did not approve a refund. However, the facts of your tour speak for themselves.
Fact 1: Safety is our absolute and highest priority. Every tour begins with a comprehensive and professional safety briefing with paddling instructions that lasts significantly longer than the few seconds you claimed. How serious our safety briefings are is evident from the fact that we have safely guided many beginner guests through 65km long Tara packrafting expeditions.
Fact 2: The tour was canceled because your wife refused to continue. It became immediately clear within the first 100 meters that she lacked basic physical fitness and, contrary to what was stated as required, that she was a non-swimmer who panicked in waist-deep water. She was not able to complete the tour and made the decision to terminate it. As a professional guide, of course, I organized this evacuation as she requested from me. At the moment when she decided to stop the tour, she was extremely rude and offensive to me as a guide without any reason—I was really friendly and professional to both of you.
Fact 3: You paddled on an Anfibio Revo XL+, widely acknowledged as one of the most stable, top-of-the-line beginner packrafts in the world. Our entire fleet consists of premium RobFin Big Bro and Anfibio Revo XL+ models, which are in impeccable condition. Blaming the equipment or anyone else for your wife’s complete lack of personal fitness and physical abilities is simply not fair, and this is just one more try to discredit us.
Fact 4: As the only licensed packrafting guide in Montenegro, I am trained to assess risks. You personally wanted to continue the tour, showing a disturbing lack of respect for your wife’s decision. It was her absolute refusal to continue that halted the trip, and later you personally are demanding a refund for a service that was fully prepared and operational on our part.
Out of many diverse guests from all over the world, your wife was for now the only person who was unable to complete the tour due to her lack of basic fitness, panicky and crippling fear of water, and obvious lack of swimming skills. We really understand your frustration, but projecting physical limitations of your wife onto our business through untruths, threats, and blackmail is truly unacceptable. Our friendly recommendation is that in future choose adventure suitable to your and yours wife abbilities to prevent situations like this. In any case, we wish you all the best.
Nenad
From $188.11
per personup to 24 hours before the experience starts (local time)
Customers Who Bought This Tour Also Bought
Attractions in Zabljak, Montenegro
More attractions near Zabljak, Montenegro
More Tours in Zabljak