I’ve heard it said that travel changes lives but I didn’t believe it applied to me until I had to choose My Three Favorite Travel Memories. I realized that each trip has altered my life in significant and not-so significant ways. Most importantly, traveling has made me more appreciative of what I have, and also expanded my circle of friends. Traveling for me is both therapy and education – it’s...

There are more than 30,000 elephants in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe so it’s not a matter of whether you’ll see a few elephants when you go game watching, but when. We first saw this mother’s baby at the side of the road and stopped to take it’s photo when we heard the unmistakable sound of an elephant on our right. When I turned round, I noticed her ears were fully...

I took these photos last year in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. The experience of watching wildlife in their natural habitat was life changing. I knew that animals are intelligent, compassionate and caring but watching them interacting with each other or with other species and taking care of their young was heartwarming. Zebras are incredibly beautiful up close. And almost every time we saw them, impalas were not far away. Despite...

About an hour after we left Durban‘s King Shaka Airport, we were at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. Though only a short distance away, it felt like a different world. As we exited, we noticed Stefan looking anxiously towards the arrivals gate then at his cell phone, as if trying to decide whether to make a call. We shouted his name and he turned and smiled widely. It was...

When I told my 80 year-old aunt that I was going to Cape Town, she replied excitedly, “I’ve always wanted to see Table Mountain but never made it. Please kiss the mountain for me!” After hearing that, if Table Mountain had not been on my list, it soon would be. We arrived in Cape Town on a Thursday night, after three amazing days watching game in Hwange National Park and...

When the alarm went off on our last morning at Makalolo Plains, none of us wanted to get out of bed. The hot water bottles that had kept us warm when we snuggled under the covers the night before were no match for the cold that had now permeated our tent. I buried my head under the covers, lifting it just long enough to peek at the clock to figure out...

Zebras fascinate me – each one’s stripe is unique. Aren’t they beautiful?

The day before we left Makalolo Plains was bittersweet. The team had made us feel very welcome and we knew we had made friends. On top of that, we had spent many hours watching animals at close range, and that was better than the best episode of a nature program. Towards the end of our morning drive, Godfrey spotted this hippo that appeared to sleeping at the edge of a...

If we didn’t know it before, we discovered pretty quickly that no two game drives are the same. While Makalolo Plains keeps a log of the types of animals that guests could probably see, they cannot offer a guarantee. During September, the time we in Hwange National Park, there was a high probability of seeing elephants (100%), zebras (100%), waterbucks (100%), widebeests (93%) and steenbucks (90%). But because of the...