Global Travel Guide 2009: Overland – Safari

Australia
Tassie Adventure
The island of Tasmania provides a taste of outdoor adventure, culture, history and distinct local food and wine. You’ll begin in Launceston, Tasmania’s second-largest city, where you’ll explore the Blue Tier region before making tracks for the white sands and vibrant orange lichen of the Bay of Fires. You’ll go on to explore Freycinet National Park, where you’ll have the opportunity to summit Mount Amos, before continuing on to some sea kayaking at Coles Bay. You’ll explore the colonial era history of the island at Port Arthur. And you’ll continue on to Hobart and the highlands, visiting more national parks to witness the unique and sometimes bizarre natural expressions that exist only in Tasmania.

Adventures Incorporated
Phone: 800-387-8850
Length/Departs: 7 days/year-round
Accommodations: Hotels
Price: $1,030 CDN (land only)
Difficulty: Moderate

Botswana
Secluded Botswana
Drift into a lost age as you revisit the nostalgic era of African bush travel, the kind Hemingway wrote about. You’ll seek the seclusion that only a Botswana safari affords, employing all means at your disposal—4 x 4, canoe and foot—to see the wildlife you’ve come to admire. You’ll hold your breath as vast herds of elephants thread their way through acacia trees. You’ll stare mesmerized at buffalo, antelope and giraffes in the Okavango Delta. And goosebumps will course up your arms at the sight of a lion dozing beneath a mopane tree. And when the day is done, you’ll enjoy sundowners and other small luxuries in tented safari camps far from tourist crowds. This trip contains all the benefits of the modern safari, but with the attention to detail of yesteryear.

Natural Habitat Adventures
Phone: 800-543-8917
Length/Departs: 12 days/May-Oct., Dec.
Accommodation: Fixed camps
Price: $9,895 US(land only)
Difficulty: Easy

Canada (Quebec)
Îles de la Madeleine

Journey to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec’s very own windswept isle, where waves crash on 240 kilometres of white-sand beaches. Your base will be a local inn built of shipwreck timbers from where you’ll set out on foot each day in search of the island’s mysteries: dunes stippled with waving seagrass, luminous red cliffs, broad fields of wildflowers and the remnants of extinct volcanoes. Each evening you’ll dine on French cuisine and fresh seafood, immersed in the island’s three centuries of Maritime history.

Scott Walking Adventures
Phone: 800-262-8644
Length/Departs: 6 days/Jul. and Aug.
Accommodation: Local inns
Price: $2,795 CDN (from Charlottetown, P.E.I.)
Difficulty: Easy to moderate

Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile
Andean Adventure
Overlanding is all about covering ground—visiting the maximum number of highlights in the most possible countries on one long, madcap road trip. If it’s the Andean nations you’re out to conquer, this is the trip for you. The landforms you’ll encounter read like a primer on South American geography: vast deserts, emerald rainforests and snow-clad Andean peaks. You’ll hike active volcanoes, trek the darkest rainforest depths, pickle yourself in natural hot springs and walk the surf line of empty Pacific beaches. You’ll visit world-renowned wonders like the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, the Nazca Lines, the floating islands of Lake Titicaca and the salt flats of the Bolivian Altiplano. You’ll return from one trip with more experiences than most people accumulate in a lifetime.

Kumuka Worldwide
Phone: 800-517-0867
Length/Departs: 56 days/Jul. and Sept.
Accommodation: Hotel, camping, hostel, lodge and homestay
Price: $2,375 US, plus local payment of $1,715 US (land only)
Difficulty: Easy to moderate

Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica
Way to San Jose

Buckle up for this fast-paced overland adventure through the Central American isthmus. You’ll wander the colonial streets and craft markets of Antigua in the Guatemalan highlands, explore the Mayan ruins of Copan, and climb temples whose roofs tower above the jungle canopy. You’ll also snorkel some of the best barrier reefs in the world, explore the mysterious cultures of Nicaragua’s inland Ometepe Island, and experience the cloud forests of Costa Rica.

Intrepid
Phone: 866-360-1511
Length/Departs: 17 days/year-round
Accommodation: Local hotels
Price: From $890 CDN + local payment $400 US (land only)
Difficulty: Moderate

Gabon
Wild Gabon Adventure
Enter the lush jungles of tropical Gabon for a wildlife experience unlike any in Africa. This tiny nation strad-dling the equator is 70 percent covered in tropical forest, with 13 outstanding national parks and a strong commitment to preservation. Gabon’s Atlantic coastline is wild, unspoiled and teeming with unique bird and marine life. You’ll explore its beaches and mangrove swamps before turning inland and journeying to a series of bush camps, where you’ll observe gorillas, elephants, chimpanzees, and jungle creatures too numerous to list. Highlights of this trip are visits to Langoué Bai Research Camp (a working wildlife camp) and the Evengué Island gorilla rehabilitation project, both of which will give you an intimate sense of some of the dedicated conservation efforts being undertaken right now in Gabon.

Journeys International
Phone: 800-255-8735
Length/Departs: 15 days/Jun.
Accommodation: Hotels, fixed camps
Price: $9,575 US (land only)
Difficulty: Moderate to challenging

France, Italy, Switzerland
Mont Blanc Hiking Circuit
At some point, every serious adventurer considers tackling the circuit of Mont Blanc, the premier Alpine route. This challenging trek affords stunning views of Europe’s highest peak from every imaginable angle. You’ll spend your days crossing valleys blanketed in the fragrance of wildflowers, snaking up trails that parallel white ribbons of glaciers, on paths that have been in use since Roman times. You’ll also negotiate a range of cultural zones. The trek takes you through three countries, each with a distinctive language, cuisine, lifestyle and landscape, adding a cultural panorama to the mountainous one that you traverse. Your high-altitude nights will be spent in simple alpine huts, where you’ll cram in calories for the next day’s exertions and toast the wonders of the day you just completed.

Country Walkers
Phone: 800-464-9255
Length/Departs: 9 days/Jul. and Sept.
Accommodation: Alpine inns and hotels
Price: $3,998 US (land only)
Difficulty: Challenging

Brazil, Venezuela
Northern Amazonia & Venezuela
This rugged overland journey takes you through some of South America’s wildest and least-visited landscapes. You’ll begin in Manaus, the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, travelling by boat up that mighty river. You’ll stop at the Waimara Indian Reserve and the gold-panning area of Santa Elena before leaving the water for the drive across the Gran Sabana, the Earth’s oldest plateau. In Venezuela, your heart will soar as you take a scenic flight over the tabletop mountains around Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall. You’ll hike the jungles around Ciudad Bolívar on the banks of the Orinoco, ride, bike and raft near the Andean village of Merida, and search for anaconda and caiman in the Los Llanos wetlands. And you’ll finally end your long journey with some well-deserved R & R by the gentle Caribbean Sea.

Trek Escapes
Phone: 866-338-8735
Length/Departs: 25 days/year-round
Accommodation: Camping, hostels, hotels
Price: $1,210 CDN, plus $520 US local fee
Difficulty: Moderate

Kenya, Tanzania
Rift Valley Wildlife
There’s a reason why Kenya and Tanzania boast Africa’s greatest concentration of big game. The Great Rift Valley and the giant basin of Ngorongoro Crater act like a giant funnel, bringing creatures like elephant, lion, wildebeest, rhinoceros, zebra and giraffe into close contact with each other. This is also the territory of the Masai people, and you’ll meet them as you journey across the great plains, overlooked by the snow-capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. This comprehensive overland trip will take you through all of East Africa’s greatest game parks: the Masai Mara Game Reserve, Amboseli National Park, Arusha and Serengeti National Park.

Kumuka Worldwide
Phone: 800-517-0867
Length/Departs: 13 days/year-round
Accommodation: Camping PRICE: $1,470 US (land only)
Difficulty: Easy to moderate

Zambia
Kafue Encounters
Journey off the beaten safari trail and experience Africa as the great explorers saw it. Your travels will take you deep into Kafue National Park, to a series of traditional but luxurious camps where you’ll sleep beneath the light of hissing hurricane lamps, serenaded by the creatures of the bush. Each camp is placed to give you optimal access to the area’s indigenous wildlife. At Lufupa Camp, hippos laze in the river out front and lions and leopards are frequently seen. Musanza Camp is situated on a grassy plain, home to creatures like antelope, bushbuck and hartebeest. And at Lunga River lodge, located in lush riparian bush, you’re sure to see elephants and yellow baboons. Each camp is more isolated than the last, allowing you to experience a solitude most safaris never touch.

African Travel Inc.
Phone: 800-421-8907
Length/Depart: 8 days/Jun.-Nov.
Accommodation: Tented camps, wooden lodge
Price: $3,495 US (land only)
Difficulty: Easy

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