Animal-loving travelers looking to get the most value for their dollar this summer will be excited to learn of Wild Planet Adventures’ summer trips. For 23 years Wild Planet Adventures has offered award-winning wildlife eco-tours designed especially for wildlife enthusiasts, featuring interactions with animals, value-packed itineraries, small groups and destinations teeming with wildlife.
Here are several wildlife trips that offer exceptional values for travelers this summer:
Costa Rica Ultimate Wildlife Eco-Tour is an all-inclusive (except airfare) wildlife eco-tour with 13 admissions to national parks and attractions (nearly twice that of any operator in Costa Rica); all meals (rare in any itinerary) and no “free days” (guests don’t have to shell out more bucks for activities on those days because all activities are included. With so much included, one might think this tour was designed with lots of high volume/low cost filler, but the opposite is true. This award-winning wildlife eco-tour is packed with exclusive wildlife activities, remote destinations (including eight national parks and wildlife reserves), high-end naturalist guides, interactions with animals, wildlife experts and scientific researchers, and wildlife destinations on both coasts such as Corcovado National Park, the world-famous Sloth Sanctuary, a hands-on wildlife rescue center, rafting and floating on two rivers, canopy tours, beaches, volcanoes, hot springs, sea-kayaking with dolphins, snorkeling at night in the bioluminescence and much more.
Tours of 14-days, 10-days and 9-days are flexibly designed for adults and families of all ages, and start at $343/person/day (one of the lowest per-day costs of any award-winning operator in this class). Hot tip: In July, the Veranito “little summer” phenomenon offers some of the best wildlife viewing of the year, and coincides with cooler weather and lower airfares.
Panama Ultimate Wildlife Eco-Tour offers the best of both worlds when half the family wants a relaxing beach vacation and the other half wants exciting activities like whitewater rafting, canopy zip tours and kayaking the Panama Canal. Hot tip:Panama’s 1,500 islands offer some of the best snorkeling in the world. In fact, the barrier reef around the archipelago of Bocas Del Toro is part of the same barrier reef as Belize, but unlike Belize, the Panama reef is completely outside the hurricane belt, and therefore in much better condition. Prices start at only $2,498 for eight days, plus domestic flights.
Peru: Amazon and Machu Picchu – Families love the cultural experience of Machu Picchu, Cusco and the Sacred Valley combined with the best wildlife viewing in the Amazon Rainforest. Featured is Manu Biosphere Reserve, the #1 park in the world for biodiversity, with over 200 species of mammals, including 13 species of primates, and 1,000 species of birds. Also included is Tambopata Biosphere Reserve, which is home to the world’s largest macaw and parrot clay lick. Wild Planet Adventures offers an exclusive opportunity to float downstream at dawn looking for jaguar and tapir as they come down to the river to drink at dawn. Another signature Wild Planet activity is an exclusive expedition to see pygmy marmosets, the world’s smallest (and cutest!) primate. Hot Tip: The world’s largest macaw and parrot clay lick peaks in activity from mid-August through the end of October. At this time travelers can see upwards of 1,000 birds at a time (five species of macaws and 15 species of parrots and parakeets). The sky is literally full of color and sound. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of nature!
Brazil – On the Jaguar’s Trail: Pantanal to the Amazon starts in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands, home to the largest concentration of jaguars on earth. Wild Planet averages 1.5 (sometimes as many as seven) jaguar sightings per day in the virtually unknown Taiama Ecological Reserve. The sightings are often for extended periods of time as the jaguar hunt caiman by the riverside. The wide variety of safari activities are ideal for active families and include hiking, boating, horseback riding and jeep explorations for up-close sightings of giant otter, hyacinth macaws, giant anteater and anaconda. A unique feature of Wild Planet's Brazil trips is seeing the transition of eco-systems from the Pantanal – the world’s largest wetlands-- to the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest. In the Amazon, Wild Planet has arranged an exclusive Primate Program designed by a primatologist to see rare Amazonian primates from our base at an award-winning Amazon lodge.
Borneo –Weird & Wonderful Wildlife Safari-- As wildlife specialists, Wild Planet Adventures carefully combines several unusual and remote eco-systems with exclusive activities, comprehensive environmental education and high-end local naturalist guides to create the absolute best possible wildlife experience currently available in Borneo, including not just commonly sought-after encounters with orangutans (both in the wild and at an orangutan sanctuary) but also special expeditions to see proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants, Borneon gibbons, tarsiers, slow loris and Borneo’s famous “gliders”. The trip ends at a water bungalow on stilts at Sipadan reef, one of the top five snorkel and dive sites in the world.
Zambia "Ensemble of Master Guides” Ultimate African Safari Wild Planet Adventures’ combination of jeep, walking and canoe safaris offers the broadest diversity of game and the most comprehensive wildlife safari possible anywhere in Africa. As the birthplace of walking safaris, Zambia has the highest standards of guiding anywhere in Africa. It’s astounding to experience the bush with these legendary guides and to witness their amazing tracking skills. This itinerary combines the remote Nsefu sector of South Luagwa National Park, untraveled Kafue National Park, and Mana Pools Canoe & Walking Safari – all with Master Guides!Low, Air Consolidator Rates: Flights and activities become less expensive when purchased in bulk. When traveling with Wild Planet, passengers can take advantage of Wild Planet’s long-standing relationships with flight consolidators for special rates, including bulk fares that are unpublished even on the internet. By booking a tour, Wild Planet Adventure guests will also be helping to preserve the local cultures and wildlife of the region they choose to visit at a time when help is most needed. Portions of the profit from each tour directly support positive and enriching community endeavors. For more information visit http://www.wildplanetadventures.com/about-us
For detailed itineraries, exciting wildlife photos and video galleries and booking information, visit http://www.wildplanetadventures.com/ or contacttrips@wildplanetadventures.com.
About Wild Planet AdventuresThe editors of National Geographic Traveler announced in April 2014 that the wildlife specialty tour operator Wild Planet Adventures received its fifth “World’s Best 50 Trips” award from National Geographic Traveler.
The expert wildlife guides of Wild Planet Adventures go the extra mile to explore remote wildlife habitat and study wildlife patterns in destinations not often accessible to the general public. Thanks to the company’s comprehensive itineraries that balance diverse and complex ecosystems and habitats, guests enjoy wildlife and game viewing that is carefully aligned with animals’ seasonal, daily and nocturnal migrations.
Following a philosophy that interacting with nature has the power to transform lives, tours are conducted in Africa, Baja, Belize, Borneo, Brazil, Costa Rica, Galapagos, India, Laos, Nepal, Panama, Peru, Thailand and Zambia. Wild Planet Adventures is recognized by top publications in the travel industry for its itineraries that combine intimate encounters with wildlife and local culture.
For a more information and a complimentary 2014 catalog call toll-free 1.800.990.4376, or e-mail: trips@wildplanetadventures.com. To review current trips, schedules and itineraries log onto: http://www.wildplanetadventures.com/.
Costa Rica
Thailand
The Hidden Thailand adventure includes authentic wildlife safaris in three national parks not offered by any other tour operator; visits to a lakeside wildlife sanctuary, cloud forest and elephant camp; cultural experiences, Buddhist temples, night markets and Chiang Mai; and snorkeling at Ko Tarutau or saving $600 by relaxing on the world-class beaches of Ko Phi Phi.
During India’s Pushkar Camel Fair in November, thousands of colorfully dressed camel traders, musicians, acrobats, folk dancers, comedians, sadhus (wandering holy men) and tourists turn the small town of Pushkar into a cultural phenomenon. The Holi Festival in February and March is the famous Hindu festival of colors celebrating the universal triumph of good over evil. Young and old yield to exuberance, throwing colored powdered dye and colored water on each other and rubbing the colors on their faces to celebrate the joyful power of enthusiasm.
It includes a multitude of safaris to see tigers, leopards, rhinos and rare wildlife, by jeep, elephant-back, camel and rickshaw. Also included are cultural segments in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Delhi and Agra, including the Taj Mahal, and a total of four UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
India – Exotic Wildlife and Rich Culture: 
Borneo’s Weird & Wonderful Wildlife:
Galapagos Wildlife Cruise:
1) Bokeo Nature Preserve, Laos – Accessible only by an exhilarating network of zip-lines, this is among the few places in the world where lodging is in a tree-house 200 feet high in the rainforest canopy. Here gibbons sing love duets each morning as the mist burns off the rainforest. Bokeo can be combined with Thailand’s little-known parks, Kaeng Krachan and Klong Seang Wildlife Sanctuary for tracking wild elephants, clouded leopards, flying fox and more. 
2) Manu Biosphere Reserve, Peru – For biodiversity, this is the #1 park in the world, with an astounding 200 species of mammals. Its 13 species of primates include the pygmy marmoset, the world’s smallest primate, and the exotic mustachioed Emperor Tamarin. Fewer than 3,000 visitors annually enter the coveted Reserved Zone, one of the most pristine rainforests on earth. 
4) Manas and Kaziranga National Parks, Assam, India – Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India’s least visited region between Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Tibet and China. Kaziranga offers a safari experience unparalleled outside of Africa, said Cohen. “Imagine 40 rhinos, a few herds of wild elephants, a tiger and hundreds of deer and other large mammals, all in your field of vision all at once.” Manas, with breathtaking views of the Himalayas, offers a Project Tiger Reserve, an Elephant Reserve and a Biosphere Reserve. Fewer than 6,000 foreigners come to Kaziranga annually. 
6) Kaeng Krachan National Park and Klong Seang Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand – Kaeng Krachan is Thailand’s largest and least visited park with only one road in, usually on foot and 4WD for spotting wild elephant and more. The lakeside wildlife sanctuary of Klong Seang features hundreds of inlets and coves best explored through a combination of long-tail boat and silent kayaking, offered exclusively Wild Planet Adventures, the only US operator in the park. Sumatran tigers have been sighted here; Wild Planet’s guests have seen the extremely rare Clouded Leopard here. Unknown and nearly inaccessible, a new floating aqua-lodge on the lake makes an ideal base near breathtaking limestone karst formations. 
8) Taiama Ecological Preserve – Located on an island in Brazil’s Pantanal, one of the world’s largest tropical wetlands, the Preserve is a virtually unknown alternative to the controversial jaguar tourism in the Porto Joffre area that has the highest density of jaguars in the world. It is a federally protected area not open to the public and no tour operator is permitted to take tourists onto the reserve itself. However, it is possible to circumnavigate the reserve (an 8-10 hour boat ride) in search of jaguars. By utilizing biologist guides with strict sustainable protocols (including no radio contact with other boats), Wild Planet averages about 1.5 jaguar sightings a day in this area, often at close distance, for long periods of time, with no other boats around. 
