Recently in Jenss Family Travels Category

Last year, Rainer Jenss traveled around the world with his wife and two sons, and blogged about his experience here on Intelligent Travel. This year, he's back with a new column that focuses on traveling with kids.

Lots of parents, myself included, are concerned about what affects all the electronics--and the digital age in general-- are having on our children. Even though I've had success limiting their time playing video games, my sons seem to have discovered a newfound interest in computers, and it probably won't be long until their curiosity with cell phones turns into full-blown obsession.

There is a new technology, however, that I fully encourage my boys to use as often as their little hearts desire: a digital camera. Fortunately, this didn't require a whole lot of coercing when we traveled around the world last year. In fact, they were so into shooting that when Tyler accidentally broke his camera about halfway through the trip, we may as well have gone home if we didn't get him a new one right then and there.

So for your next trip together as a family, go ahead and try to leave all the kids' electronic devices at home (unless, of course, you have a long flight or car ride on the itinerary, in which case you may want to reconsider), but make sure they pack the digital camera. And if they don't have one, you may seriously want to think about heading to an electronics store. Even if you already own one yourself, I wouldn't recommend sharing it with your child/children, since 1) they won't be nearly as engaged if they have to keep asking you for it, and 2) one of you is going to be upset that they missed "the shot" while the other blissfully fired away at the whales that breached out of the water just 100 feet from your boat.

Last year, Rainer Jenss traveled around the world with his wife and two sons, and blogged about his experience here on Intelligent Travel. This year, he's back with a new column that focuses on traveling with kids.

Some quick advice: If you are a mom or dad of a school-aged child and have anxiety if they miss a day or two of classes, don't worry, they'll be fine. Maybe you're even doing what my parents did when I was younger and taking your children out of school willingly for a short time to go on a vacation over the holidays. Again, unless there's something really pressing they can't afford to neglect, don't distress too much. It's probably nothing they can't make up when they get back.    

My wife and I took our two boys out of school for 12 months last year and now that Stefan and Tyler are in the 4th and 7th grades as originally scheduled, I'm happy to report that they have adjusted back to academic life just fine.  Granted, we "road-schooled" them during our round-the-world journey to keep them caught up on the curriculum they would have studied had they remained in school, and found relevant ways to practice their math and English (exchange rate conversions and blogging certainly helped supplement some of that). But truthfully, that wasn't our main concern.
 

Rainer Jenss, his wife Carol, and their sons Stefan and Tyler, are just back from having spent a year traveling around the world, and we were able to follow along as they blogged about their journey for Intelligent Travel and National Geographic Kids. Now that they're back and adjusting to a static existence, we asked Rainer to reflect on his trip and share some of his favorite moments.

Wellfleet was abuzz with customary summertime activities just as it was a little over a year ago. We were last here at the very start of an around the world trip that would span exactly one year and cover 28 countries. Now we are back on Cape Cod as part of an annual family summertime ritual we've honored since the children were born.  

Not much appears outwardly different. The bluffs of White Crest Beach have the usual stream of families and surfers tramping up and down its steep dunes. Swimmers bob in the Atlantic, which has warmed just enough to allow for some brief bursts of body surfing for those of us not in wetsuits. The local drive-in continues to feature the same intermission film clip; complete with dancing popcorn boxes and juggling soda cups, just as it did when it first opened in 1957.  

Yet so much has changed since last July. The global economy and American leadership have radically altered and there seems to be a prevailing sentiment of unease about what the future holds. There's also no doubt my eyes see things quite differently than they did twelve months ago. It was enlightening to learn how people from all corners of the globe are influenced and affected by what happens in America. With the possible exception of Bhutan, there seems to be an almost universal fascination with our politics (yes, the election of Obama greatly improved the perception of Americas almost overnight), celebrities, and general lifestyle. As such, I've found it hard not to walk around comparing life in the U.S. to the rest of the world, for better or worse.

For the past year, Rainer Jenss and his family have been traveling around the world and blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. This post marks the last dispatch from their journey, and the end to an incredible year. You can see where they've traveled by going back through the archive of their posts, or look to the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids. If you have questions for the Jensses, they'll be writing a few follow up posts in the coming weeks about the transition back home. Email questions here, or leave them in the comments below.

Flashback to April 2007 - I'm staring out into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, perched on a large piece of driftwood that washed up on a desolate strip of beach off the northwestern coast of Bocas del Toro, Panama. In my meditative state, I envision the end our pending yearlong trip around the world finishing up right here on the unspoiled island of Bastimentos. I'm with my friend Greg who claimed this piece of tropical paradise for himself when he bought some property on this archipelago back in 1996.

Now I'm with my family at the last stop of our incredible 52-week adventure, and my premonition proved spot on. I really couldn't think of a more fitting place to conclude our journey and put this whole trip into perspective. Since we set out last July, we have been housed by people we'd never met before, lived in a camper van, slept in tents, overnighted on trains, and stayed in some of the nicest hotels on the planet. I figured spending our last few days in a hut with pretty much no creature comforts - not even a bathroom (au natural was the only way to go) - would be a perfect setting for us to reflect on the events of the past year and start thinking about a re-entry strategy.

In preparation for our time on the island, we had the assistance of one of the local Ngobe Indians who I had met when I was last here. Joey--his nickname--helped Greg secure his land purchase in the first place and now acts as the caretaker of his property. Without him, there's almost no way we could have pulled this off. Firstly, Joey lent us a hand in buying all the food and rations we'd need for the week. More importantly, he transported us and all our provisions to the island with his dugout canoe. Then after the 45-minute motor across the Bastimentos Marine Park, he and his wife Maria helped set up all the essentials, including four hammocks. For refrigeration, we used three big blocks of ice in an extra-large cooler which would last us about 4-5 days, while two five-gallon jugs provided us with our fresh water (showers were taken from rainwater collected by a water tower in the backyard).

Rainer Jenss and his family are wrapping up the final stops of their 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.

Most travelers have probably heard the expression, "It's not the destination, it's the journey." But this doesn't always resonate with me when I'm in the throes of trying to get our family from one place to the next.  It's usually well after the fact that I realize the proverb's true wisdom.  Not knowing how we'd end up getting to our final destination of the trip - a remote hut on the island of Bastimentos off the coast of Bocas del Toro in Panama - I envisioned a journey that might just be as adventurous as the destination itself, and it was.

When I told a friend, Lynda Gerhardt that we were going to Panama, I was strongly advised to try to visit a wonderful eco-lodge she knew of in the highlands of Chiriqui Province.  The owner of the Los Quetzales Lodge & Spa on the Panamanian side of the 407,000-hectare Parque Internacional La Amistad was a good friend of hers and I was guaranteed to have a fantastic experience in what she simply called a 'magical place.' (Having arranged our extraordinary visit to the Cheetah Conservation Center in Namibia back in February, Lynda had a pretty good track record with us.) Since we would be down on the Osa Peninsula in southeastern Costa Rica, where the Panamanian border was just a short ferry and taxi ride away, we decided to take the overland route to Bocas del Toro via the Los Quetzales Lodge--it would be a much cheaper and more interesting option than flying.

The wonderful thing about the Osa Peninsula is that it's a throwback to the way life was in the country before mass tourism infiltrated many of its pristine forests and coastal towns. Similarly, I've heard that Panama's oceans, mountains and jungles are still relatively undiscovered and less frequented by the eco-tourists that Costa Rica now attracts in droves. As we would learn, this makes for a much more bona fide natural experience, just the way we wanted it. 

Rainer Jenss and his family are wrapping up the final weeks of their 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.

Of all the things we've experienced over the course of this yearlong world tour, I must confess that it's been the scenery and wildlife that's often left the biggest impression, and Costa Rica didn't disappoint. Mind you, this is a broad generalization and we've encountered some of the most generous, interesting, and unique personalities I've ever met, but the abundance of natural splendor this world contains is probably what I'll most remember from this trip.

Our next stop on our Costa Rican adventure would certainly validate this assertion. The Arenal Volcano and its constant ash column and nightly spewing of fiery red lava rocks was a must-visit because Stefan's third grade science curriculum required instruction on volcanoes. We have had ample opportunity to cover this subject throughout our travels, most notably in Hawaii and New Zealand (not to mention Santorini), but this is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and there aren't too many places to get a show like this... if the weather cooperates, and that's a big "if".  

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.

When our TACA flight from Lima finally touched down in the capital city of Costa Rica, it marked just the first time on this entire world tour that we arrived in a new country without any game plan whatsoever. Admittedly, we aren't exactly backpacking it around the planet, so this was new territory for our family. This was also intentional because we wanted to add a twist to the final month of the trip so we wouldn't get too caught up in counting down the days until we had to go home. The only arrangements we had made were to spend a day in San Jose with a Lonely Planet guide to get our bearings and devise a strategy for the next two weeks.

The first of many spontaneous decisions was made before we even checked into the hotel. Driving from the airport, I noticed several street vendors selling Costa Rican soccer jerseys. The taxi driver explained that the U.S. was in town for a World Cup Qualifier match that very night, and the stadium was only 10 minutes from where we were staying. Never one to pass up an opportunity to attend a major sporting event, I scalped myself a ticket and jumped right into the local culture by watching Costa Rica embarrass the U.S. 3-1 in front of a jubilant sold-out crowd.

To my surprise, there were more than a handful of Americans in attendance, a precursor of sorts to the large number of U.S. tourists and expats we would encounter throughout our stay. I subsequently found out that a sizable contingent of Americans have come down here in recent years to retire, start up businesses, or relocate to a tropical paradise. Their large presence also served as a reminder that we were not too far from home anymore, a thought that didn't actually excite us. For this reason, we made a conscious decision to try to avoid the more commercialized and developed areas of the country and stick to the more natural, unspoiled terrain.  

The Costa Rican tourism business seems to cater to three distinct groups of travelers: eco-friendly, wildlife enthusiasts; adventure seekers; and sea, surf and sand lovers. The latter has certainly contributed to the increased number of tourists and resident expats from the States. It's also blamed for transforming several of the country's laid-back beach communities into Miami Beach-style resort towns.  Although many people like ourselves could easily fall into two or more of these categories, we opted to pursue the exotic wildlife and natural beauty that put Costa Rica on the tourist map in the first place, while sprinkling in a little adventure and surf every now and then for good measure.    

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.

"Welcome back" were not the words we wanted to hear with six weeks left on our year-long journey, but there was no avoiding it unless we didn't tell anyone about the forty-hour layover we had in New York before flying on to Peru. "We're not finished yet," we had to say again and again. Carol and I were actually quite apprehensive at the thought of breaking up the flow of our trip to spend two nights back where we started last July. The benefits of doing this, besides seeing some family and friends, were that the boys could play with their long-lost buddies while Carol and I seriously downsized our luggage for the trip's final leg that would be spent mostly in tropical climates.  

As far as how it felt to be home for the first time in ten months, it was actually quite revealing. If there's one thing I've realized throughout all my travels, it's that your senses are elevated. Food, fashion, architecture, language, landscapes, wildlife, smells--you are much more aware of everyday details whenever you leave the familiar surroundings of home. Since I've been in this heightened state of awareness for almost a year, it didn't go away when we landed in the U.S. Just the opposite. I seemed to walk around in an "all that's old is new again" frame of mind.

Meanwhile, our trip to Peru would also be a sort of homecoming, for we were joining up with the winners of the National Geographic Kids Hands-On Explorer Challenge, which would reunite me with fellow staff members and other colleagues from The Society.  It also meant that Tyler and Stefan would have plenty of peers to share the experience with, a huge bonus for two boys who only had sporadic interaction with other kids their age in the last year.

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.

Most of the correspondence we've received from friends, family and colleagues in the States during the ten months we've been traveling has referred to the terrible economy, the awful mood back home, and what a different country we'll be returning to. Literally everyone has told us we couldn't have picked a better time to skip town for a year.  

As mentioned in my previous post, we couldn't have chosen a better time to go to Greece, either. The big advantages to visiting in May are the weather, lack of crowds and ease of traveling from place to place. So with two weeks to play with, the challenge was figuring out where to go from the multitude of recommendations we received, many more than I had anticipated.  

Going to the Acropolis in Athens is pretty much mandatory, but can easily be done in a day. There are lots of other interesting things to see around the city (a newly refurbished museum opens in July), but with two kids in tow, we didn't feel compelled to seek them out. Albeit among the most famous historical sites in the world, the Parthenon and surrounding ruins did not inspire us as much as others throughout the country.  Most of the site was covered in scaffolding and if you didn't have a tour guide like us, it's hard to make out exactly what happened here in its peak period some 2,500 years ago. By contrast, we had the archaeological site of ancient Corinth almost all to ourselves, while the well-preserved artifacts in its museum really helped us understand its significance. As a port city, the modern day Corinth also offers some nice seaside restaurants and shopping, which made it perfect for a day trip away from the congestion and big-city challenges of Athens. 

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're checking into this blog for some guidance about travel to Greece, here's a simple piece of advice I just discovered firsthand: Pass up going in the summer if you can possibly avoid it. Shoot for May, early June, September, or October instead. Unless, of course, you prefer being with lots of other people, intense heat, and overrun tourist attractions.

I was told July and August are VERY busy here and the beaches, nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, and archaeological sites are all jammed. I have to assume most visitors really enjoy themselves and have a wonderful time with so much great stuff to see and do. After all, there's good reason for all the popularity. But given the timing of our stay here in Greece (first half of May), I'd bet it would be pretty hard to beat the incredible weather, uncrowded islands, and ease of touring the sights we experienced during this time of year.

Lucky for us, we didn't even have to resort to taking the boys out of school, at least not this year, to be here before the season officially starts. Take it from someone who has spent the last forty-five weeks touring some of the world's most popular tourist attractions, it's a bonus to be in these special places without the all-too-common throngs of sightseers. And if there's any good news to come out of the global financial crisis, it's that you can now journey abroad and generally find smaller crowds. The recession has certainly played a significant role in reducing the usually high number of visitors to not just Greece, but destinations all across the world. So in hindsight, I guess we picked a pretty good year to take this little global jaunt (more on this in my next post).          

Because we want this trip to be more about education than vacation, we bought the boys a children's book about ancient civilizations to help them better understand the history behind the places we'd visit and things we'd see.  Otherwise, they're just a "pile of really old rocks." Since I was eager to freshen up on Greek mythology myself, I'm not embarrassed to admit that I found the comprehension level of this book just right (Hey, this mythology business can be quite convoluted!).  Armed with some knowledge, sunblock, a good appetite, and sixteen days before our next flight, we were ready to roll.

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.

Every marriage has compromise.  Where to go when we had only limited time to explore Europe was just one of the challenges that put our marital conciliation to the test. When to discipline the kids; How to manage the budget; What to do about dinner. These were just some of our other points of contention . . . but I digress.  

"You only want to go because of the golf!" That was Carol's reaction when I first recommended including Scotland.  Truth be told, I am a golfer, but that's not solely why I suggested it. Come on! I figured the boys would get a thrill out of seeing where the Loch Ness Monster resides and that all the castles would be a source of unending fascination.

What ultimately persuaded my wife to acquiesce, however, was a personal invitation to stay in the home of our Bhutanese expedition leader we met back in October.  It seemed odd at first that a Scotsman would be the leader of a tour through the mountains of a Buddhist country, but it became obvious that few were better qualified than Richard Whitecross. The fact that he lives less than an hour outside Edinburgh ended up securing our ticket to Scotland.

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.

It might have seemed impractical to give ourselves only two weeks to visit France, Germany, and Italy on this trip, especially since we were on a one-year journey and could theoretically allocate a lot more time for each (or go to fewer of them). But these were places we definitely wanted the boys to see, so we just decided to be well thought-out with where we'd go. Besides, when you compare this to the amount of time a typical American can allot for a vacation, this didn't seem like such a stretch.   

We left France after spending three days in Paris and two in the countryside. Euro Disney was not on our agenda. Instead, we opted for the real-life place that in part inspired Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty castle: the Neuschwanstein Castle, nestled amid the stunning landscape of southwest Bavaria. The traffic was extra light on Easter Sunday, so we got to the German border relatively quickly, but not after having to dish out over 60 euro (about $90) in tolls that covered only about 200 miles of roadway. Then I was forced to break my vow not to use any GPS on this trip, not because I wanted to, but because our rental car had it installed. This proved not to be such a bad thing since the roads around the Alps are tricky and one wrong turn could end you up in a different country. Furthermore, reading a map while trying to negotiate hairpin turns wasn't the best idea.    

After choosing one of several pleasant outdoor restaurants for lunch along the bustling shores of the Bodensee (Lake Constance), we got back in the car and followed our trusty new navigation assistant straight to the castle.  Arriving without any prearranged accommodations (which is inadvisable in the busy summer months), we discovered that the Akzent Hotel Muller right at the base of the castle had a family suite for the same price we'd pay for two modest B&B-type rooms found in town. Even though it's catered specifically for tourists, which is something we generally try to avoid, it was a treat to be within easy walking distance of the castle and not have to spend any time in the car the next day, so we booked it.

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.

Nine months and six days after pulling out of our driveway to start this year-long journey, I found myself back in familiar territory. Since I'm originally from Germany and have traveled extensively throughout the Continent, I feel very much at home in Europe. Even though I had spent just one day in Paris prior to our arrival, there was little concern with logistics or getting oriented to what would be the seventeenth country of the trip. In fact, after spending the last three months in Africa, it felt rather comforting to be here.

With just a few exceptions, we had most of the previous sixteen countries pretty well planned out before we got there. Generally speaking, Asia is not a good place to just wing it with two kids in tow. In New Zealand, we had a camper van to call home, and since Australia is so darn big, we'd have been crazy not to map out a route in advance and make sure we hit the spots we were most interested in. Even traveling across the U.S. required advance reservations if we had any intention of staying within the national parks in the height of summer.      

The only problem was that we had just a little more than six weeks to explore Europe before we were due in South America for the final leg of our voyage. The upside was that we didn't have to subject ourselves to the high cost of being here for very long. Everything seems more expensive in Europe (the weak dollar doesn't help, even though it's strengthened about 20% against the euro since we left last July). Car rentals and gasoline prices makes traveling by train a serious option, although that's not cheap either. We even had to dish out more than 60 euros in tolls just to get from Paris to the German border. Ouch.  

Without trying to sound too much like the Griswalds from European Vacation, we embarked on an ambitious plan to cover France, Germany and Italy in two weeks. We picked France because it was pretty much the only choice we had flying from the Seychelles. Besides, we're talking Paris, so there were no complaints here. Better still, my sister and her family were just a short Eurostar train ride away from their West London home, so they planned to meet us for the long Easter weekend. This meant we had to figure out what to do with four kids, not just two.

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.

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.

On the remote chance that someone from the Ministry of Egyptian Tourism might be reading this post, I urge you to gather up all the street vendors and merchants from around your country, put them in a room, and send them a simple message: If you ease up on constantly harassing tourists to buy something from you, we might actually purchase something!  

It's staggering the amount of time and energy we spent fending off souvenir salesman during our two weeks in the Middle East. We actually started to devise strategies on how to minimize the pestering, and even though the boys are just 12 and nine, they were not immune to being hounded. Don't make eye contact, don't say a word or answer their questions ("Where are you from?", "For you my friend, no charge to look", "How much you want to spend?"), don't stop to look at anything, and whatever you do, don't ask how much something costs. If you do, you better have a sound exit strategy.    

I remembered this side of Middle East travel clearly from my first visit there some nine years ago, but it still didn't make the situation any less irritating. One positive aspect of all this, however, is that it kept our shopping in check, something that had challenged us since we stepped foot outside the U.S. seven months ago. We needed to try to keep our spending down, and buying stuff for a house we don't even have yet, no matter how tempting, was becoming too frequent an occurrence.

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.

One of the benefits of having traveled throughout Africa for the last two months is that it has kept us in an information void for some extended stretches at time (Carol fondly refers to this as being in our little bubble). We did manage to watch Barack Obama being sworn in just a couple hours after we toured a township in South Africa, and I was able to retrieve sporadic e-mails in the bush from friends and family raving about how lucky we were to be on this trip while filling us in on the happenings from back home.  And it seems like every correspondence we've received has made some sort of reference to the lousy economy and how ominous the mood is in the U.S. I'm quick to reply that the places we've been to are feeling it too, proving that there's truth to the saying that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

From what we've experienced, I can attest that one sector deeply affected by the global financial crisis has been the travel industry. This was evident from all the empty hotel rooms and sparse crowds we'd seen in recent weeks. Although it's true that countries like South Africa, Kenya, and especially Zimbabwe have been impacted by social unrest and political instability, the economic slowdown has clearly compounded the fact that traffic is down as much as 60% in some places.  

One country that didn't seem as affected was Egypt. If they've lost business as a result of people cutting back on vacation spending, it was hard to notice. The same seems true for Jordan, which found us in full planes and sold-out hotels for our excursion to Petra. Maybe not as many Americans are there as formerly, but the usual mix of German, French and Japanese tourists appeared well represented. We also heard plenty of Indian, Russian and Chinese accents, and from what we can gather, travelers from these emerging countries might be compensating for any drop off from our part of the world.

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 want to know the three most important factors that will likely determine the quality of your experience on an African safari, here they are:

1.    Skilled guides/trackers
2.    Location & time of year
3.    LUCK!

After spending almost two consecutive months touring the southern half of the continent, I actually feel pretty qualified on the subject.  And if you don't want to take my word for it, my wife and sons would be more than happy to offer their insights on African wildlife viewing, having now become quite knowledgeable in their own right.

We landed in Nairobi having notched about 30 game drives in our belts in the six weeks leading up to our arrival. Back when we finalized our plans for this trip, there was some legitimate concern that maybe we were overdoing it with all the back-to-back safaris and that fatigue might become an issue, particularly with the kids. No problem! As it turned out, we were probably even more jazzed about our upcoming final week in the bush then we were when this whole whirlwind began back in South Africa. Sure, a little R&R after two weeks of camping in Tanzania might have been nice, but we were booked on a Micato Safari, considered to be one of the finest tour operators and safari outfitters in the world, so there would be no downtime. Lucky us, indeed!

What also made this week so potentially exciting was the fact that we'd already spotted almost every possible mammal, bird, and reptile one could reasonably expect to find in this part of the world, so everything from here would be gravy. For us, all the natural beauty and drama we had already seen only increased our appetites and we were hungry for more, especially for the one thing that remained elusive: a kill. We watched cheetahs as they stalked gazelle in Tanzania, saw lions chasing zebra in Botswana, and tracked down wild dogs hunting impala in South Africa, but seeing a predator actually take down its prey had remained unseen. This was the challenge we presented to our guide shortly after he picked us up from the airport, an invitation he gladly accepted.

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.

Talk to anyone who's been on a safari, and you're sure to get a detailed commentary on their amazing animal sightings and hear vivid stories behind the hundreds of photos and hours of video they shot. If you have followed my recent postings (note: the peregrine falcon is the world fastest animal), I intentionally tried to stay away from too much narrative about the specific animals we've seen on our safaris and avoided drawing comparisons between our experiences in the different countries visited. That might change with this report, however, now that we've successfully completed the two-week camping portion of our two-month circuit around southern and eastern Africa.   

To put this in some context, our first game drives were in South Africa's Sabi Sabi ultra-deluxe private game reserve, where we were spoiled in the lap of luxury. From there, we went to three different 'semi-luxury' Kwando Camps in Botswana, staying in cabins with running water, solar power and plush beds. Although we were well protected, the grunting sounds of resident hippos and nearby roaring lions could be heard throughout the night, reminding us that we were now firmly in the wild. In Tanzania, our accommodations were definitely more in line with what most people envision a camping safari to be, with little protecting us from the wildlife of the African bush at night other than the lining of our tents.

We planned this latter portion of our trip with another family of four from Long Island who we go camping with every summer. When they found out we were breaking this tradition to go on an around-the-world trip, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to take our outdoor adventures to the next level, and booked a mobile safari in Tanzania.  We chose this spot because it was where the massive wildebeest migration would be this time of year and a mobile safari would be our best bet to find it.

We rendezvoused with our friends near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where we met our guides/drivers Raymond and Onesmo from Wild Frontiers. They explained that our itinerary would take us to Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti over the course of the next twelve days, and we were raring to go.

If there's been an added benefit to home schooling the kids during this trip, it's that Carol and I have had the chance to learn right along with them. I haven't personally watched "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," but it sounds like a pretty clever premise for a game show to me, especially after looking over the materials Tyler is expected to master as a twelve year old. I can admit that this stuff isn't exactly at the forefront of my memory, particularly sixth-grade math, so after plodding through the core curriculum of their academic studies, we were all excited to get to the more hands-on lessons that this trip was meant to provide in the first place. Nowhere would this opportunity present itself quite as appropriately as in our visit to Namibia.

When it comes to a general understanding of cheetahs, I can proudly say that I had the basics pretty much down.  Over the past few years, I've had the pleasure of working with the Cheetah Conservation Fund, an organization I learned of through my job at National Geographic. Before being introduced to its founder, Dr. Laurie Marker, I was ignorant to the fact that cheetahs were even on the endangered species list. Three years later, I now found myself in Namibia, at the base of the Waterberg Plateau in the Waterberg Conservancy near Otjiwarongo, the cheetah capital of the world and home of the CCF Research and Educational Center. And because this country has more of these majestic cats than any other in the world (about 3,000, or 20% of their total estimated population), it's only fitting that the world's leading efforts to save and understand them be located here.

We arrived to a warm welcome from the center's director, Bruce Brewer, who together with Dr. Marker, helped launch the CCF program in 1990. Even though Laurie was back in the States during our visit, it didn't detract at all from the incredible time we would have here over the next three days. We had barely put our suitcases down when Bruce announced to the boys that we'd just made it in time to feed their three resident cubs--"Cubby Time" as we grew to call it. In hindsight, I was grateful that we'd seen cheetahs in the wild before our arrival, because it made this experience all the more profound. It's hard to truly describe the sensation of what it's like to be this up-close and personal with one of the wildest creatures on earth, but I couldn't help being overcome with emotion. Not only are they incredibly majestic animals--and particularly cute when they're young--there's an almost ethereal feeling you get when you can actually touch them.

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. This is the second of a three-part blog post. You can catch the first installment here.

Almost two weeks after saying our farewells to the Coates and Lorenz families in Zimbabwe, we found ourselves on the eve of joining up with some more friends from back home who had children around our sons' ages. We had just arrived in Tanzania after having completely immersed ourselves in African wildlife during our visits to Botswana and Namibia, so at this point, the boys were getting quite proficient in their knowledge of the bush and understanding of the animals found in it. Because this had become the center of their universes over the last few weeks, I was curious to see how they would carry on with their friends who were coming from a world of homework, organized sports and American Idol.   

It's certainly not difficult to get caught up with all the amazing wildlife found in southern and eastern Africa. For Tyler and Stefan, the bush became their classroom, the guides and trackers their teachers. And just like going to school, their days started early - 5 a.m. to be exact! Granted, all they had to do was get themselves out of bed and into a jeep, but still, it would be a full day of immersion in zoology, biology, geology, and photography - with a little bit of sociology and sex ed thrown in for good measure. That's right, because Stefan (age 9) kept hearing about (and in some cases witnessing) animals mating, I thought it was an opportune time for our father-son chat about the birds and the bees, which actually seemed to resonate in this environment. Now we just needed to come across some mating lions.

In addition to learning that lions mate about every fifteen minutes for two to three straight days, our designated ranger Charles, who guided us around Botswana's Linyanti swamps and Okavango Delta, kept the boys engaged during the eight or so hours we spent bouncing around in the jeep each day.  Because he knew we were home-schooling the boys for the year, we took full advantage and allowed him to substitute for us to his heart's content.  Besides just observing the likes of lion, cheetah, hyena, baboons and a plethora of other mammals, birds and reptiles, Charles taught us all how to recognize certain behaviors and what they meant. He also made it entertaining by injecting some fun facts like baby elephants having milk tusks which fall out when they are about one year old or that a group of zebra is called a "dazzle," while a herd of rhinos is referred to as a "crash."