20 stunning close encounters with animals
21.07.2023 - 08:36
/ roughguides.com
If you like getting up close and personal with the animal kingdom on your travels, these trip ideas should appeal. From alligators to zebras — via reindeer, cheetahs, baboons and gorillas — we've herded together a veritable wildlife park to inspire you.
The jungles in Gabon have the highest diversity of tree and bird species anywhere in Africa (over 670 bird species have been recorded). It’s also a place where the wildlife of the equatorial rainforests tumbles out onto its Atlantic beaches: you’re just as likely to see hippos playing in the surf as you are elephants and buffalo roaming along the beach or humpback whales cavorting offshore. Only three national parks – Loango, Lope and Ivindo – are currently geared up for tourism and realistically accessible, but others are bound to follow.
An innovative pilot project known as Operation Loango has helped to establish ecotourism in the Loango National Park, a diverse ecosystem of forest, savannah, rivers, lagoons and beaches. The success of the project has led to the foundation of the travel company Africa’s Eden, which leads guided tours into the forest to see lowland gorillas, as well as operating humpback whale-watching trips from July to October. Trips into the forest are based from several lodges, such as Tassi Savannah Camp, a small tented camp by the beach, from where you can see green, olive ridley and leatherback turtles. The choice, then, is yours: hippos, lowland gorillas, elephants, turtles or the best birdlife in Africa.
For prices and itineraries of Africa’s Eden’s trips see www.africas-eden.com.
© V. Belov/Shutterstock
Norwegian tour operator Turgleder offers a unique opportunity to join Scandinavia’s indigenous people as they follow the annual migration of reindeer from their inland winter habitat in the far north of Norway to their costal grazing land. This is emphatically not a made-for-tourism experience: the Sami use one or two snowmobiles to carry their equipment but other than that this is how they’ve been herding reindeer for centuries. So expect to eat and sleep like them in their lavvus (Sami tipis), cook over an open fire and go ice-fishing. You join up with a Sami family and spend four days travelling with the reindeer, feeding and caring for the herd and protecting them from predators (wolves and lynx) as they move across the desolate landscape. Not only will you witness the spectacular migration of hundreds of animals, but you’ll also be given a genuine – and privileged – insight into the life of the itinerant people of Scandinavia.
For prices and booking see www.turgleder.com.
© Tyler Olson/Shutterstock
In Arctic conditions it’s difficult to get quickly from A to B without some form of assisted transport. Yet the noise and