Tasmania – Much More than Devils

(Location: Tasmania, Australia) Each night, the ferry to Tasmania leaves from the pier near our house. It isn’t the most efficient way to get to Tassie, and it is probably cheaper to fly, but it’s a ferry to Tasmania that is walking distance. It had to be done. We booked the nicest cabin available for […]

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In Search of Wild Orangutans

(Location: Borneo, Indonesia) We saw a documentary on orangutans, and it was filmed at “Camp Leakey.” Some googling revealed that was located in the Indonesian part of Borneo. This is how we found ourselves on a klotok on the Sekonyer River looking for orangutans. It was another insane travel day to get from Cambodia to […]

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Elephants, Tigers, Temples, and Mites

(Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand) In June of 2014, I taught a class in Shanghai, so we decided to make a long weekend out of it and visit Chiang Mai, Thailand. No, these two places are not really near one another. We stayed at Rachamankha, which we found on Trip Advisor. This was such a perfect […]

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Kangaroo Island – Raw Beauty and Many Wild Marsupials

(Location: Kangaroo Island, South Australia) In January of 2014 I had a work trip to Adelaide, so we decided to make a long weekend out of it and tick Kangaroo Island off the list. Our flight from Melbourne landed late afternoon, so we arranged to spend the first night in McLaren Vale. After a light […]

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Wine and Penguins – Why Not?

(Location: Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia) After returning from sailing in The Whitsundays, we had a few days to kill before returning to work so we made an impromptu road trip to the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island. By “quick trip to the Mornington Peninsula” I mean that we drove through there on the way to […]

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Maned Wolves, Macaws, and Monkeys

When we booked the trip to the Pantanal, we were “upsold” to spend a few days at another one of the owner’s properties. He promised maned wolves, a macaw hide, and nut-cracking capuchin monkeys, so we decided to give it a go. From the Pantanal (Cuiaba airport), we flew to Brasisila, and then drove four […]

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Jaguars of the Pantanal

From Rio, we flew west to Cuiaba. It was a three hour drive to our first stop, the Santa Teresa Farm. The plan was to visit their bird viewing stand, and have a bite to eat to break up the journey. We also switched vehicles, from a van to an open safari-style truck. It was […]

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Fossa ! The cat-like lemur-eating star of Madagascar

 Kirindy, Madagascar When we booked this trip, we asked the travel agent when the best time to travel was based on what we wanted to see. I remember him saying, “If you go in the first few weeks of November, all of the fossa are mating so you will be more likely to see one.” […]

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Dancing Sifakas in Berenty

Berenty, Madagascar We’d been warned about flight delays and general inefficiency in Madagascar. But our flight to Berenty actually departed four hours early! Our guide found out late the night before, so we were up early for the now 6:45am flight. I guess this is why our travel agent insisted we have him with us […]

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Andasibe – 8 types of lemurs and a bunch of lizards

Andasibe National Park, Madagascar   The drive from Tana to Andasibe was a little rough – lots of passing on one lane roads, and very, very, windy roads. We were both glad when the four hour drive was over and we arrived at the Vakona Forest Lodge. We were in room #1, which was conveniently […]

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