Since 2007 we've traveled almost full-time throughout the US and Canada
in our RV with a focus on photographing wild animals. While I put most
effort into photographing grizzly bears in Alaska, most wild animals
are great subjects. Like most RVers, we follow the blogs of other RVers
both as a method of learning other great places to visit and as a means
of interacting within this great community of people. Almost at the
beginning, I began following the blog of a couple of RVers who were
originally from South Africa. I first followed their travels in Alaska
in 2007. A year later we were following part of their route when we
drove to Alaska for the first time. The following autumn I followed
their blog as they traveled by themselves on safari through Kruger
National Park in South Africa. I was bitten by the safari bug -- hard!
In the intervening years, I've been researching how we could under take
this independent trip.
We really wanted to take an independent trip; we're not much for group
tours and we discovered that we could spend less in a month on our own
than we would spend in just a few days on an organized tour. In the
fall of 2011, we got serious about planning. I discovered that it is
necessary to book non-refundable lodging a year in advance - and so we
did. Once the lodging was set, all the other items quickly fell into
place. We found air travel using frequent flyer miles earned in our
prior life, booked a rental car, and declared the project complete.
Over the next year we intermittently worked on determining necessary
vaccinations, how to provision in-country, and what in the world to
pack. Throughout the process my on-line South African friend has
provided invaluable advice.
Over the past two weeks we've delivered the cats to their cat hotel
(complete with beds, comforters, and a cat tree), driven over 1,100
miles, had one tire blow-out on the RV, shut-down and closed-up the
Mountain house, La Casita, and the RV, and hired care-takers for each
place. I pre-loaded all my current legal work on the netbook and as of
mid-night Sunday, all systems were "GO". We've each checked about 33
lbs of luggage and are each carrying a similar weight in camera
equipment.
Because we're flying on frequent flyer miles, the journey will take us
more than two days. We should be in Johannesburg, South Africa on
Wednesday and out to Kruger National Park by Thursday. We plan to rent a
cell modem in Johannesburg and hope to find cell data service
periodically to enable me to update this blog along the way. Our plan is
to stay at four different camps in Kruger National Park until November
1st photographing whatever wild animals we are fortunate to observe.
I'm posting this blog introduction now so that my friends who do not use
Facebook will have the link. We hope to have email access in South
Africa, but do not plan to rent a cell phone.
Leslie
