It’s always gratifying to be recognized for something you genuinely love doing.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with New York Times travel columnist Elaine Glusac for her Travel 101 piece, “How to Plan an African Safari.”
We covered a lot of ground, but one of the things I emphasized was that I don’t think of a great safari simply in terms of where you’ll see the most animals. The best itineraries often combine distinctly different experiences, landscapes, and perspectives.
Elaine captured that idea in a section of the article titled “Aim for Varied Experiences”:
“Stuart Marra, who runs the Opulent Explorer, an agency based in Rumson, N.J., recommends combining a stay in Botswana for intimate game viewing with time in the Serengeti or Maasai Mara for seeing thousands of animals.
‘Being five feet from 20 elephants, in a canoe, and then flying in a hot-air balloon above 20,000 zebras, that’s a well-rounded wildlife experience,’ Mr. Marra said.”
Thank you to Elaine and The New York Times for including my perspective.
For Times subscribers, the full piece is here: NYT ARTICLE LINK
And for anyone considering their first safari, I recently wrote about something that took me more than 20 years of traveling in Africa to fully appreciate: You go for the animals. You return for the people.