Thursday, October 29, 2009

Botswana Experience & Moremi Reserve

Tour Overview

Botswana one of the most developed and progressive countries in Africa offer much to travelers. The Okavango Delta, a labyrinth of islands, flood plains, and waterways best explored by dugout canoe, teems with wildlife like hippos, elephants, crocodiles, zebras, and giraffes.

East of Okavango is Chobe National Park, a huge stretch of flat, dry land that boasts the greatest variety of animals in Botswana, including lions, wildebeest, cheetah, hyena, buffalo, jackal, and warthog. On this trip you can choose either park, or go to both!


The best time to visit is August-October, but anytime March-November is great. Nights are surprisingly cold during the dry season, so take along a warm sweater. Many of the Okavango Delta camps are closed at the height of (the southern-hemisphere's) summer, December-March, when it's very hot and when there are short daily thunderstorms.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Top 10 Safari Vacations - Europe

Safaris in Europe are more of the ice adventure kind, particularly up in the northern reaches of Scandinavia. Rug up and keep warm sailing, kiting, dog sledding or hiking through Poland, Greenland, Scotland or Norway. Marine animals like seals, whales and dolphins are plentiful or meet the musk-ox, reindeer or polar bear.
1. Sailing safari, Greenland
Sail into the superb fjords of East Greenland to see the aurora borealis and the wildlife. Polar bears, eight species of whales, two million seals, reindeer, musk oxen, artic hares and artic wolves are just some of the species living here.
2. Musk-Ox Safari, Greenland
Take a husky team or snowmobile from the town of Kangerlussuaq, located at the head of the country's third longest fjord. Cut through this beautiful region to look for the noble musk ox and with a bit of luck some reindeer and Artic foxes too. It's extremely cold here but a good place to see the northern lights.
3. Polar bear Safari, Svalbard, Norway
Don't become the bear’s next meal on this archipelago. The three thousand bears are almost as numerous as the icebergs and glaciers and known to hunt humans if they're hungry.
4. Bialowieza Forest, Poland
Get on the bison trail in this forest known for its 300 strong population of rare European bison.
5. Orkney Islands, Scotland
This archipelago is particularly fertile and has an amazing number of birds. Get you’re your book and count off guillemot, razorbill, puffin, kittiwake, breeding fowl and the short-eared owl.
6. High Tatra Mountains, Slovakia
This wild and rugged country contains some of Europe's finest and least disturbed habitats. Track lynx and wolf across snow capped peaks, keep an eye out for spotted eagles and black storks and of course the brown bear. There are about 300 of these bears, one of Europe's best populations of large mammals.
7. Piatra Craiului Mountains, Romania
When you think wildlife in Europe think Romania. Two thirds of the Europe's bear population lives in the Romanian mountains, as do most of the wolves, chamois and the lynx and an impressive number of bird species.
8. Orca sailing safari, Azores, Portugal
The clear waters of the Azores provide a breeding ground for Sperm Whales although numerous other species can be seen including Fin, Blue, Pygmy Sperm, Blue, Pilot and Orca Whales. There are also dolphins and you might glimpse sharks and turtles.
9. Lapland, Sweden
Take a reindeer safari and throw in a bit of skiing or ice fishing while meeting Ptarmigan, Elk, Wolverine and Lynx along your journey.
10. Pembroke shire, Wales
Pembroke shire is well-known for both its seabirds, its plants and a wealth of other wildlife, from cetaceans and seals along the coasts and bats and butterflies inland. There are sea cliffs, moorland, pastures and ancient woods to explore plus the island of Skomer, where puffins, razorbills, guillemots and other seabirds dwell.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

US Travel Alerts

Highway Travel Increases in USA
After nearly two years of decreased highway travel in the USA, the end of this travel depression may be near. During May of 2009, highway travel increased slightly for the first time in sixteen months. It may be premature to call this a trend, but it certainly looks promising.

Lower gasoline prices and an increasingly optimistic attitude toward future economic improvements have likely encouraged US travelers to go back on the road. This means you can expect slightly higher numbers of tourists on the roads and at the popular tourist destinations this summer.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Explore The Oceanarium - Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is in reality made up of approximately 2,100 individual reefs and 800 island or coastal reefs.

Despite its massive size – 2,000kms long and covering a total area of 350,000kms – the reef has actually been formed, over millions of years, from the skeletons of tiny marine organisms called coral polyps.

Related to sea anemones and jellyfish, these polyps secrete a hard, outer skeleton made from calcium as a defense against predators and as a means to anchor them.
When they die their skeletons stay behind. New polyps fix themselves to the old skeleton and the cycle starts again with each new generation building on the remains of the previous one.

Coral reefs have been described as the ‘rainforests of the deep’ because of the incredible variety of life that they support. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of 400 species of coral and over 2,000 species of fish ranging in size from tiny cleaner wrasse to huge sharks.

Literally thousands of other creatures ranging from jellyfish to sea turtles, starfish to whales and shellfish to sea birds rely on the reef to support them.

Friday, October 2, 2009

National Art Museum of Catalonia

Museum National d’Art de Catalunya, abbreviated as MNAC, it is a museum of Catalan Visual art located in Barcelona, Spain. IT was built in the year 1929 for World’s fair, situated on the Montjuic hill and rehabilitated by the Summer Olympic in the year 1992.
The museum was created in 1990, when the Catalonian Museum Law reunited the collections of the former Catalunian Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum and declared it as National Museum. The architectural design of the museum is a combination of classical and Modern Spanish Art. It was opened in 1995, with the Romasque Art section. The Gothic Art section was opened on 199, while the Renaissance, Barocque, 19th and 20th century collections was opened on 2000. The official opening with the building completely rehabilitated and all the collection in place was on 2004.

The original Museum d’Art de Catalunya was opened on 1934 on the same place as today, but was closed during the Spanish Civil War.

Since 2004, the museum accommodates lots of Spanish Arts to display. It is the sign that Spanish arts still continue and always following the Spanish traditions,
This Museum is one of the most tourist favorite of Barcelona. It is indeed a beautiful work of art building, very impressive piece. Millions of tourist very year loves to witness the beautiful display of Spanish art.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Venice Italy


Venice is built on one hundred and seventeen small islands, and holds one hundred and fifty canals, connected by an amazing four hundred and nine bridges, of which only three cross the main canal. The area it covers is a mere 458 kilometers.Although the city appears small, it is really quite extensive for its size. While most tour guides don’t recommend getting lost in the majority of cities, Venice is the place to get hopelessly lost for a day; it is certainly more advisable than getting lost in a shopping centre and hiding out in the frozen foods section. Venice isn’t all cities and crowded streets: through the mysterious alleyways leading off from the city, endless mazes of backstreets and deserted squares, the ‘real’ Venice. And a perfect place to walk for hours on end, pretending to know where you are.
Probably the only ways of getting around Venice are walking and paying up for the 'expensive-but-worth-it' gondola, water bus/taxi or a regular taxi is officially banned in the lagoon city – a bicycle won’t help you much.

The islands of the Venetian lagoon were first settled during the barbarian invasions of the 5th and 6th centuries AD, when the people of the Veneto mainland sought refuge in the marshy region.

The refugees built the now-famous watery villages on rafts of wooden posts driven into the soil, laying the foundations for the floating palaces of today. The traditional date of Venice’s birth is given as 25 March 421, but there is little evidence to support this belief. The population is roughly 63, 000 people, but there is belief that Venice will, over time, lose most of its population and become merely a large theme park, purely for the entertainment of camera-clad tourists.