Author: Undiscovered Montenegro

Emma makes up half of the duo behind Undiscovered Montenegro with her husband Ben. When she’s not putting together your awesome adventures or herding children and pets, she can be found doing yoga, watercolour painting or practising her Albanian (having already mastered Serbian/Montenegrin and French). We caught up with Emma to find out more about her life before and after entering the adventure travel business - and why she fell in love with Montenegro. Tell us a little bit about your life, work and travels before coming to the Balkans? I grew up in Norfolk and moved to London to work as a press officer for the British government, taking lots of career breaks to travel the globe. Some of my favourite travel memories include spending three months in a tent in Zambia surrounded by monkeys and elephants, drinking yak butter tea with monks in a remote Tibetan monastery, and leaping off the Victoria Falls bridge (the world's second longest bungee jump). I've also hitch-hiked across Botswana twice, probably giving my mum a few grey hairs. What was it about Montenegro that just made you want to stay? The fact that it's still so wild. You could mistake parts of Montenegro for Africa or Asia. Lake Skadar especially reminds me of Inle Lake in Myanmar. What's unique about the Balkans compared to other parts of Europe? The Balkans have a really different history. Large tracts were under the Ottoman Empire for centuries so there’s this intoxicating mix of East and West. You can sense it in the food, the music and the culture. Couple that with those decades under communism and there’s real intrigue. What are three of the biggest myths about the Balkans? ‘The Balkans are unsafe’ - Honestly, you’re in most danger of getting over-fed! It’s been 30