Reading 25: Wildlife Adventures (2007-06-13)

Yesterday we went to Wide World Books & Maps for ideas on where to travel next. My travel ideal has these characteristics:

• It's new.
• It's adventurous.

New

I like variety, so I want to go somewhere I haven't been before. Somewhere new has different meanings at different scales, however:

1. Considering supercontinents, I have been to Afro-Eurasia and the Americas. However, I have no desire to visit Antarctica, because extreme cold scares me. Consequently this scale is too big to help decide.
2. Considering continents, I have been to Africa, North America, Europe, and Oceania. This leaves Asia, South America, and Antarctica.
3. There are also vast regions I haven't visited within some continents I have:
• In Africa I went to East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania), in Sub-Saharan Africa, so I haven't been to North Africa--or west, central, or south Africa within Sub-Saharan Africa.
• In North America I've been to both North America (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) and Central America (only Honduras, though the plane landed in Belize), but not the Caribbean.
• In Europe I've been to England, France, Germany, leaving southern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, and eastern Europe (depending on how one divides Europe).
• In Oceania I've been to Polynesia (Hawaiʻi), but not Australasia, Micronesia, or the south Pacific.

Adventurous

As a child, I read high fantasy authors like J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), and Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea). As an adult, I find travel the closest experience to a quest. Elements encountered in a quest include castles, caverns, long distances, foreign languages, forests, mountains, oceans, ruins, sacred places, sailing, and wild animals. Examples in my travels are as follows:

• watching wild animals (including black rhinoceros, lions, and wildebeest) in Ngorongoro Crater, on the Serengeti, or in the Tarangire River valley in Tanzania;
  
• climbing Kilimanjaro;
• swimming in the Indian Ocean in Kenya;
• camping in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies;
• weathering Hurricane Marty in Los Cabos;
• driving the perimeter of the United States;
  
• sleeping in a tree house in Georgia, United States;
• walking through Carlsbad Caverns;
  
• canoeing with alligators in Okefenokee Swamp;
• backpacking across the Cascades to Holden Village;
  
• exploring the ruins at Copán;
  
• snorkeling with Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles in Kahalu'u;
• touring the top of Mauna Kea;
  
• seeing Stonehenge;
• touring châteaux in the Loire Valley;
• visiting Schloss Hohenschwangau and Schloss Neuschwanstein; and
  
• entering cathedrals in England, France, and Germany.

This desire for more adventure travel led to the purchase of 25: Wildlife Adventures and A Year of Adventures: Lonely Planet's Guide to Where, What And When to Do It. In the first book I found I had been to 3 of the 25 places (Baja California, Tanzania, Florida) and experienced 5 of the 25 wildlife adventures (wildebeest migration, alligators, rhino, lions, turtles).

The question remains: Where should William go? I pose this question to the readers of this blog; recommend a place to go. While I'm asking a question of readers, I'll also ask: What should William blog? Of the score of examples above, only a half-dozen have posts.

[Update: I corrected the date to this year!]