Una National Park: Pristine Waterfalls and White Water Rafting

Bosnia & Herzegovina's newest Una National Park has magical waterfalls that will thrill you, especially if you go rafting down them. Štrbački buk, where I went rating with Una Aquarius, is spectacularly huge (25m), while Martin Brod is emerges from the forest like a fairytale. You'll also find traditional watermills (laundry and flour processing) and the mysterious Ostrožac Castle to explore.
Although only a short distance from the Croatian border and its Plitvice Lakes National Park, Una National Park is much less visited (for now!) and there are many spots you can have to yourself!
In my travel vlog (visited in September 2019), I explore all that the park has to offer, and even taste the clear waters directly from the river. Bosnia & Herzegovina is a definitely one to visit while it is pristine and unspoiled before everyone else finds out about it. #xennialtraveller #bosniaherzegovina #waterfalls
Una National Park: nationalpark-una.ba/en/
Una Aquarius Rafting: una-aquarius.com/en/

[@shahandtheplanet104]

I loved the Rafting part.... probably I just saw the most beautiful rafting place in the world. And it’s always my fvrt !! Thanks for sharing.

[@XennialTraveller]

Glad you enjoyed it. Have you been rafting before?

[@shahandtheplanet104]

@@XennialTraveller Yes i did it in Nepal... i have a short video on that experience. You can check it sometimes later.

[@Priroda2683]

Great Story 🙋

[@Mr.Jasaw13]

Bosnia looks fantastic and some of those shots you took look absolutely gorgeous.

[@XennialTraveller]

Thank you. It's a country well worth visiting, even with the painful scars of its history still so evident. :)

[@yvesthesleeve]

Wow, these are great shots. Beautiful waterfalls. Very cool video.

[@XennialTraveller]

Thanks man.

[@KitatheExplorer]

Omg to your go pro BUT your friend is amazing! I just know mine would’ve been lost forever! The waterfalls looked very pretty...actually I think all of them are! Thanks for taking us along!

[@WesleyAnna]

I had no idea that Bosnia had such beautiful castles! Especially when you see it from above, it looks so majestic nestled in the hills like that. Also-how did those guys not hurt themselves diving so high up the falls?? Props to you for going on such a wild adventure, I don't swim well so just watching your boat fly off the rocks like that from the safety of my computer even made me nervous. 😅Cheers!

[@XennialTraveller]

Those guys diving off the big waterfall are crazy!! Was a really fun trip, so thanks so much for watching! 😃

[@WhatMyLensSees]

dude, what an absolutely beautiful park! neighboring plitvice gets all the love (and tourist buses) but this park looks like a true hidden gem! gonna have to check it out next time we're in the neighborhood :) and the charm of having a waterfall like that right in the middle of a village while snacking on some pancakes with chocolate. Very very cool! Loved the way you showed off those statues with your whip transitions. Very well done! and then the drone shot of the castle is seriously epic. Love how the guides get the rafts (and themselves) down the big falls. Talk about a cool job! Great jump and gopro rescue (amazed your friend found it ... definitely worth celebrating with a cold one!) You did a fantastic job capturing this still hidden secret!

[@XennialTraveller]

Your comment made my day! And totally is a hidden gem that you should really check out. I'd say Plitvice is more 'pretty' and organised but Una is more raw, and the fact you can actually get in the water with few other people around is a total plus. I'm also amazed that our guide rescued my (brand new!) GoPro, I was beating myself up that I had lost it for good. And still working on my transitions, so I'm glad that they (mostly) worked out. Thanks so much for watching and the very meaningful comment!

[@TheNearAndAway]

This place looks like a blast! I love whitewater rafting! The National park look nice…chill place to do a bit of hiking. The fortress is awesome…love all the statues in the courtyard! The drone shots were cool! Whoa, you get a pretty big drop in those rafts! That looks like so much fun! Glad you found your GoPro…that would have sucked to lose it! Anyways…safe travels, thanks for sharing!

[@XennialTraveller]

It was a really cool place all in all. I basically drove half a day to get all the way up there from Sarajevo, then another half day back down. Definitely happy I'm reunited with my GoPro since it was brand new for the trip! Thanks for watching and happy travels to you too :)

[@ColoradoMartini]

What beautiful waterfalls. You are brave to kayak the waters there. It was so nice to meet you on the YT Travel group on FB. Glad to find you.

[@XennialTraveller]

They really were beautiful! Haha, I was actually hoping for some bigger drops and more excitement - hence my comment at the end about the 'best time' being April/May when the snow has melted and the water levels are high. Thanks for watching

[@everythingisearrings]

What a beautiful place! I had never heard of it, which is insane since I'm from Europe and these seem bigger than anything else I've seen there! The white water rafting looked so fun. I love to go but I'm also a baby when it comes to going down waterfalls. I can't believe those guys jumped in!!! I'm a cliff jumping enthusiast myself but that was insane! Thanks for sharing!

[@XennialTraveller]

Oh my... a cliff jumping enthusiast. You'll probably have jumped off the one I did with no hesitation, but yeah, the big waterfall is like 20m+ high so they are insane. I think there might be some even bigger ones, but not ones you can go rafting like that. Thanks for watching - and hope you get to go sometime! :D

[@BuddyTheTravelingMonkey]

The waterfalls in the village were so cute! And to enjoy them with crepes is even better. Pretty cool that you got to explore that castle all by yourself. The rafting looked like a lot of fun. I've only done it once in Bali and would love to do it again.

[@XennialTraveller]

I loved that castle. I really wish I had had another hour to explore it properly before the caretaker showed up (rather creepily with the creaking floorboards) and told me "finito". I'm a bit of an adrenaline junky so I actually wished the rapids were faster and the falls were taller, but was really fun nonetheless. Thanks for watching Buddy ;)

[@BIOHackingNurse]

Great video matt! Beautiful waterfalls!

[@XennialTraveller]

Thanks! Long time no see, btw... looks like you've been travelling and making more videos too😀

[@BIOHackingNurse]

Xennial Traveller yeah I have been travelling and still learning on how to make videos and learning to speak in front of cam lol

[@XennialTraveller]

​@@BIOHackingNurse Keep at it. It's a journey for all of us! I've recently been trying to learn colour correct / grading and it's daunting!

[@BIOHackingNurse]

I haven’t gotten to that stage for color correcting but I normally just use auto for that one lol 😂

[@XennialTraveller]

@@BIOHackingNurse Probably best for now. Quite often while I'm doing it I'll curse and ask why I didn't just use auto. Hopefully some pain will give some gain in the long run haha

[@OneShotAdventures]

Never heard of Una before... The waterfalls are beautiful, even if they are smaller than expected! Cool to see the guy doing laundry there. I liked those whip pans between the statues in the castle - really well done! The rafting looks so fun! Well done for making that jump - I panicked then the Go Pro was stuck there haha. How was the brandy?

[@XennialTraveller]

Trust me, if you panicked watching this... imagine my own state of mind in the 8 minutes or so while the skipper was searching for my GoPro! He had lost his own a week before so I had pretty given up on it as a lost cause. The rakija was very clear - but definitely helped warm us up a bit ;) I don't usually do too many of those transitions, but thought it was suitable for that - thanks!

[@ZeeGoes]

The falls look absolutely epic and legit envious of your rafting experience. Omg at nearly losing your gopro! So glad it was retrieved...sucks when cameramemories are lost while traveling. Love the shots and the rafting experience looked mad epic!! Will add this to my list

[@XennialTraveller]

I really was beating myself up when I thought I lost my GoPro - especially since it was brand new and this trip was its first outing. So grateful to our skipper for finding it :D Thanks so much for watching

[@HenriOlivier]

Very cool. You have a new subscriber. Have a great day! LIKE 41

[@XennialTraveller]

Thanks man :D Have a great day too

[@HenriOlivier]

@@XennialTraveller You are welcome! Greetings!

[@emirrakovic8386]

Good jobs..

[@XennialTraveller]

Beautiful Bosnia

[@DreamyTravelStory]

Hey! Great video! We really enjoyed it! The second waterfall was so so pretty! We don't know how you could jump from that cliff, definitely too high for both of us. A big thumb UP!

[@XennialTraveller]

I was quite nervous jumping, but I guess anything for KZbin right? 😜

[@captainmacoy]

wow what a great adventure! I wonder Bosnia had a nice weather, I thought its winter season there since its part of Europe? ..The place and the village is incredible the water in the trees is very unique and the water rafting is so much fun, thank god your friend save your go pro.

[@XennialTraveller]

Haha, this was from September last year. I'm a bit slow in editing all my footage. Now (March/April) would be the perfect time for some intense rafting there actually. :)

[@The4KTravelChannel]

Very nice shooting and editing. This video made me realize how much fun white river rafting is. I'm surprised nobody attempted to ride the raft down the falls.

[@XennialTraveller]

Haha, maybe someone did once. And everyone realised it was a pretty bad idea and have not done it since! Probably would be quite amazing if you don't face plant in the water.

[@honeylee5265]

Just SUBBED your channel! Great video with super awesome work! thank you for sharing!👍👍

[@XennialTraveller]

Thanks for the sub!

[@nomadinneverland6832]

Nice! I'm at plitvice atm and seriously co sidering the rafting. I was wondering if they took the video/picture of your boat coming down the waterfall/river?

[@XennialTraveller]

Ummm, do you mean as in are there photographers there waiting to take your photo in the style of those amusement park rides? Not strictly speaking. But in my case I handed my main camera to the guy from the rafting company and he took videos of us as we were coming down. 😎 Where there's a will there's a way

[@theitalianchica]

what a great adventure you had! I would love to bring my camera and taking some photo of these beautiful waterfall!! I'm not sure if I would try the white water rafting but it seems so much fun! 😄

[@XennialTraveller]

You should try it! It's not as scary as it looks as long as you have a competent skipper/guide. Thanks for watching and hope you get to try it someday ;)

[@GoTravelOnTheCheap]

Very cool to see the eco-laundry in progress! Those waterfalls in the village remind us of Krka NP in Croatia. Why didn't you get to jump off the falls?!? Oh, then you cliff jump and lose your GoPro, haha! I want to have a beer and do some white-water rafting! That does seem like the perfect way to end the day, traditional soup and rakia!!

[@XennialTraveller]

Haha, that big waterfall is 24m high, I suspect that it's not too obvious which parts are clear for jump so I don't think they allow tourists to to do it. The beer was just something we randomly found in the river. I guess maybe it felt bad for taking my GoPro (temporarily) so it gave us something back 😃

[@GoTravelOnTheCheap]

Gotcha... LOL, I always like it when rivers give me beer 😃

[@zildjianzone]

Wow its pretty :-)

[@XennialTraveller]

Yeah, right?! And we literally drank the water straight from the river and it tasted great. Before I went I thought they were going to make us kayak down that massive waterfall haha

[@danielabualfailat7804]

how many kilometers is it far from doboj?

[@theRTWguys]

An awesome drone shot at the beginning! And I love how locals are doing laundry at the falls, hahaha! I'm jealous that you've done an amazing white water rafting adventure - we have done a few in the past, and I'd love to do more of it. Did you use GoPro to use the water adventure? I'd be so nervous jumping off cliff to the water like y'all did! Great job as always, Matt!

[@XennialTraveller]

I used to be quite fearless diving in from heights. Maybe I'm less keen to do so without second thought now that I live in a high up flat in Hong Kong. I used a GoPro in the raft, and the Una Aquarius guide very helpfully took my main camera and helped film us from the side of the river. Thanks so much for watching :D

[@rafaelacalzoncit8697]

Oh my God!! I thought something had happened to you when I saw that the camera was still falling 😳🥺 I'm glad it wasn't like that. The whole place is beautiful but what I liked the most was the Castle and the garden with the sculptures. Excellent video thank you very much

[@XennialTraveller]

Ahah... I was creating a bit of drama, but thank you for your concern. I was quite annoyed with myself because I thought I lost my GoPro, but so glad that our guide found it! He actually lost his own GoPro the week before. The castle really was magical. Even moreso because I explored it without anyone else there. Thanks so much for watching Rafaela 😀

[@rafaelacalzoncit8697]

@@XennialTraveller It's great that the guide could recover your GoPro but I think that's what you risk when you do that kind of thing 🤷🏻‍♀️ And if I imagined you were exploring alone 😏 Although in one shot he looked a little gloomy 😅

[@XennialTraveller]

Rafaela Calzoncit I need to get a strap for it so I don't lose it again!

[@rafaelacalzoncit8697]

@@XennialTraveller 😅😅😅 hehehe

[@WillKupfer]

How much is 8 marks in USD? This is a beautiful national park, you mentioned it was the newest, when was it considered a national park? Loved the editing and transitioning between statues at the statue park, nice idea there. I did white water rafting in Borneo, you experience here looks much more exciting than mine!

[@XennialTraveller]

8 Bosnian Marks is something like US$4.50. Una National Park was established in 2008, so it's less than 10 years old. Oh, where in Borneo did you do rafting? My mum is from Kuching, Sarawak :)

[@Zewanderingfrogs]

That's a pretty awesome experience. The rapids look intense, especially the ones where the two guys jump after pushing their raft out. Is that a Class II or III in spring? Good for you that you got your GoPro back, it would have been a pity to lose all that footage!

[@XennialTraveller]

Yeah, that big waterfalls, somewhat thankfully only the rafting guides do! And I was so annoyed first for losing my GoPro, and then elated when I got it back. I now always have a wrist strap on!! River class wise (I'm not an expert) but it is meant to be Class 4-5 in spring when the water melts and the water is MUCH stronger. The guide said that the journey would be less than half the time because of how fast the water moves...Do you guys raft a lot?

[@Zewanderingfrogs]

@@XennialTraveller We don raft a lot, and it's been years since we did last time. But would love to do some again. Classes IV and V are pretty intense so that would be crazy rides!

[@suchetasvlog]

So adventurous river rafting.The shots are pretty cool.Did u mount your go pro on ur head?

[@XennialTraveller]

Thanks! I mounted my GoPro on my chest because... that was the only harness I had - but lets you see my hands kayaking 😀

[@suchetasvlog]

Xennial Traveller ok🙂