An area in the northern part of the town with timber-framed Alpine-type buildings is well preserved and is protected by law as a village monument reservation.

The highest mountain in the municipal territory is Bobík at 1,266 m (4,154 ft) above sea level, located north of the town.

Volary was the largest settlement of the carriers on the Czech part of the Prachatice Golden Trail and rapidly grew.

[3] The Thirty Years' War led to the decline of the salt trade on the Golden Trail, instead it served the imperial army as a supply route.

The area was several times a place of battles and Volary was the target of attacks by troops of both sides.

In the 18th century, following the abolition of the salt trade, the Golden Trail sank into insignificance; this also led to the demise of Volary.

[4] In the late 19th century the market town of Volary consisted of 224 houses with 2,069 German speaking inhabitants.

During the reconstruction after the fire of 1863, the typical Volary houses were not built entirely of wood, but partly with walls of stone and brick.

[5] In 1871, Volary was promoted by to a town Emperor Franz Joseph I and its coat of arms was confirmed.

The "Volary Death March" involved more than 1,300 Jewish women over the course of over 800 kilometres (500 mi) and 106 days and nights.

On 20 January 1945, around 1,000 female Jewish prisoners were evacuated from a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Sława in western Poland.

The women and girls had been sent there from Auschwitz-Birkenau a few months earlier, in order to dig anti-tank trenches to slow the Red Army's advance.

17 victims of the death march were buried in a mass grave near Volary, another eight women died in a nearby military hospital.

[3] The most valuable buildings of the town include preserved unique old wooden houses of the Alpine style.