Most people know Kenya for the Masai Mara and the famed river crossings of the Great Migration. Yet to me, that’s almost the least exciting part. I find Kenya to be utterly compelling in far broader ways. It’s a place that remains in my imagination, a frontier, a place where an older type of less […]
Whenever I’m asked when the best time to go on safari is, my enthusiastic – if rather unhelpful – answer is “it’s always a good time to be on safari’. So, with a view to being slightly more helpful, I wanted to talk a little about Emerald Season. Conventional wisdom for years has been that […]
Yvonne recently returned from a research trip in Kenya, where she put her camera through its paces. We asked her to whittle down the several thousand photos she took to a few favourites, selected above. It seems she spent much of her time gazing into the eyes of various wild beasts… when she wasn’t marvelling […]
It’s a rather obvious point to make, but the last 2 years have been a bit shitty. As we sat hunkered down at home for months on end watching the news, it was as if the sense of physical and mental oppression caused by Covid was being exacerbated by the relentless fire-hose of human-caused catastrophe […]
The world is forever moving towards complexity, leaving us to face down bigger and bigger questions with every trip around the sun. The world of travel is no exception, and the inter-connected complexities of over-tourism, climate change and now COVID make planning decisions more complicated than ever. Questions abound, and for the more philosophical among […]
I think I speak for all of us at the Pig when I say that we’re chomping at the bit to be back on the road. But trying to figure out should one travel let alone can one travel, right now is a pretty complicated dance. There’s a lot to take into consideration, to put it […]
The word safari conveys a much deeper concept than modern travel marketing might have you believe, and the commonly understood idea of bouncing around in a 4×4 looking at animals barely scratches the surface. The word is Swahili, derived from an Arabic word that roughly translated means journey. The title of this post translates from the Swahili as […]
Working in the travel industry affords you the opportunity to travel quite a lot. We get to explore lands both near and far, whether it be a new city in the states or a whole new continent (Antarctica, you’re next on my hit list). Working mainly in New Zealand, Australia and Asia, I have had […]
From the air, the herds looks like a vast black and tan army on the march. Endless columns of Wildebeest move south to the Mara River, assembling in staging areas as if preparing for an invasion of the Serengeti. Almost two million animals make the crossing, in groups of a few hundred to tens of […]
About four years ago I visited the original Mara Plains and it was fantastic, becoming easily one of my favourite camps in Kenya. Since then it has been completely rebuilt, and I have to say, now it’s even better. Mara Plains is run by Great Plains Conservation, a company which has slowly but surely built […]
The thing most people don’t know about safari in Africa is that it’s not all about seeing the big animals. Of course the sight of your first elephant in the wild is impressive (even more so if it’s charging you), and hearing a lion’s bellowing roar will rock your eardrums like nothing else. But when […]
Every campfire conversation in Africa promises a lifetime of embellishment, exaggeration and sweeping generalization. Having sat around many a campfire myself, you’ll have to forgive me the indulgence. I’ve heard many a Kenyan take pot shots at Southern African safaris, and Southern Africans are no less opinionated, so I’ll try here to present a balanced […]
We all want to see lions, giraffes and elephants – these exotic animals have captured our imaginations from a very young age. For most tourists, a trip to Africa means a trip to see the lions, giraffes and elephants, but moving past this simple declaration they become quickly paralyzed by all the choice. This is […]
Okay, so you haven’t quite gotten around to planning that late December holiday getaway. You don’t need more guilt heaped on your work-weary shoulders. But you do need some help. The Christmas to New Year’s travel window is a busy one, so there’s no more time to waste. Here’s a rundown of of what could […]
Although there are many things that make the internet great, one of its shortcomings is the way safari companies often exercise their right to poetic licence. A small amount of embellishment is fine, outright fabrications are not. To help you see what I am on about, I need to get a little dull for a […]
I’m torn—a big part of my job is to convey to you the amazing places that I go, so that you can go there too, and see just how amazing it was. Sometimes, however, I find a place so special that I’d really rather keep it to myself. So if I tell you about my […]