Augustów — lakes, a canal and the Augustów Forest.

Augustów is a town on the border of three lands — geographically it lies in the Biebrza Basin, culturally it is close to the Suwałki region, and to visitors it feels like Masuria. It has about 30,000 inhabitants, but in the holiday season the population triples with visitors. Water sets the rhythm of the town — Lake Necko with its municipal bathing beach, the river Netta, the Augustów Canal and dozens of lakes right on the doorstep.

Augustów's best-known monument is the Augustów Canal — a 19th-century waterway linking the Vistula basin with the Neman. Today the canal serves visitors — you can travel it by excursion boat, by kayak or in your own yacht. The route passes through 18 locks, some of which keep their original machinery from the time they were built. The canal is a Monument of History and still awaits inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Fifteen kilometres to the north stretches Wigry National Park — 42 lakes, the former Camaldolese monastery at Wigry (where John Paul II stayed in 1999) and one of the largest beaver populations in Poland. The park can be explored by kayak along the Czarna Hańcza, by bicycle on the circular route or on foot — the least crowded paths are on the eastern shore of Wigry.

The third pillar of tourism here is the Augustów Forest — the largest continuous woodland in Poland, stretching on beyond the Lithuanian and Belarusian borders. It is a place for mushroom pickers (the season runs August to October), for cyclists (several hundred kilometres of waymarked routes) and for anyone who values silence.

The region is well connected — by national road 8 from Warsaw (about 3 hours by car), by intercity train from Warsaw (about 4 hours) or by minibus from Białystok. The nearest airports are Warsaw-Modlin, Warsaw Chopin and Vilnius (200 km).