NaTourEst is a travel company specialized in nature tours in Estonia. Our goal is to offer our clients unforgettable and unique experiences. We lead birdwatching and mammal watching tours, also botanical, natural history, and other specialised nature tours. As nature is our working field, we also try to give back and contribute to nature conservation. Read more about our conservation efforts. Our doings in various fields of activity have been covered by various media editions.
The company itself was established in 2008. Our team consists of experienced naturalists and young enthusiastic nature guides.
We cooperate with some well-known European nature tour companies. For example:
Germany
The UK – Naturetrek; Wildlife Travel and Speyside Wildlife
The Netherlands – Birdingbreaks
France – Escursia
Switzerland – Liberty Bird
Denmark – Scanbird
History
- 2009 – NaTourEst built the first and the only working Brown Bear hide in the Baltic States;
- 2010 Begun our cooperation with the German touring company Birdingtours and in May we had our first longer birding trip with a group.
- In May 2010, Ben Hoare from BBC Wildlife visited our Brown Bear hide and saw a wild Brown Bear for the first time in his life.
- 2011 – we started developing self-guided nature tours with a smart device;
- 2011 – For the first time, a camera was installed next to our Brown Bear hide and it transmitted a live stream, so people could watch from their homes which animals were visiting the hide. The stream gained a lot of popularity on the site looduskalender.ee and it was followed by tens of thousands of people from all over the world.
- In 2013 we visited the British Birdfair with our team for the first time.
- 2013-2014 Production company Coraxfilm makes a spectacular two-part documentary movie about nature in the Baltic States. It was shown in TV-channels such as ARTE, ARD, NDR, ZDF, and others. In Estonia, Natourest was the local partner for the movie crew. We helped to film Ringed Seals, Brown Bears, Caspian Terns, the North-Estonian Klint coast, the annual floods of Soomaa National Park, and other scenes.
- 2017 – we bought land in Alutagus region and built 2 new Brown Bear and Wildlife Watching hides.
- In 2019 Estonia was the official partner of the annual Migratory Bird Days (Zugvogeltage) in Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park (Nationalpark Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer) and Natourest was the representative of Estonia.
- 2020 – Together with the IT-company Loquiz, we developed a platform for making smart-guided tours. Our smart-guided tours run now on an app (Loquiz) making it much more comfortable, user-friendly, and quicker.
- 2020 – We survived the worldwide Covid-19 crisis, which hit hard the whole tourism industry, and started the project of establishing new Brown Bear hides in the Alutaguse area.
- 2020 – French ARTE TV filmed Raccoon Dogs fom our Brown Bear hides for a documnetary about different “wild dogs” of the world.
Our Team
Rein Kuresoo
Guide and Trainer
Languages: English, German, French, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Spanish, Estonian
E-mail rein@natourest.ee
Rein Kuresoo belongs to the narrow circle of leading naturalists in Estonia. He has working experience both with ornithologists and botanists, but probably the most successful period of his life was connected with establishing and leading a conservation organization, the Estonian Fund for Nature (or ELF, Eesti Looduse Fond). Two national parks and several large protected areas were established in 1991-95 in Estonia in 1991-95, proposed by ELF under his chairmanship.
Rein has led bird, plant, and general nature trips since 1989 and has written and illustrated lots of books about nature and gardening. He has also authored several textbooks for schools and teachers.
Rein has the ears of an owl, an amazing ability to filter out the spectrum of most subtle birdsong from the bird choir and a bird’s sense of orientation in the middle of nowhere.
Responsibilities in NaTourEst:
- Product development and marketing
- Tour leading and guiding
- Training
Bert Rähni
Guide and Manager
E-mail bert@natourest.ee
Phone: +372 51 37141
Languages: German, English, Russian, Estonian
Peep Rooks
Guide and Manager
E-mail peep@natourest.ee
Phone: +372 5622 5943
Languages: English, German, Estonian
Peep is the newest member of Natourest’s guide family. He has been an avid nature friend since childhood and begun guiding in 2015.
He is currently dividing his time between studying environmental conservation, working for Natourest and wandering through Estonia’s beautiful forests and countryside. All of which help him become more knowledgeable about the life around him.
Ahto Täpsi
Bear hide management
Phone: +372 5234597
Languages: Finnish, Russian, English, Estonian
Triin Asi
Guide
E-mail triin@activest.ee
Phone: +3725016222
Languages: German, English, French, Estnonian
Triin Ivandi
Guide
Languages: English, German, Estonian
Peeter Vissak
Guide
Languages: English, Estonian, Russian
Although I used to be a keen bird-lover in my boyhood, my studies at university were in botany and relationships within plant communities. For some years I dedicated my life to Matsalu National Park, mapping and monitoring the vegetation and analysing multivariate data with early mainframe computers.
I then became the manager of the Puhtu-Laelatu Reserve and simultaneously ran a small NGO for environmental education. These days were full of paperwork and regulation writing. After jumping off the state conservation system ‘train’ I landed in the fertile soil of tour guiding. I immediately started to fill the gap in my practical everyday nature observations and dust down my species spotting skills. I also rediscovered photography, not as a mere registering tool, but as a tool for fine art as well. During the last decade, I have been growing little by little as a tour guide and a photographer.
In the meantime, I have translated some books, edited several monthly newspapers, and participated in EIA teams.
These days, exercising my latent knowledge, I feel lucky to have studied at Miina Härma Gymnasium and Alma Mater Tartuensis.
I love to walk in the wild and show people my favourite places. Usually, they like it and sometimes even admit they enjoyed my particular sense of humor! I look forward to meeting new acquaintances and having a great time watching wildlife together.
Marko Poolamets
Photography Tours Guide
Languages: English, Estonian
