Results tagged “Indian Ocean” from Intelligent Travel Blog

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

If you've been following this blog since we left on our around-the-world trip back in July, you might have noticed that we haven't exactly had any serious mishaps, accidents, illnesses or diversions to our original plan for any reasons other than personal choice (yes, I'm knocking on wood big time).  Compared to most travel stories I've read, our journey thus far might seem quite uneventful in comparison.  I just finished Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux, and he had all kinds of amazing tales from his Cairo to Cape Town overland trek. The biggest drama of our travels between these two points came when a herd of elephants trampled through our campsite one night in Tanzania. Interesting and memorable, but not exactly New York Times bestseller material.  

Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. When traveling with two young children, you tend to plan things out further in advance and take more precautions for anything and everything that might go wrong. This is not to suggest that a little improvisation every now and then wasn't necessary or welcomed. For various reasons, not the least of which was logistic, we decided to forgo a visit to India - opting instead for a "spring break vacation" in the Indian Ocean aboard the new Lindblad National Geographic Explorer. This meant two weeks of prearranged activities, destinations, and all our meals accounted for. Boring? Maybe for some, but we were thrilled to have nothing to plan for or have to handle ourselves for two whole weeks! The only major decision we had each day was whether to snorkel or scuba dive.

What caught our attention about this particular cruise was its amazing itinerary: Zanzibar, Mozambique, Madagascar, and the Seychelles. As a scuba diver, I've heard that the Indian Ocean offers some of the best marine life found anywhere, so we were intrigued. Couple that with the famous beaches of the Seychelles and exotic wildlife of Madagascar, and we were sold. Our sojourn to Europe would just have to wait fourteen more days.