Photo: Chris Eason
The traditional safari is a wilderness trail in a jeep through the
sprawling African plains with a wily and eccentric tour guide who has
several fingers missing and numerous scars. There are many different
kinds of wildlife safari you can experience, depending on what kind of
animal you would like to see and how ‘wild’ you want them to be. At
Kruger National park in South Africa, which spans an astonishing two
million hectares of land, you can spot lions, leopards, elephants,
zebras, rhinos and buffalos. The Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean,
just off the West coast of South America (Ecuador), is home to all
kinds of unusual amphibians, mammals, fish, vertebrates and
invertebrates, from land-dwelling giant tortoises and lizards to
coast-waddling penguins and sea lions, to exotic insects,
rainbow-coloured birds, angelfish, manta rays and hammerhead sharks.
Other popular (if slightly tourist-y) destinations include Kenya’s
Tasavo and Amboseli National Parks or the Nature Reserves of Samburu and
Masai Mara, or for those of you who hanker after a bit of luxury
amongst the wilderness, there’s South Africa’s Singita private reserve
where you can behold the magnificent Serengeti Wildebeest Migration.
Other options include spotting orangutans in Borneo, gorilla trekking
in Rwanda, a tiger tour in northern India, walking safaris in Zambia,
and elephant conservation in Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park. As a
general rule, group tours are less effective than the more exclusive and
isolated safari experiences, and because of this, the best safaris tend
to be the most expensive. But there’s a lot to be said for getting up
close – or as close as you dare – to such wild (and often unpredictable
and dangerous) beasts in their own territory.
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