I’ve always thought that planning my own trips was the most cost-effective way, but I’ve been hearing more about travel agents making a comeback and saving their clients a lot of money. What kinds of outdoor trips should I turn to a travel agent for, and are there any who specialize in working with adventurers like me?

Technically, I’m a professional traveler. As a journalist, it’s my job to research and connect with locals to get beneath the surface of a destination. So I have never really used travel agents. What could they plan better than I could?

A lot, it turns out. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know many travel specialists, and I consider them magicians. My big aha moment happened two winters ago on a trip to Iceland. A massive storm shut down internal flights for a day, causing me to miss my return flight to the U.S. Normally, I would have spent frustrating hours on hold with the airline. But because I’d paid $65 to have Ana Gloria Garcia, an air-support specialist at the travel agency EmbarkBeyond, find and book the most affordable and convenient flight option for me, she handled the rebookings while I soaked in the Blue Lagoon.

During the pandemic, agents became advocates helping travelers get refunds on canceled flights and trips. As travel has come roaring back, an agent’s superpower is now their access to the best hotel rooms, most in-the-know guides, free amenities, and more, says Cory Hagopian, senior vice president of sales and partnerships for , a global network of travel agencies.

And they’re attracting a young clientele. According to a recent , 38 percent of millennials and Gen Zers are opting to use travel agents as opposed to booking on their own trips. That number is far greater than Gen Xers and baby boomers, of whom only 12 and 2 percent respectively use agents.

What Do I Gain from Using a Travel Agent?

I recently had a friend tell me she spent close to 40 hours researching a family trip online. She probably could have gleaned the same intel from an hourlong conversation with a travel adviser. Knowledge is priceless, and advisers act as your insiders. They know what you don’t and fill in the blanks for things you might not have considered, says Erika Richter, a spokesperson for the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA). Their firsthand knowledge, vast network, and on-the-ground connections all combine to provide a unique perspective for crafting the perfect itinerary for you.

Most travel advisers specialize in certain regions and countries and travel to them frequently, so they have up-to-date intel on not only the best safari camps but the perfect tent to book for the most incredible views and the best local restaurants you won’t find on Tripadvisor. They want their client’s trips to go well to keep them coming back, so it’s in their interest to have sussed out hotels and itineraries before they send you out into the world.

Nicole Forster, 29, considers herself a savvy traveler. She’s been to 20-plus countries and enjoys destination research. But when it came to planning her honeymoon in Africa, she felt overwhelmed, so she reached out to Danielle Meyer at , which specializes in bespoke itineraries. “Originally, I wanted to go to South Africa, Victoria Falls, and Madagascar,” Forster recalls. “Danielle convinced me that if we wanted to relax, we should stay in South Africa and save the other countries for separate trips.”

Over five phone conversations and multiple emails, they crafted a 15-night itinerary that included Cape Town, the winelands, the Cape Peninsula, and a safari at the Thornybush Game Reserve. Forster established her budget early in the process, and Meyer sent her a variety of lodge options to choose from.

“I initially wanted to start with the safari, but she pointed out that we’d be jet-lagged and would need to wake at sunrise for game drives,” says Forster. “The safari was our highlight, so it was a perfect way to end the trip.”

Not only did Meyer book all of the flights, hotels, and transfers, but she created a detailed, day-by-day trip app for the couple that included useful information like check-in times at hotels and how much to tip guides.

Agents also act as advocates. If something goes wrong during your travels, they’re on call 24/7 to handle it. When Forster left the battery and charger for her camera at a hotel, Meyer arranged for an on-the-ground contact to go to a camera store and buy new ones that would be delivered to her hotel the next day.

The cost for the honeymoon planning: $150 per person. “I wouldn’t use a planner for a trip to Hawaii,” Forster says, “but if I ever took a big trip like this again, I’d 100 percent work with an expert.”��

When to Consider Using a Travel Agent

For savvy trip planners, the best time to use a travel agent is for complicated international travel. It can save you hours of planning and peace of mind that if anything goes wrong in your chosen far-flung destination, there’s someone a What’sApp message away to handle it.

Domestically, I’d consider using a travel agent when planning a multi-week national park trip or multi-island trip in Hawaii. They will save you time, guarantee you get the best guides, and help you land reservations at always-booked lodges and hotels.

Dream Trips Delivered

Jessica Cook and her husband both work in the travel industry. Decision fatigued, they handed their honeymoon logistics over to the team at , an agency that specializes in South Africa. Their original plan was also an African safari, but just as they were about to put a deposit down, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus made headlines. Worried about getting stuck abroad, they reached out to Askari’s founder, Muriel Truter, who is from Zimbabwe, and upon her advice, changed their focus to South America.

Truter suggested they stick to Colombia rather than country-hop. Cook supplied a budget and a wish list: 12 days, no more than three destinations, a barefoot-luxe feel, and adventures like horseback riding and mountain biking. The rest was a surprise that Askari pretty much nailed, with the exception of one hotel.

“Everything felt so authentic, but this one hotel on Barú island felt really fabricated and was full of American tourists,” recalls Cook. She immediately messaged the Askari team, saying, “Hey, this place really isn’t our vibe,” and within an hour they were on a water taxi headed to Blue Apple, a B Corp hotel—and an ���ϳԹ��� pick for tropical adventures—on Tierra Bomba island. “It was honestly the best trip we’ve ever taken,” she says.

Are Travel Agents Expensive?

It depends. Cost varies. Some travel agencies won’t charge any fee, as they receive a commission from the bookings, while some high-end agencies will charge pricey annual membership fees for their services. Still others charge nominal “professional” fees starting at $150. Fees often fluctuate based on the length and intricacy of a trip and how far out you do the planning (6 to 12 months is recommended). You may occasionally come across agents who charge a percentage of the total trip price or hourly rates.

Basic travel enquiries are generally free. In 2016, Leah Smith, founder of , opened an old-school brick-and-mortar location in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood so her services would feel less intimidating to first-time users. “With our retail-office location, we’ve become part of the community, and both clients and non-clients are welcome to pop in and ask whatever questions they may have, no charge,” she says.

Matt Lindsay, founder of the surf-guiding and travel company ,��builds relationships with resorts and property owners to get discounted rates that he can then pass on to guests.

Dominic Allan, the founder of , specializes in travel to Belize and Nicaragua and caters to independent travelers who are happy to book their own flights and hotels but are seeking his local intel. Allan’s three-tier pricing structure starts at $300 for up to three hours of phone calls, during which he might weigh in on where to eat (or not to), the best room to request in a certain lodge, or whether you really need a guide to hike.

Value Versus Savings

If you’re just looking for deals and steals, you might not be ready to work with a travel adviser, says Richter of the ASTA. “Anything you invest in with a travel adviser comes back to you in the form of amenities, customer service, peace of mind, better access to unique experiences, and handcrafted itineraries,” she says. “You could save money by cutting your own hair, too, but most people go to someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Agents work with preferred partners who can guarantee perks for clients, such as free upgrades, early check-in or late check-out, and resort credits. Those add-ons often translate into savings, says Justin Huxter, cofounder of the UK-based . “We had a client go to Maui for a week, and because of our partnership with the resort, breakfast was included,” he says. When breakfast costs $120 for two, that’s a savings of $840.”

Some of the Best Travel Agents in the ���ϳԹ��� World

Some of my go-to resources for finding a person to work with include travel expert Wendy Perrin’s annual of tried and trusted agents, the ���ϳԹ��� Travel Trade Association’s , and the ASTA’s .

In addition to the agents mentioned throughout this story, others I highly recommend for adventurous travelers include:

• Dan Achber of Trufflepig, for Africa and the Middle East
• Miguel Cunant of Sri Lanka in Style
• Javier Echecopar of Journey Costa Rica
• Daniel Fraser of Smiling Albino, for Southeast Asia
• Elizabeth Gordon of Extraordinary Journeys, for Africa
• Kleon Howe of the Art of Travel, for French Polynesia
• Jay Johnson of Coastline Travel, for Hawaii and California
• Antonello Losito of Southern Visions Travel, for Puglia, Italy
• Rabia Malik of Fora Travel, for general worldwide travel
• Robyn Mark of Mayamaya Travel, for Africa, the Alps, Patagonia, and Japan
• Marisol Mosquera of Aracari, for Peru and Bolivia
• Zach Rabinor of Journey Mexico
• Raluca Spiac of Beyond Dracula, for Romania

Travel-advice columnist Jen Murphy is now a believer in using a travel agent. Thanks to their expertise and connections, she’s avoided dozens of trip catastrophes.��

The post Should I Use a Travel Agent? Our Travel Expert Says It Makes All the Difference. appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Even the most seasoned travelers consider certain destinations too difficult, dangerous, or remote to explore—but the reality can be different. We found three end points that fit the bill. Yes, you’ll have to spend a lot of time in transit and adapt on the ground. But we promise it will be worth the effort.

Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Siberia

Here’s how I got to this oblong island in Russia’s Lake Baikal: A 5.5-hour flight from Moscow to Irkutsk (canceled once, delayed twice). Then a bone-rattling seven-hour minivan ride to a rickety dock at Sakhyurta. Finally, a ferry crossing of the deepest lake in the world, which bottoms out at more than 5,300 feet. I disembarked on an island, slightly smaller in size than New York City, that was equal parts dense boreal forest and wide-open steppe. And that was the fast way. Many travel 3.5 days from Moscow on the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway.

Only 1,500 people, many of whom are indigenous Buryat, call Olkhon home year-round. Most seasons, including winter, when the lake freezes over and tourists from China and Russia come to see unique freezing patterns on the ice, you’ll likely go days without encountering anyone. You will, however, see wildlife, from freshwater Baikal seals to wild horses. There are no paved roads or hiking trails; to get anywhere, you’ll need to ask a local for help using basic Russian. Pack a tent, download an offline map, and set out from the town of Khuzhir for the two-day, 50-mile round-trip trek through larch woodlands and along empty beaches to Cape Khoboy, on the island’s northeastern tip. , with several guest rooms (from $200) as well as campsites (from $6.50), rents paddleboards for a fauna-filled tour of the lake. It’s run by the Yeremeev family, who will make you feel at home in a place that otherwise seems like anything but. —Sebastian Modak

Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan

People used to tell Douglas Layton, owner of the local company Explore Mesopotamia, that no traveler in their right mind would ever visit the place he raved about most—Iraq. His response? “But they’ll go to the other Iraq!” By that he meant Iraqi Kurdistan, the temperate, gorgeous, and supremely friendly region in the north that couldn’t be more different from what most probably imagine. Here, snowcapped peaks dive into rivers, green hillsides hide ancient ruins, and it’s nearly impossible to visit a bazaar and not get invited for tea.

Base yourself on the banks of the Great Zab River at the new (from $100), a 37-room boutique hotel about two hours north of the capital, Erbil. From there you can take guided day hikes into the Zagros Mountains and the Barzan nature area, the only preserve in the country; explore Bestoon Cave, to the south, which was once used by Neanderthals; and tube down the Zab. The area is much safer than Mosul, 50 miles to the west, but be prepared to pass through some heavily armed checkpoints, and you’ll want to avoid border towns. can help you organize trips that include hotels, food, transfers, and a guide (from $250 per day). —Tim Neville

Kubu Island, Makgadikgadi, Botswana

The first time you see it, you’ll probably mistake Kubu Island for a mirage. After driving 370 miles north from the capital of Gaborone, or 240 miles south from the Okavango Delta, you’ll hit a seemingly never-ending expanse of salt pans, and then, soon after, a lone ­granite outcropping that’s about 30 feet high and covered with Dalí-style baobab trees. The thrill—and the challenge—of this corner of ���dzٲ��ɲ��Բ�’s Sua Pan is its desolation. Yet there’s a lot to do: hiking the fossil-strewn surroundings, off-roading across the pans, and stargazing without a single light to wash out the view.

To get there in the rainy season, from November to March, you’ll need a four-wheel-drive vehicle with off-road navigation. Pack everything—food, water, gas, and camping equipment—and book a campsite under a baobab (from $14) through the , a group comprising members of the nearby Mmatshumo settlement who act as custodians of Kubu and make for expert hiking guides. —S.M.

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Dennis Sizemore is limping, shuffling his swollen left ankle through the dusty streets of Maun, Botswana, the��gateway city to the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta. Over his��long conservation career, it’s hardly the 67-year-old’s first injury. The former college linebacker has been slapped into a tree by a grizzly, breaking ribs and his left arm;��traded gunfire with poachers in New Mexico;��and been��medevaced��to Anchorage, Alaska, when that same hapless arm was nearly severed by the prop of a floatplane.��

Considering the brutality of injuries past, this latest wound feels a little ironic. It’s mid-September 2019, and��Sizemore has ruptured his Achilles tendon��stepping into a Maun hotel conference room for a meeting with the leaders of the Okavango safari industry. But��as he well knows, the most significant conservation work often gets done in conference rooms.

Sizemore is the director of , a university ecology program that offers students��semesters in places like Namibia, Chile, Mongolia, and British Columbia. At the same time, the organization has secured protection for��19 million acres worldwide, some of the largest blocks of biodiverse wilderness on earth, with a full-time staff of just eight. Round River��works to empower indigenous people to set and reach their own environmental stewardship��goals.��In a conservation movement historically��characterized by white people telling indigenous people what to do with their land, the organization stands out for listening instead.��

“Round River does the kind of work that is focused on the community, which isn’t as common as you might think,” says Rhea Suh, former president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and an assistant��secretary of the Interior Department under President Obama. “That means taking local economies into account. Finding ways to do conservation without evaporating residents’��economic opportunities is the hardest work, but it’s the most durable.”

Tourism is ���dzٲ��ɲ��Բ�’s second-largest industry after diamond mining, drawing people from around the globe��to experience thriving populations of lions, leopards,��and zebras. The country is home to some 130,000 elephants—nearly half the world’s remaining wild population—up from 80,000 in 1996. Trophy hunting was banned in Botswana in 2014, but the increase is due in��large part to the fact that��the animals have been for years to avoid poachers in neighboring countries.

That population boom, however,��has led to human conflicts. Between August 2018 and August 2019, elephants killed 17 people in Botswana, many of them defending their crops. In addition, conservationists link the conflicts to an uptick in poaching, as farmers��victimized by elephants have fewer qualms about helping foreign ivory poachers.��

In the villages of Sankoyo and Mababe, just outside the Okavango Delta, it’s easy to see the effects of the increased elephant population—fields lie fallow, fruit trees are broken and bare, and elephants have trampled nearly every fence. Villagers there say they haven’t bothered to farm since 2013.��

“My house used to be surrounded by crops,” says Igea Newa, 66, gesturing to dusty fields. “Now we can’t plant fruit trees or a garden. The elephants destroy them.”��

Last spring��the government announced that��trophy hunting would once again be allowed in an effort to cull elephant numbers.��Newa welcomed the change, but the decision has been controversial, , a drop in safari bookings (something��that has been exacerbated by the current coronavirus pandemic), and��anger over how the 158 licenses were issued and that .��

Some conservation groups, including Round River’s local partner, Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, are��, focusing on trophy hunting’s capacity to generate employment and revenue for wildlife programs.��Still, Round River hopes to keep the bloodshed from ramping up by funding solutions to human-wildlife conflicts that don’t involve killing—not just of elephants��but also lions and other predators. Think: renting watering holes from ranchers for migrating zebras or creating a market for higher-value��“wildlife-friendly beef,” which incentivizes farmers to bring their cows in at night so they aren’t killed by predators.��

Communities will choose their own��tactics, but each requires money, which is the purpose of Sizemore’s��trip to Maun—his 40th to Botswana. He has arranged a meeting of the major players in the Okavango safari industry in hopes they’ll agree to ante into a fund to pay for his plan. Round River would augment the envisioned $50 million fund with donations from environmental foundations. “The problem isn’t raising the money,” says Sizemore, limping into the meeting. “It’s getting a bunch of competitors to agree to work together.”��

Sizemore has raised millions for conservation in his career, but he started Round River with just a bottle of George Dickel whisky��and a few pounds of backstrap from a pronghorn his father had��shot. Those were the gifts he bore in 1991 when he knocked on the door of grizzly bear activist Doug Peacock.

A former research assistant with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish��and biologist at the University of Montana, Sizemore wanted his work to have bigger effects. He figured that Peacock, with his ties to��the activist edge of the conservation movement, could help.��

Over the bourbon and backstrap, the pair launched Round River Conservation that same evening, naming it after a seminal essay on ecosystem protections. Their first donors were Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and the late ecological philanthropist Doug Tompkins, whose landscape-scale restoration project in Chile��foreshadowed the group’s preference to preserve large blocks of habitat. In those chunks, points out Peacock, “you always find indigenous people living,” a fact Round River has relied on to make its��mark on the conservation world.��

Sizemore has had particular success in British Columbia:��Round River helped save five million acres of old growth in the Great Bear Rainforest, and in the��Taku Watershed, after a 14-year fight, eight million acres were spared. A key in both cases was Sizemore’s deployment of “traditional ecological knowledge,” a��technique that augments field surveys with locals’��generations-long experience of hunting and gathering on the��land.��The process had��the side effect of galvanizing local��support among people tired of being��disenfranchised. “Being involved��got people to open up and get very organized with protecting our lands,” says John Ward, a Taku River Tlingit First Nation elder.��

Another key strategy to Round River’s outsize��results are its student groups. Each semester, fresh cadres continue long-term ecological studies in the regions where the organization works, helping underpin the conservation objectives��but also allowing it to maintain an active presence in certain��communities for years on end. That can be a significant contrast from the more sporadic, and jaded, appearance��of some larger conservation groups. “People��like having the students around,” says Sizemore. “Their optimism and energy make them great ambassadors.”

In the Maun conference room, Sizemore is at his ambassadorial best. He has his swollen leg��propped on a chair beside him and speaks softly, letting others drive the meeting as much as possible. Not always so benevolent,��Sizemore’s grizzly-like tenacity is legendary. He is, says author and close friend Terry Tempest Williams, a man of “big ideas, big results, big heart, big shadows.” Sizemore likes to tell the story of challenging one former Round River staffer to a fistfight during a meeting with Namibian government officials��and has had fallouts with allies during the push to designate Bears Ears as a National Monument.��

But no fistfights are necessary in Maun. In fact, Sizemore doesn’t have to say much because he’s brought along a ringer. Ross McMillan, the recently retired CEO of the environmental nonprofit��, tells the safari-industry stakeholders the story of the $120 million Coast Funds, which he helped engineer. Born��from an agreement between 26 separate First Nations tribes in the Great Bear Rainforest and the Canadian government, the fund is much more complex than what’s being proposed in the Maun meeting, but it brightly illustrates what’s possible. Logging in that rainforest, the source of years of bitter political protests, would have yielded just a handful of local jobs for First Nations people, says McMillan. Instead, supported by the fund, 1,033 jobs have been created in sustainable logging, aquaculture, and tourism since 2009.��

The dozen safari-industry representatives are sitting up straight and peppering McMillan with questions. Everyone is essentially convinced, and the remaining day and a half consists of people getting used to the idea. Afterward,��Jennifer Lalley, cofounder of the safari operator Natural Selection, says that while some companies like hers already support conservation work, collective projects are usually more successful. “Any collaborative efforts in conservation or poverty alleviation have the potential of achieving a much greater impact than individual efforts,” she says.��

Anderson Kambimba, a staff member of the Botswana Democratic Party, agrees that such a fund would help both his Okavango community and the animals��living nearby. “Wildlife in and around my community are unfortunately viewed as government property and responsibility,” he says. “This results in wildlife and habitat receiving negative attention every time government is perceived in a bad light.” A community conservation fund, he says, would bring a sense of ownership and accountability. “When people connect economic benefit to wildlife and habitat conservation, their commitment to protecting it rises. The community will fight wildfires, discourage and guard against poaching, police harmful waste-disposal practices, and so on.”

After the meeting, Sizemore meets a group of Round River students for dinner at a café. Despite the meeting’s success, and in what is meant to be a pep talk for the students, he can’t help but veer into melancholy.��

You’ll be doing important work,��he tells the eight undergrads. “But it can be awfully hard sometimes. One has to learn to embrace loss.” His voice cracks, and a tear runs from behind his yellow-tinted eyeglasses. He apologizes and blames the emotion on the four Advil he took and the double gin and tonic he’s drinking, but it’s obvious that he’s a man whose emotions are always swirling close to the surface.

Later, Sizemore mentions a quote of Leopold’s: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that you live alone in a world of wounds.”��

The students help push him on, even as he eclipses the age when most would throw in the towel.��“I try to absorb as much of their youthful exuberance as I can,” he says, acknowledging a duty to those who continue to show up looking for tools to heal a world that, even in their brief lifetimes, has been accumulating even more wounds.

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Stanza Mbanga Molaodi had big plans this spring. On May 17, the owner of ��in Botswana was due to accompany six Italian clients into Chobe National Park, home to a third of the continent’s 600,000 elephants. From its base camp in the bush, the group would go on game drives, day-trip to Victoria Falls, and enjoy cocktails and crocodile-watching��on sunset cruises up the Chobe River. The gang would then relocate to the park’s semiarid Savuti region, a landscape of baobab trees and rocky outcrops��where dense herds of zebra and buffalo congregate at watering holes and try not to get picked off by the Savuti lion��pride. Next up would be the Khwai Community Area, where indigenous bushmen would guide the Italians on walking safaris and take them paddling down the Khwai River in traditional mokoro canoes. The 12-day adventure would end with a birding extravaganza in the Okavango Delta, a Unesco��World Heritage site. “It’s a beautiful place to end a safari,” Molaodi told me, sounding almost emotional.

But the trip was not to be.

Frightened��by the coronavirus, the Italians canceled. All of Molaodi’s clients��have canceled or postponed. When I reached him by phone recently, he was holed up at home with his family in Kasane, fretting. On the day we spoke, the Botswana Defense Force ordered all troops on leave or off duty to return to their posts immediately, and Molaodi predicted a military-enforced lockdown, not unlike what neighboring South Africa had announced that same day. Molaodi seemed to be speaking for Africa’s entire��$40 billion wildlife-tourism industry when he confessed, “We are all retrenching. Everyone is panicked.”��

Simply put, the safari business in Africa and Asia has stopped. Completely. Maybe that’s not surprising at this point in the pandemic. Between flight cancelations, national lockdowns, border closures, emergency visa restrictions, and required quarantine upon entry, clients fearless enough to travel couldn’t reach their destinations if they wanted to. Even if they could, in some countries they’d be sorely disappointed. India has shuttered all of its tiger reserves and national parks. Congo has closed Virunga National Park, fearing that its famous mountain gorillas could contract COVID-19��from humans. Gabon, deeply scarred from losing 15,000 lowland gorillas in a 1995 Ebola outbreak, has likewise halted all ape tours.��

What is surprising are the domino effects of this economic catastrophe and the ultimate impact they will have on wildlife. Starting in April, Molaodi’s six staff members will receive half their normal salary, but for May and beyond, all bets are off. Roberto de Sibi, owner of Savannah Explorers in Tanzania, had already placed 17 of his 45 employees on half salary when we spoke (I found him under 14-day quarantine in Milan, where he’d fled to be near his 82-year-old father, having caught the last flight from Tanzania to Italy). Neither Molaodi nor De��Sibi��would be paying anything to the many freelance��drivers and guides they hire during busy periods. Molaodi wouldn’t be paying the bushmen to take clients paddling, and De Sibi wouldn’t be paying Dadoga tribesmen to show his clients how to melt metal to make knives. Their clients wouldn’t be donating solar lanterns to villages or otherwise leaving generous contributions.��

Crucially, neither operator would be ponying up the various fees required by parks and community conservation areas for tourist entry, guide entry, vehicle entry, and overnight stays. Large percentages of such fees go to local communities for development projects and conservation measures, like funding anti-poaching scouts. Ninety percent of Zambia’s more than 1,000 scouts come from its communities and are paid from tourism fees. In Namibia, tourism fees pay for the country’s 600 game guards and support more than 6,000 families.��

With rampant unemployment, unpaid game guards, and fewer tourists in the bush to report suspicious activity, it’s just a matter of time before wildlife gets hammered. “Poaching will increase,” De Sibi��insists. “People who are jobless must find money or food.”��

Everyone I spoke with concurred on this point. “One of the biggest fears is that, if scouts can’t be paid, I can foresee people poaching,” says Maxi Louis, director of the Namibian Association of��Community Based Natural Resources Management Support Organizations. “Poverty will drive people.” Louis also anticipates that local tolerance for crop-raiding herbivores and livestock-killing predators, both common in villages near protected areas, will plummet. “There will be no scouts to manage human-animal conflict��and no funds to compensate for lost livestock,” she says, expecting a spike in retaliatory killings��of troublesome wildlife.

In a 2012 study, ecologist Ralf Buckley of��Griffith University in Australia found that most of the more than 1,400 species listed as threatened by the International Union for��Conservation of Nature depend on tourism for their survival, including iconic species like lions, elephants, and rhinos. “Many park��agencies worldwide now rely heavily on tourism for routine operational funding, more than 50 percent in some cases,” the study reported. “This puts rare mammals at a new risk, from downturns in tourism driven by external socioeconomic factors.”��

Given the magnitude of this potential biodiversity implosion, mentioning a silver lining might seem frivolous. But there is one. Tourism is a double-edged sword. It funds conservation, yes, but too much of it can disturb breeding patterns, feeding habits, and migratory movement. It can pollute landscapes and destroy habitat. “This travel hiatus of several months will give a chance for resilient natural environments to recover from the stress inflicted by tourism,” says Frederic Dimanche, director of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. (While Dimanche’s prediction is warranted, many other��reports on social media of wildlife thriving as a result of quarantines .) If the animals can manage to survive, the pandemic might be an opportunity to improve wildlife tourism. “Destinations and tourism operators everywhere have a unique chance to restart a tourism that will be better planned, better managed, one that will be sustainable, with stronger policies,” Dimanche says.��

The post A Tourism Lull May Be Good for Animals—but Not for Long appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Every January, I allow myself a handful of New Year’s resolutions. These always happen a little bit late, because I’m too superstitious to think about what I don’t like about myself on the first day of the year.��For 2020, I set a goal of watching more smart documentaries instead of kind-hearted baking shows and, for once, my resolution was perfectly timed. After all, January is the month that the Sundance Film Festival��lineup��and the Oscar nominations herald the season’s best nonfiction films.

Here are three nature-focused documentaries that are generating buzz��right now, all of which are available to stream online��so that you, too, can put “Watch more smart stuff” on your to-do list and immediately check it off.

‘H�DzԱ������Ի�’

The Oscar-nominated ��is a soothing back-to-the-land film experience for about 15 minutes, then quickly erupts into chaos. It tells the story of Hatidze Muratova, the last female wild beekeeper in Europe, who also appears to be the most nurturing woman on the planet: she cares for her ailing mother, far-flung beehives, and various pets with unwavering attention. Muratova adheres to a “half for me, half for you” policy with the bees, knowing that if she takes too much, they won’t have enough to live on and may start attacking other hives. Her life—and the bees’ lives—takes a stressful turn when a loud, boisterous family moves in next door with a ton of cows and questionable homesteading skills.��

Filmmakers Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska camped in Muratova’s backyard for days at a time over the course of three years to capture the escalating drama; they succeeded so much that at times it’s hard to believe��Honeyland isn’t scripted. We easily eavesdrop on conversations and other sonic interruptions as the neighbors bulldoze��past Muratova’s traditional beekeeping��practices.��The tension between the neighbors depicts��the ecological destruction and economic stakes��surrounding the global honeybee crisis��in deeply personal terms. By the end of Honeyland, I was shouting at my screen every time someone took more than half the honey from the bees.

Streaming on Hulu. In U.S. theaters on July 26.

‘Into the Canyon’

This documentary, by ���ϳԹ��� contributors Kevin Fedarko and Pete McBride, offers two main draws. First, you’re probably never going to see the Grand Canyon quite like the two of them did on their 750-mile thru-hike in 2016: there’s often no trail��and therefore plenty of opportunities to get very far away from a water source or peer into the canyon from a precarious ledge (a feeling that��Fedarko and McBride really lean into with acrophobia-triggering, handheld camera shots). Second, Into the Canyon will appeal to those who enjoy fun, buddy-comedy sufferfests, which the filmmakers pull off easily: Fedarko, a writer, and McBride, a photographer and filmmaker, have been friends and collaborators for years.��

But the journey goes into deeper territory. Alongside bouts of hyponatremia and monotonous dirt crunching, the two visit with��Navajo Nation citizens, developers, national-park officials, and other stakeholders who are at odds about the future of the Grand Canyon. Their long��hike is a useful narrative tool,��exposing��audiences to broader issues like uranium mining��and expanding tourist development. It manages not to feel like a gimmick; we’re given a step-by-step meditation on a powerful and ancient landscape��and a vivid lesson about just how quickly we could lose it.

Streaming on Disney+.

‘Okavango: River of Dreams’

This self-described love letter to ���dzٲ��ɲ��Բ�’s Okavango Delta starts out… surprisingly, as in��a –like montage of elephants and water buffalo set to a dramatic cover of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” There is no way to prepare for this experience (except with Big Little Lies) but, rest assured, the remainder of the film is about as traditional as nature documentaries get. That’s not a knock. The narration is majestically calming, and the camerawork is attentive, bordering on sensual. The best stuff includes footage of��elephants—with fascinating close-ups of one crushing water lilies—and incredible bird’s-eye views of the animals��as they travel through the wetlands; the soothing narrator explains that elephants create “mosaics” that direct the flow of water around the delta. Who knew! There’s always room in our brains for bits of trivia about critical wildlife sanctuaries, and Okavango is a particularly beautiful addition to the canon.

The�� is��streaming on Amazon Prime Video. A��feature-length director’s cut premiered at Sundance on January 26.

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From , follows fly fishing guide Lionel Song as he pursues the annual catfish migration which sends the��in Botswana into a frenzy. According to Song, their ferocity and attitude are second to none.��“The only reason they jump is because they don’t have middle fingers.”��

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Sometimes you want the people watching and social scene of a lively pool. Other times, you’re not in the mood for screaming, splashing children, or preening. If you just want to float freely and alone, or with a special friend, that’s when it’s worth upgrading to a room with its own��private pool (and, of course, a view). Here are nine worth fantasizing about—swimsuits often optional. ��

Santorini, Greece

Grace Santorini

Santorini is the most vertical of island paradises, with the appeal lying in bohemian hotels in cliff-top villages far above the island’s famous caldera and the Mediterranean flowing around it.����is one of the full-service places to stay, and also one of the most water-fully blissful. All the honeymoon suites, and most of the others, have dreamy white-walled plunge pools, a distillation of the colors of the Greek Isle, and particularly epic��views��at sunset.��

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico��

The Resort at Pedregal��

Fully recovered from last fall’s��, which devestated Cabo, each of the guest rooms, suites and casitas at��the stylish����have Pacific-view plunge pools on their terraces or balconies. Their infinity edges beg you to rest your arms on them, along with perhaps a margarita or a Corona, and gaze out over the Pacific. But before you get to the lounging, get your blood flowing by surfing the nearby at world famous��.

Marrakech, Morocco��

Palais Namaskar

Mountain biking��among the Atlas Mountains with this hotel's expert guides is��one reason to stay at the recently opened ��in the lush Palmeraie district of Morocco’s famous Red City. There are��also the oasis-like rooms, reached by following a walkway lined with bougainvillea. Each��room��comes with its��own private, heated swimming pools that float inside separate ornamental pools, fragrant with orange blossoms and jasmine. Want more soaking? The bedroom has a freestanding bathtub.

Krabi, Thailand��

Phulay Bay, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve

After kayaking the fanciful sea caves of the Andaman Sea, cooling off in a pool at this hotel isn’t hard. The ��is the big splurge for water aficionados: It has a long, infinity-edge swimming pool with hydro-jets overlooking gumdrop-like limestone cliffs rising up from the Andaman Sea. In the more accessible room category, the Reserve Pool Villas have��pools (between 200 and 500 square-feet)��overlooking gardens. And as for the standard villas, you might not do laps, but you can still have a languid soak. The Jacuzzis in each of them are sized just-right for an afternoon of gazing at lush gardens and the sea below.��

Riviera Maya, Mexico��

Banyan Tree Mayakoba

Swimming is serious business at the��, located in its own 590-acre wildlife reserve, about a half hour north of some excellent kayaking and fly-fishing in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve and Tulum. Each of the 118 villas has a personal pool. Not just a splash-around plunge pool—a proper 323 sqare-foot��swimming pool, that unspools along the length of the villa, big enough to swim laps. Adjacent to each swimming pool is a Jacuzzi lined in sapphire blue mosaic tiles to reflect the sky above.��

Masded, Jamaica��

Cottage 7, Jamaica Inn

The old-world ��is already arguably the most romantic resort on the island, but its top room—the 2,000-square-foot, seafront Cottage 7—clinches the deal. Twenty-foot glass doors open onto a private veranda with a 16-foot-long infinity pool, which is suspended over the Caribbean Sea. A second deck is set up for lounging or dining, and a staircase that leads down to a private cove in the sea for further aquatic indulgence.��

Antigua��

Cliff Suite at Curtain Bluff

Scuba diving and water skiing are included in the room rates, and the aquamarine Caribbean Sea is seemingly a part of your room. The heated, eight-by-eight-foot soaking pool in , one of Curtain Bluff’s premium rooms, is situated just so the iridescent blue seems to extends straight from this watery corner of the (super-private) terrace and out into the sea down below. If you float toward the edge, your view can take in the powdery white sand of Grace Bay Beach.��

Okavango Delta, Botswana��

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Lodge

It’ll be just you, the elephants, and zebras at one of the finest watering holes in the Okavango Delta. Except those animals won’t be drinking from them—the villas here come with small, cooling plunge pools situated on an elevated platform, safely above the animals’ reach. Reopened after a renovation last fall,����has not only beautiful design but also exclusive traversing rights through a wildlife-rich stretch of land adjacent to the��.

​St. Barth��

Hotel Le Toiny

Tiny St. Barth packs in activities from windsurfing and deep-sea fishing to kite surfing and water skiing, but it’s also a romantic paradise. The most amatory and secluded hotel on the island?��, which has just 15 freestanding villa suites, each with own heated, 12-by-20-foot private pool. The pools are made of lava stone, situated to have dreamy views over Caribbean, and softly lit with underwater lights for after you’ve savored the last seconds of sunset.��

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On June 22, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named the ��in Botswana the 1,000th site on its World Heritage List. The list spotlights the world’s most important natural wonders and cultural sites, and the Okavango Delta certainly fits the bill.��

Instead of ending in the ocean as most river deltas do, the Okavango River empties into a savannah to create the 6,500-square-mile delta. It’s also rare in that “the annual flooding from the river Okavango occurs during the dry season, with the result that the native plants and animals have synchronized their biological cycles with these seasonal rains and floods,” according to the UN World Heritage statement.

The fan-shaped delta is home to several endangered large-mammal species, including cheetah, white and black rhinoceros, African wild dog, and lion, making it a top safari destination in both Botswana and Africa at large.

The delta is best known for explorations by mokoro—dugout canoes that easily navigate the mazelike lagoon channels and papyrus swamps. These nonmotorized boats glide silently through the water, making them ideally suited for game watching. Tented camps at destinations such as Khwai and outfitted by and are launching points for nighttime game drives, during which visitors tour by Jeep when the animals are most active.

The list of World Heritage Sites keeps growing; the committee added��. UNESCO identifies natural (Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, for example) and man-made landmarks (the Pyramids of Egypt) that are of outstanding value to humanity. Although UNESCO designates the sites in the name of cultural preservation, it’s up to the individual countries to take action on the directive.

This year, the first site in Myanmar and one in the United States��, bringing the total number of World Heritage Sites to 1,007 in 161 countries.

In Myanmar, the site includes the remains of three brick, walled, and moat-encircled towns (Halin, Beikthano, and Sri Ksetra) that flourished between 200 BC and 900 AD. The cities include partially excavated palace citadels and monumental Buddhist stupas.

In the United States, , also a Louisiana State Park, became the country’s 22nd site UNESCO site. At this site, 3,400-year-old earthworks stand as a testament to the master engineering talents of Native Americans who constructed the five mounds and six concentric ridges around a plaza that was a major political, trading, and ceremonial center in its time.

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The news out of Africa isn’t good. In 2011, poachers slaughtered an estimated 25,000 elephants—and 448 rhinos in South Africa alone. Animal trafficking is now the world’s third-largest criminal industry. Thankfully, a new crop of safaris lets travelers see endangered wildlife and help save it, too.

• 100 Miles for Elephants
• 2013 Safaricom Marathon
• Southern Africa Conservation Safari
• Gorilla Tracking in the Congo

Wild Aid: 100 Miles for Elephants

WHERE: Kenya
WHO RUNS IT: Hidden Places

’ founders, veterinarian Dag Goering and author Maria Coffey, started the to make life better for the world’s largest land mammal. Join them by raising pledges of $500 to $2,500 to walk with Samburu guides on a nine-day camel-supported trek across Laikipia Plateau, home to one of East Africa’s largest free-ranging elephant populations. Stay the first night in a luxury tented camp, then rough it for a week in expedition tents. January 23–31; from $3,450 per person.

Wild Aid: 2013 Safaricom Marathon

WHERE: Kenya
WHO RUNS IT: Tusk Trust

This hilly marathon through has raised more than $3 million for conservation projects. In addition to trip cost, overseas participants in the June 29 race pay a $1,500 entry fee, which goes to , a U.K. non-profit devoted to protecting African wildlife. The includes training runs and game drives (June 23–30; $2,799 per person). Slow of foot? Opt for ’ Conservation Safari, an 11-day adventure through Lewa, the luxury camp Sarara, and the Masai Mara ($8,995 per person; reference UNCHARTEDCONS2013 when you book to donate five percent of the cost to Tusk).

Wild Aid: Africa Conservation Safari

WHERE: Namibia, Botswana, South Africa
WHO RUNS IT:

This 12-day itinerary offers a crash course in conservation. In Namibia, visit —a wildlife refuge that so impressed Brangelina, the couple donated $2 million—then head to and the , home to cheetah rehabilitation. After a stop in ���dzٲ��ɲ��Բ�’s , the trip winds up in South Africa at , where helicopter rides afford sweeping views of the park’s rhino-darting program. Proceeds from this portion of the trip support Kwandwe’s rhino project. From $7,750 per person.

Wild Aid: Gorilla Tracking in the Congo

WHERE: Republic of the Congo
WHO RUNS IT: The Wilderness Collection

Threatened by poaching and the Ebola virus, the western lowland gorilla is also facing increasing habitat loss. The , a conservation-focused company, is pioneering gorilla-oriented tourism here, opening the first two lodges in the heart of the Congo Basin. At the simple bamboo Lango Camp, you take game drives on the savanna. At Ngaga Camp, in the heart of the rainforest, you’ll track gorillas. A portion of your fee goes toward the , which supports anti-poaching programs. From $5,350, plus $650 for internal charter flights.

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