Photo: Much Better Adventures
Much Better Adventures is betting some travelers would rather lace up their hiking boots, grab a paddle or pull on a snorkel than spend their vacation in the back of a safari vehicle.
The adventure travel company has launched a new Wildlife Collection featuring 17 small-group trips that put a more active spin on the traditional wildlife vacation. Think tracking snow leopards through the Indian Himalaya, trekking in search of gorillas in Rwanda, looking for wolves in the wilds of Europe or slipping into the water to explore the marine life of the Maldives.
The common thread: you’re not just going somewhere to see wildlife. You’re getting out into the places where the wild things actually are.
Bring the binoculars — and your hiking boots
Across the new collection, travelers might hike, track, paddle, snorkel, snowshoe or wild swim their way through a destination. Game drives and boat safaris haven’t disappeared — sometimes they’re still the best way to experience a place — but they’re part of a much broader mix of ways to explore.
Maldives: Snorkel the Reefs, Help Protect Them
Photo: Much Better Adventures
Take the Maldives trip, for example. Instead of holing up at a resort, travelers spend the adventure aboard a traditional gulet, cruising between remote atolls and waking up beside a different reef each day. Days are spent snorkeling with turtles, reef sharks, eagle rays and manta rays — with a chance of spotting whale sharks in season — or exploring uninhabited islands and sandbanks.
And the marine life isn’t just there for the sightseeing. The itinerary includes a visit to the Olive Ridley Project’s Turtle Rescue Centre, a look at coral restoration work with Save the Beach and a beach cleanup on a remote island. You might spend one part of the day learning how seagrass supports a healthy reef, another swimming alongside turtles — and, apparently, finish one final snorkel with ice cream on the beach. Not a bad day.
Kenya: A Safari Beyond the Safari Vehicle
Photo: Much Better Adventures
Or take Kenya, where even a classic safari gets the Much Better Adventures treatment. The trip still includes two full days spotting wildlife in the Masai Mara, but getting there is part of the adventure. Travelers hike through the Eburru forest, head out on a night game drive, bike through the Soysambu Conservancy and wild camp beneath the skies of the Great Rift Valley.
There’s time with the Maasai too, including a stay at a remote cultural camp, a hike to a sacred site and a traditional barbecue around the fire. Eventually you reach the Mara for the kind of wildlife watching Kenya is famous for — but by then, you’ve experienced a lot more of the country than you would have through the window of a safari vehicle.
Those trips couldn’t look much more different, but they’re built around the same idea: wildlife is part of the place you’ve come to experience, not simply something to check off a list.
Wildlife first
There are some important guardrails around those encounters too. Much Better Adventures says its new collection is built around animal welfare, active exploration, expert naturalist guides, conservation, immersion in nature and small groups.
Its animal welfare policy was developed with World Animal Protection, with the welfare of wildlife taking priority over delivering the perfect sighting or photo. Local naturalist guides lead the trips, and there are no promises that the animals will cooperate with your vacation itinerary.
Which, when you think about it, is exactly how seeing wildlife in the wild should work.
Groups are kept small, with most topping out at 12 people, and the trips are designed to be solo-friendly — useful for anyone who has always wanted to go on a wildlife adventure but has somehow failed to assemble a dozen friends willing to come along.
An adventure that gives something back
There’s another idea woven through the collection: visiting wild places should help protect them.
Photo: Much Better Adventures
Each trip supports conservation work in the region it explores. Depending on the adventure, that can mean connections to reforestation and community conservation work in India, a bear sanctuary in Romania or the marine conservation initiatives travelers encounter on the Maldives trip.
That builds on a commitment Much Better Adventures has already made across its business: 5% of company revenue goes to conservation, primarily through World Land Trust.
It’s one reason Much Better Adventures was already on our radar — and why we previously named the company a Seeing Green Solutionist. Its trips are operated with locally owned partners, their carbon footprints are published and conservation is built into the business model rather than added on as an afterthought.
The new Wildlife Collection takes that same thinking somewhere especially fun: into the forests, mountains, oceans and other wild places travelers are hoping to experience in the first place.
So yes, bring the binoculars.
Just don’t expect to spend the whole trip sitting in the Jeep.