Instructions for visitors

  • Try not to leave any traces in the nature.
  • Ask the permission of the owner when being on a marked/fenced private land. Field, plantations and apiaries are not meant for hiking.
  • Use bicycles on roads and paths, use and park motor vehicles (including terrain vehicles and snowmobiles) only on prescribed roads and parking lots.
  • You can navigate on the water bodies using a vessel without internal combustion engine.
  • All publicly used water bodies have shore or bank paths, the width of which in navigable water bodies is 10 m, other water bodies 4 m from the border of the water body. If the shore or bank path is flooded, a strip of two metres from the waterline is considered as the shore or bank path. 
  • You may always pick wild berries, mushrooms and other natural products which are not protected, given that you allowed to be in the picking spot. On a private land, if it is fenced and marked, you need a permission of the possessor of the land to pick natural products.
  • Fishing in the Otepää Nature Park is permitted in accordance with applicable laws. For more details visit the website of the Environmental Board (in Estonian).

Foto: Margit Turb

  • Set up a tent and make a fire only in locations intended and marked for such purposes; if you leave the campfire site, put the fire out. Setting up a tent and making a fire in a yard are only allowed upon the permission of the owner. If the forests have been declared flammable, making an open fire is always prohibited, also on a fire base.
  • Keep your dog on a leash when being in the nature.
  • In the conservation zones, organisation of public events with up to 60 participants is allowed in locations intended and marked for such purposes upon the consent of the manager of the protected area. In the limited management zones, organisation of public events with up to 100 participants is allowed in locations not intended for such purposes. Organising a public event with more than 100 participants is allowed in the limited management zones upon the consent of the manager of the protected area. The manager of Otepää Nature Park is the Environmental Board.  

Read more about moving in the nature from the General Part of the Environmental Code Act ja and protection rules of the Otepää Nature Park (in Estonian).

If you see damages caused to nature or to civil engineering works meant for visitation, please report it to the State helpline by calling 1247.

Emergency number is 112