Sustainable Travel · Lithuania
Eco-Friendly Hotels in Zarasai — Your 2026 Guide to Sustainable Stays
Zarasai is Lithuania's lake-country capital — a small city of under 6,000 people in the far northeast, where the town centre is squeezed between four lakes and the surrounding Zarasai District claims more than 300 more. The name itself comes from the Selonian word for 'lakes', and water is everywhere: swimming beaches, rowing boats, waterfront saunas and islands reachable by kayak. It also holds Lithuania's record for the hottest day ever measured — 37.5°C in July 1994 — so summer here is genuinely warm, not just Baltic-bright. Zarasai is best known among locals for its summer festivals, especially the neo-pagan Mėnuo Juodaragis, which draws thousands into the lakeside forests for three days of Baltic music and ritual. For eco-travellers it is a low-cost, low-carbon base for forest trails, lake swimming and slow travel — and every booking through IMPT removes 1 tonne of CO₂ at the same price as Booking.com.
A Town Built Around Water
Zarasai sits between Lake Zarasas to the southwest, Lake Zarasaitis to the north, Lake Baltas to the southeast and Lake Griežtas to the east — the last two joined by the little River Laukesa. The practical upshot is that almost every hotel, guesthouse and apartment in town is within a short walk of water. Zarasas has a proper sandy swimming beach and a lakeside park, while Griežtas hosts a popular beach and watersports in summer. Rowboats, pedal boats and stand-up paddleboards are rented cheaply from the shore, and the islands of Lake Zarasas hide picnic spots and an old monastery site where the town's first church stood in the early 16th century.
The town's foundation is dated to 1506, when a manor and monastery stood on Didžioji Island in Lake Zarasas, on the old trade route between Riga and Pskov. City rights followed in 1843 under the name Novoalexandrovsk, and the current Lithuanian name was adopted only in 1929. The 19th-century Zarasai Park, laid out around the town's lakeside, is one of the oldest public parks in the region and remains the heart of local life — a green, shaded loop perfect for an evening stroll.
IMPT gives you Zarasai at the same nightly rate as Booking.com. The difference? IMPT retires 1 tonne of verified carbon credits on-chain for every booking. No green premium. No feel-good certificate. Real, auditable carbon removal funded from our commission. Search Zarasai hotels now →
Festivals, Forests and the Land of Lakes
Zarasai's cultural claim to fame is Mėnuo Juodaragis — the Black Horn Moon — a neo-pagan Baltic music festival held every August on the shores of a lake near town. It brings together folk, electronic and experimental acts with workshops on ancient crafts, herbalism and mythology, and is one of Lithuania's most distinctive summer events. The rock festival Roko naktys adds a heavier weekend earlier in the season. Both draw visitors from across the Baltics, yet the town remains small and unhurried outside festival dates.
The Zarasai District, stretching to the Latvian border, is marketed as the 'Land of Lakes' — more than 300 lakes scattered through mixed forest, linked by canoe routes and cycle paths. The Gražutė Regional Park to the north-east offers forest trails, lookouts and wild swimming spots, while the district's farmstays serve smoked fish, forest mushrooms and locally brewed beer. Cross-country skiing and ice-fishing take over in winter, when the lakes freeze solid enough to drive on.
Zarasai is about 2.5 hours by car from Vilnius, or reachable by bus via Utena; the nearest railhead is in Turmantas, close to the Latvian border. Rooms start around €35 a night, and because the town is compact, no car is needed once you arrive — a genuinely low-impact base, made carbon-negative by IMPT's 1-tonne removal on every booking.
How IMPT Makes Your Zarasai Stay Carbon-Negative
Here's the maths. An average hotel night produces roughly 35 kg of CO₂ — from air conditioning, laundry, lighting, and food service. When you book any Zarasai hotel through IMPT, we retire 1,000 kg of UN-verified carbon removal credits. That's 28 times what your stay produces. Not carbon-neutral — carbon-negative.
The cost to you? Zero. IMPT funds the removal from its booking commission. You pay the standard nightly rate — in fact, IMPT offers the same price as Booking.com on the same room, with carbon removal built in. The carbon credits are tokenised on Ethereum, retired against a named project, with a public retire code anyone can verify. No double-counting. No greenwashing. Just verified carbon removal, every night.
- €5 free credit when you sign up — applied to your first Zarasai booking
- 5% back on every stay — 3% funds carbon projects, 2% as travel credit
- 8M+ hotels worldwide, 195 countries — Zarasai is just the start
- Free cancellation on most rates, typically up to 48 hours before check-in
Beyond Hotels — More Ways IMPT Works in Zarasai
Shop through IMPT's 25,000+ retail partners and earn cashback on purchases that also offset carbon — the same Amazon and AliExpress basket, with carbon removal attached. Send someone a trip credit gift to visit Zarasai — IMPT plants trees with named farmers, GPS-tagged and photo-verified, or offsets carbon through verified projects.
For business travel, IMPT's B2B Corporate Travel platform gives you exclusive rates, automatic ESG reporting, and a single dashboard tracking every booking's carbon impact. Companies with CSRD compliance needs get automated sustainability reporting out of the box, aligned with Scope 1/2/3 and the GHG Protocol. Carbon credits for your own offsetting are available directly, and the Goodness programme turns everyday green actions into discounts on hotels, shopping, bills, and flights. Flights can be offset at checkout too, and IMPT's AI travel assistant can plan your Zarasai trip and book it carbon-negative in one conversation.
Interested in running IMPT in Lithuania? Country Ownership offers 50% revenue share on every transaction from Lithuania-registered users, with 8% APY staking yield. Book a call →
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Zarasai?
Zarasai is a city of about 5,900 people in north-eastern Lithuania, in the Aukštaitija ethnographic region near the Latvian border. It is roughly 2.5 hours by car from Vilnius, in Utena County, and is surrounded by more than 300 lakes in the wider Zarasai District.
What does the name Zarasai mean?
The name derives from the Selonian word for lakes — ezeras or ezaras — which became Ežerėnai in Lithuanian and Zarasai in its shortened modern form. The Polish name Jeziorosy and Yiddish Ezherene share the same 'lake' root.
What is there to do in Zarasai?
Swim and boat on Lake Zarasas, explore the historic Zarasai Park, kayak between the district's lakes, hike or cycle in Gražutė Regional Park, and attend the summer festivals — especially the neo-pagan Mėnuo Juodaragis in August and the Roko naktys rock festival.
Is Zarasai good for families?
Yes. The lakeside beaches have gentle shallow entry, boat and paddleboard rentals are inexpensive, and the town is compact and traffic-light. The surrounding forests offer easy, well-marked trails, and farmstays in the district welcome families with traditional food and farm animals.
How much does a stay in Zarasai cost?
Hotels and guesthouses in Zarasai start around €35 a night. IMPT offers the same prices as Booking.com on the same rooms, with 1 tonne of CO₂ removal per booking included at no extra cost.
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