Active Travels

07/23/2025

Happy to post these wonderful photos of whales, eagles, and (stuffed) bears from Julie, Dan, Linnae, and Eli's recent trip to Alaska! Glad to hear you had a memorable trip aboard the Silversea Silver Nova!

07/10/2025

Great photos of Peter, Barb, and the kids from Athens, Crete, and Santorini. Thanks for sharing and happy to hear you had a great trip!

06/05/2025

Love this feedback and the photos, Braden and Lindsee! Happy to hear your honeymoon in Tanzania exceeded your expectations!

It was an amazing trip. We could not ask for a better time. Rooms were great, people were great, so educational and animal siting could not have been better. It was the perfect time of year too. Right before busy season for them where we did not have 100 cars at one site and the animals were still out and had good weather the whole trip.

Here is a quick recap of each location:

Arusha highlights:
-Finally arriving after 36 hours of travel
-Monkeys roaming around everywhere at our hotel
-Touring the Cultural Heritage Center, rich with so many unique pieces of artwork and artifacts
-Seeing the only town in the world where Tanzanite is mined
-Going to local markets

Ngorongoro highlights:
-Largest unbroken volcanic crater in the world and has the densest population of large mammals in Africa
-Incredible scenery everywhere you look
-Had breakfast with baboons in the trees right above us
-Stood next to the watering hole with hundreds of hippos in it
-Saw 4/5 of the Big 5 in the first day. Elephants, lions, rhinos, and Cape buffalo. Jusy missing the leopard. 
-Saw 32 different kinds of animals total, in one day

Serengeti highlights:
-Babies everywhere!! From lion and cheetah cubs, elephants, warthogs, giraffes with the umbilical cord still attached, and more, we saw just about every animal with a baby.
-Going in a hot air balloon (and getting trapped in the pouring rain mid air)
-Seeing a lion searching for her cubs for 45 minutes after attempting to hunt and then seeing them reunite
-Had breakfast right next to a herd of elephants in the middle of the Serengeti
-Private sunset cocktail hour on the rock where the lions typically hang out, again, in the middle of the Serengeti
-Got up close and personal to all of the animals in an open air safari truck
-Saw the last animal we needed to check off the big 5, the leopard which is the hardest to spot, when we were on our last game drive and 15 min away from airport
-Saw 29 different kinds of animals in 4 days, making 51 different kinds of animals total (just the ones we remembered to write down) for our entire trip

Zanzibar highlights:
-went on a traditional Dhow boat tour, saw crystal blue waters, and explored a sandbar with hundreds of starfish
-Wandered around historical Stonetown
-Went on a semi-submarine
-Relaxed… the best we know how. Apparently we aren’t good at traditional beach vacations where you do nothing but lay on the beach

03/12/2025

Seeing toucans and howler monkeys is the norm when visiting Costa Rica. But pumas and peccaries? No way! Happy to hear that Kathy and Sarah had a fabulous trip! Thank you for the shout out in your blog!

…And It Wasn’t Even the Scariest Thing We Saw! After coming up empty during ten days trekking puma in Patagonia a year ago (see our trip report here) …I was delighted to see puma in the wild on the remote Osa peninsula in Costa Rica! And it wasn’t even one of the top three SCARIEST things we...

01/17/2025

Top Travel Days of 2024, Living La Villa Life on Mexico’s Rivera Maya
https://activetravels.com/archives/8680
Villas of Distinction

01/16/2025

Top Travel Days of 2024, A Whirlwind Tour of Stockholm
https://activetravels.com/archives/8675
50 Degrees North

01/15/2025

Top Travel Days of 2024, Spending My 60th Birthday in Camden, Maine
https://activetravels.com/archives/8672
Schooner Olad

01/14/2025

Top Travel Days of 2024, A Stop at The Rock of Gibraltar
https://activetravels.com/archives/8669
THE REAL THING

01/13/2025

Top Travel Days of 2024, A Winter Escape to Troutbeck
https://activetravels.com/archives/8659
Troutbeck

12/13/2024

From Carolyn and Jerry in Costa Rica: "Lapa Rios is a special place. We are enjoying our time. Upon return from our night hike, a beautiful table was set for our dinner. Thank you for the sparkling wine. It was a lovely setting." Happy Anniversary!

11/19/2024

My dedication to Arthur Frommer, the man who launched my career and who sadly died yesterday,

I was saddened to hear that Arthur Frommer, the travel writing legend who penned “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957, died yesterday at age 95. He not only started the budget travel movement across the globe, but launched many travel writing careers including mine. I first met Arthur in 1991, wh...

10/20/2024

Happy to hear that Darlene and Lee enjoyed their trip to New England this week to see the fall foliage and, of course, sample our tasty craft brew. Safe travels back to Louisiana today!