Best New Trips in the World: Track Lions in Kenya's Campi ya Kanzi

For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present Kenya. The world's far corners are now well within reach.

KENYA: Save the King!

Lion kills cow, Maasai warrior kills lion. It’s a centuries-old conflict in the Kenyan bush. But in the past ten years lion populations across Africa have plummeted from 100,000 to 23,000, transforming the issue into a full-fledged crisis. Alarmed research crews have come to Kenya to study the cats and teach the Maasai ways to live with them harmoniously. But one conservation group is way ahead of the curve. Kuku Group Ranch, a 280,000-acre spread in the Chyulu Hills of southern Kenya, is entirely owned and operated by the Maasai themselves. And so far they’ve had dramatic success with their cat-protection efforts: In a recent 30-month period, the ranch’s lion population jumped from 15 to 52. Now, in conjunction with Geographic Expeditions, Kuku will bring in its first guest-researchers.

Click here to continue reading "Best New Trips in the World: Kenya"

New Trip: Private Safari Tracking Gorillas and Rhinos in Rwanda and Kenya

As of today, Baobab Expeditions (see our rating of the company) is offering an 11-day private gorilla and rhino safari in Rwanda and Kenya, led by the most impressive of experts: Dr. Clare Richardson, president of the venerable Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. An authority on gorilla research, she'll take you mountain gorilla tracking and score you rare access to Karisoke Research Center, the only gorilla research center in the world.

Throw Down Your Heart: Bela Fleck Finds the Banjo's African Roots

American banjo virtuoso Bèla Fleck is known for bringing his instrument across genres. Today you can watch him bring it across the Atlantic and back to its beginnings in his new DVD.

Fleck and Sascha Paladino's documentary, Throw Down Your Heart, chronicles the making of Fleck's latest CD as he travels Africa in an attempt to bring the banjo back to its African roots. The film focuses on music, but there's a taste of African landscape and culture too. Fleck's adventure takes him to Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali, with stops ranging from tiny rural villages to large cities.

Whether searching for the roots of your favorite instrument or a glimpse of an endangered gorilla, you can explore the continent, too. Check out our favorite African adventures here.—Greer Schott

A Case For Zimbabwe: Five Reasons to Go in 2010

Mark Nolting of the Africa Adventure Company was recently in our offices singing the praises of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe?!? Place of rampant inflation and starvation? Run by iron-fisted crazyperson Robert Mugabe? We had questions, and Nolting had answers. And, biased though he may be—his wife is from the place, and Nolting’s company has some new and amazing trips there (such as 14 Day Zimbabwe World Heritage Explorer, which is new for next year)—his responses were pretty compelling. Maybe 2010 is the year to get to Zimbabwe, while the getting is good. Here are Nolting’s reasons for going, distilled:

Best New Trips in the World: Canoeing With Botswana's Big Game

For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. The world's far corners are now well within reach.

A few years ago, the 320,000 acres of land connecting the Okavango Delta with Botswana’s Linyanti marshes were a trophy hunter’s paradise. Then along came National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert, who bought and transformed the region into the Selinda Reserve, a private sanctuary for lions, elephants, cape buffalo, leopards, and the rare aardwolf. The reserve’s centerpiece is the Selinda Spillway, a river that pours across the savanna, linking the delta with the marshes and providing thousands of animals with a massive watering hole. This year, the Spillway is at its highest level in three decades, which means more buffalo and elephants will come for a drink—and with them, more predators. To showcase the gathering, Explore Inc will lead canoe-camping trips in 2010.

Photograph Courtesy of Explore Inc

Click here to continue reading "Best New Trips in the World: Botswana"

Confessions of a Travel Addict: Ewan McGregor

If Betty Ford treated wanderlust, actor Ewan McGregor would be the first admitted. The 38-year-old gets his travel fix by working on multiple movies (coming up: Amelia—opens this Friday, Oct 23—and The Men Who Stare at Goats), then taking off for extended motorcycle tours across Africa and around the globe. For our annual travel issue, we asked the actor to share his hard-won wisdom. All of it, by the way, applicable to non-movie stars. —Ryan Bradley; photograph by Ron Gaunt/Getty Images

Go Far Out
I’d never considered traveling to out-of-the-way spots before I visited Churchill, Canada, to make a documentary about polar bears. Then I was hooked.

Continue reading "Confessions of a Travel Addict: Ewan McGregor"

New for 2010: Tracking Whale Sharks in a Kenyan Beach Paradise

The locals living along Kenya's Diani Beach have their own name for the whale sharks that peacefully troll their waters. They call these mysterious creatures papa shillingi, meaning “shark covered in shillings.” According to them, God was so amazed by their beauty that he had angels throw gold and silver coins down on the gentle giants’ backs. Nowadays whale sharks can be spotted when they surface, the sun glittering off their massive backs.

Lucky for you the largest fish in the sea (they can grow up to 60 feet and 20 tons!) is not impossible to see. With the help of Kenya-based Micato Safaris (read their ADVENTURE ratings profile here), travelers can join in on the Whale Shark Tagging Expedition in East Africa and feel like a scientist for a few days.

Year of the Gorilla: Using Ecotourism to Beat the Bushmeat Trade

With bushmeat trade on the rise and gorillas the decline, there's never been a better time to make the trek to Africa to check out these wild yet humanlike beasts for yourself. Let's face it, in a few more years, you may not have the chance.

An undercover investigation conducted by Endangered Species International recently revealed that four percent of the gorilla population in Kouilou, a region of the Republic of Congo, is being poached each month, as reported by the BBC. If nothing changes, within a year, 50 percent of the some 200 gorillas in the area may be wiped out—shipped down the Kouilou River to Pointe Noire and sold at $6 per handful of meat. 

"Friend" a Gorilla and Help Uganda's Conservation Efforts

Making the pilgrimage to Uganda or Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas, admired for their humanlike mannerisms and massive grace, is one of the greatest adventure trips around. In fact, it's a trip we regularly feature in the pages of ADVENTURE, in part because the high cost, low-volume tourism model helps protect the natural environment of these very endangered animals.  

But if your adventure travel plans don't include spotting gorillas in Central Africa any time soon, at least you can friend one on Facebook. But he won't just have an online profile. Friendagorilla.org, slated to launch this month, will allow you to follow your gorilla friends though a GPS and online video feed, courtesy of The Uganda Wildlife Authority (as reported on the New York Times Green Inc. blog). 

Species on the Brink: Kenya’s Lions Nearing Extinction

Kenya’s wild lions could be annihilated within 20 years, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service. For almost a decade, the country has been losing 100 big cats a year, and the current population of 2,000 could be gone by 2030.

Conservationists are blaming habitat destruction, animal disease, and conflict with humans for the rapid decline in numbers. Wildlife biologist and conservationist Laurence Frank told the New Scientist that the future is bleak. “Only drastic action on many fronts – policy change, effective law enforcement, giving rural people an economic stake in their natural heritage, and a great deal of investment – will prevent the loss of wildlife in Africa," he said. Read the full story in the New Scientist here.

To see the lions for yourself—and help contribute to an economy that values living felines—here are some of Global Travel Editor Costas Christ's recommended trips in Africa. You can also find a top-rated adventure travel tour company with our ratings tool (ngadventure.com/ratings). –Text by Alyson Sheppard