Tag Archives: plan ecotourism

How To Find Birder-Friendly Accomodation In South Africa

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I stumbled on this website while searching for something else.  Since I didn’t go everywhere in South Africa to give personal recommendations it’s a nice little resource to keep on hand.  Kurisa Moya is listed under Limpopo.  The other lodge we stayed at – 2 Oaks in King William’s Town isn’t on the list but they really should be as they are definitely birder-friendly.

“Birder Friendly Establishments” are registered with BirdLife South Africa. They are committed to supporting BirdLife South Africa’s vision, which is to conserve South Africa’s birdlife and their habitats by promoting Avitourism.

These establishments will do their utmost to ensure that birding guests have the best possible “birder friendly” experience. They offer flexible meal times or packed meals when requested, information on birds in their area, and advice on where to pick up local bird guides.

There are certainly a number of other establishments in each area which offer excellent birding, but this section shows specifically those establishments registered with BirdLife South Africa.

Travel Planning Technology Of The Future – Does It Go Too Far?

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How many times have you wished the travel planning experience could be easier?  Well be careful what you wish for!  If Skyscanner’s glimpse into the future is any indication, there will be virtual reality devices that know WAY too much about you from your social media networks and plan your trip for you!  And people think Facebook is  a privacy risk!

You could be sitting around home hooked up to a device that uses your past preferences to plan your next trip and book it for you.  Before you decide that’s an awesome thing, consider how much fun it is to do the planning on your own.  Do you really want to have a trip to Brazil booked in the blink of an eye?  Isn’t planning half the fun?

It’s a challenge to put it all together.  Find the flights, figure out what kind of miles you need, how to get the miles and book the flights.  Then you have to choose accommodation and spend hours on Trip Advisor reading reviews to make sure you get the best place for your requirements.  Eco-tourists and birders spend even more time reading trip reports to figure out where the birds are best seen and what time of year to go there.  It’s a LOT of work……………but so rewarding!  I always have a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when I put it all together and get it right.  Occasionally I get it wrong, but I put so much research into my trips I’d say 99% of the time I do get it right.

What do you think?  Do you enjoy the planning as much as the actual trip?  Or do you want a machine to do the planning for you?  Would virtual reality spoil the adventure for you?  For birders, where do you draw the line?  For me, a David Attenborough documentary whets my appetite to be there in person.  Would Google Glass be going too far and negate the reason to travel?  Read through Skyscanner’s website and tell me what you think!

 

Planning Your Birding Adventure In Western Australia

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Now that you know how to use miles to get to Australia and use Perth as a gateway city, what you really want to know is how to get out in the bush where the birds are!  Fortunately, Australia is an amazingly easy country to travel around in.  It’s safe, everyone speaks English and the tourism infrastructure is excellent!  All you need is a well-researched plan and a car to get there.

IMG_5126MAKE YOUR PLAN

1.  Determine what species of birds you want to see.  Bear in mind that no matter what species you are targeting, you will find many other species in the same location.  In my case, although I was really keen to see wild Parrots, I was very happy to see that other species such as Fairy-wrens and Bowerbirds were also within reach.

2.  Use guide books such as “Parrots of the World” by Joseph Forshaw and “The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia” by Graham Pizzey & Frank Knight to determine where these species can most easily be found.  These books have maps to help you formulate an itinerary.  Although I prefer Kindle/eBooks for casual reading, with a field guide you really need the hard copy to be able to compare the birds you see to the images in the book.  Don’t worry if you don’t know all the species.  As long as you get a decent photo, you can always look them up!  You can buy these books on Amazon.com if you don’t have them already.

3.  Use other internet resources to find out where the birds have been seen most recently.  These may be Facebook or Twitter contacts, blogs like Miles to the Wild or trip reports on Surfbirds.  Google the scientific name of the bird + “report”.  For example if you Google “Neophema petrophila report” gets you this and “Neophema petrophila sightings” gets you this.  If you have destinations in mind from researching the field guides, you can get better results by Googling “Neophema petrophila Esperance” such as these.  Do an Eremaea search on the locations to see what other birds are commonly found there.  Here’s an example of “Eremaea Esperance“.  This will help you allocate how many days you want to spend there.  Spend more time if the destination has more of the species you are targeting.

This step can be very time consuming as you need to research each species you want to see individually but it is well worth it as you will save lots of time once you are traveling and you can travel independently which saves you lots of money and gives you more choices as to when, where & how you want your birding adventure to happen!

4.  Once you have a list of your favourite species and have discovered where other people have been seeing them, choose some locations that have a nice variety of species and string them together using Google Maps.  You should get a rough idea of how many kilometres you will be traveling, then allow some extra for traveling to and from your accommodation and traveling around the National Parks and Sanctuaries.  This is what my final itinerary looked like.  Although the point-to-points were 3360 km, by the time I returned my rental car, it had clocked around 4400 km!  This probably looks very complicated right now, but as I continue with my birding in Western Australia series, you will see how it all fits together.

Western Australia birding itinerary focused on seeing wild parrots.

So there is a very basic idea of how to plan your itinerary.  Next, you will need a car, accommodation and a budget so stay tuned!

2014 – What Lies Ahead This Year?

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Last year, I asked people to resolve to see at least one new bird habitat and showed you which ones I was planning to visit.  I hope many of you accomplished this, enjoyed your trip and saw lots of beautiful, interesting birds!  I got to all the ones I had planned on plus a few extra ones thanks to a US Airways special deal.  So what do I have planned for this year?

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BIRDING AUSTRALIA

In 2014, my birding travel will focus more on Australia.  I am often asked why I don’t travel more domestically since I live in a country with 842 bird species, including over 50 parrots.  The answer to that is that I have been focusing on long-haul destinations because I have been lucky enough to get in on some very lucrative miles & points earning opportunities.   I’ve been able to afford travel to places that would normally be way out of reach.  Since miles and points are prone to devaluations, I wanted to use these miles as effectively as possible, which basically means overseas travel.

Although I have put it off a few years, 2014 is my year to see more of the fantastic country I live in and see more of our native birds!  We will be visiting 3 regions, southern Western Australia, Tasmania & outback Queensland.

February-March 2014 Tour

EDUCATION

The other thing I will be focusing on this year is education.  I will be attending two major parrot conferences.

Parrots 2014 in Brisbane

Right in my home town, no travel required-for me anyways!

World Parrot Conference in Loro Parque. Tenerife

I used US Dividend Miles, United Miles & Iberia Avios to book award travel with some very interesting stopovers.  But more about those later!  For now, just get your travel booked to Tenerife (TFN) as flights there are limited!  By the time we do this trip, US Airways will have left Star Alliance and joined One World so hopefully there will be no dramas with the trip!

THIS BLOG’S DIRECTION

I still need to start the India & Sri Lanka series from last month’s trip which should bring us up to date before the Australian trip.  Of course this will be blogged about in depth as well.  I still have some birding trips I did in the past that I haven’t blogged about so I will be getting those done as well.  I will be doing more bird profiles with “how to” instructions for seeing the bird in the wild.  I’ll also continue to keep you up to date with the miles & points world and keep you aware of any good deals that would help you create an amazing eco-tourism adventure.  Eco-Lite Mini Trips will continue with some exotic ones and some closer to (some people’s) home.

What I won’t be doing (that other miles & points blogs do) is going into depth on credit cards & manufactured spending.  I’ll let you know which credit cards can help you get that amazing trip in a reference page that will be updated for this year soon.  You will also need to read FlyerTalk to make sure you get the best deal because don’t keep up with these deals on a daily basis so you will always have to do some checking yourself.

I don’t have any affiliate marketing deals with any credit cards.  I do have the same referrals that any card-holder has for Australian Amex, USA SPG Amex, Chase Freedom & Chase Sapphire.  These give me points if you let me send you an invitation, then you can wait for your own link and invite/refer your family members.  If you are interested, post a comment here or Tweet me.

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Manufactured spend can be a good source of miles and points but it’s not without a lot of risks so I prefer to direct people to FlyerTalk if that is their interest.  I’m not much of a risk taker (with money) and I don’t want to recommend people do things I wouldn’t do myself to earn miles & points.

That about covers my plans for this year.  What are yours? *

*If the human verification is giving you trouble, please Tweet me so I know about it.

Too Good To Resist!

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Yesterday I blogged some fantastic deals, one of which was the US Airways 25% rebate on awards.  There is a cap of 30,000 miles which is still a nice round-trip from Brisbane to Tahiti or Rarotonga or any other Pacific Island.

I have had a trip to India and Sri Lanka in the works but planned for 2015, not later this year.  I spent all day yesterday and most of today scrambling to see if I could squeeze in a brief version of the 3 week trip I had planned.  We just got back from Central America and needed a bit of a breather to replenish the travel budget.  Miles and points don’t cover everything, we still have to pay for eco-lodges, public transport, park fees and guide fees.  I was able to scale back to a 12 day trip and still get all the endemic parrot species and lots of other bird species.  I spent hours reading trip reports on Surfbirds, researching bus and train routes and accommodation.  We don’t have a lot of time to play with since we are planning a birding trip to Australia in Feb & March and award seats are rare during the holidays so we needed to do it before school let out in Dec.  We also needed a buffer to save some more cash as many of the places we are going to don’t take credit cards.  I don’t post exact dates of my trips before they happen but you can expect to read the reports during school holidays!

IMG_0416The target parrots I will be looking for are:  Alexandrine Parakeet, Malabar Parakeet, Plum-headed Parakeet, Vernal Hanging Parrot, Emerald-collared Parakeet, Sri Lankan Hanging Parrot and the ever-present Rose-ringed Parakeet.

The reserves and sanctuaries I want to visit are:  SAI Sanctuary, Wayanad National Park, Mudumalai NP, Kitugala and Sinharaja.

Yesterday, I used the United Airlines tool to identify available seats, then called US Airways to put them on hold.  Today, after completing my research and “making it work”, I called them back to issue the tickets.  We have Thai Airways outbound, Singapore Airlines on the return and a 16 hour layover in Singapore so we can pay a visit to Jurong Bird Park.  We’re in business class too – why not when we are getting a rebate of 30,000 miles!

Tomorrow, I will resume my series on Belize, thank you for your patience!

Planning The “Mother Of All African Adventures” With Miles

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In my five year plan, I had Africa penciled in for 2017.  Two shorter trips to India & Sri Lanka in Feb and the Marquesas in Oct-ish were penciled in for 2015.  I decided to swap them around because the trip to Africa is far more vulnerable to the frequent flier mile game than the others are, also because the Africa trip is best done with United miles ex-Australia.  With United, you can have both a stop-over and an open jaw and I will probably need to make use of at least one of these.  This is my tentative award itinerary, not the actual dates but I just experimented with what was available.  I have a stop-over in Accra and an open jaw between Kilimanjaro and Johannesburg.

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This is what it will cost for 2 tickets in Y with the taxes.  I don’t think I can get the extra 100k for business class without considerable extra expense.

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I will still need some other airline tickets.  From Kilimanjaro, we need to get to Madagascar.  The easiest way to do this is with Kenya Airways.  Depending on schedules and layover rules we could either fly from Kilimanjaro-Nairobi-Antananarivo or take the bus to Dar Es Salam and then to Nairobi-Antananarivo.  Theoretically, we should also be able to use a combination of Ethiopian and South African Airways to go Kilimanjaro-Addis Ababa-Johannesburg-Antananarivo but South African Airways doesn’t seem to release ANY awards at all on this segment.

Flying Blue (Air France & KLM’s program) would require 17,500 miles each for the one way award that would otherwise cost $1400 for both of us.  Hopefully I can get an Amex with enough MR (Membership Rewards) points to transfer to Flying Blue.

Next we need a flight from Antananarivo to Mauritius.  This will have to be a cash ticket as only Air Madagascar and Air Mauritius fly this route.  I can use IHG points for a free room here.

From Mauritius, we will go to Port Elizabeth via Johannesburg because there is an amazing bird park there I would like to revisit called Birds of Eden.  I can use the BOGO award from my Club Carlson Visa to get 2 nights at the Radisson Blu for 38,000 points.  Flights on South African Airways are 12,500 United miles each Y class or we might have to buy up to J class if Y is not available.  Current research shows J is easier to get than Y on this route.

Domestic flights within South Africa are cheap enough so we will fly back to Johannesburg, pick up a rental car and revisit the wonderful northern Kruger Park I have been blogging about and Magoebaskloof which is next on the blogging list.  If I need hotels in Johannesburg due to flight schedules both IHG and Club Carlson have properties.

IN SUMMARY

BNE-ACC-JRO/-JNB-BNE 200,000 United miles.  I have the miles already.

JRO/DAR-NBO-TNR 35,000 Flying Blue miles.  I need an Amex with Membership Rewards in my next churn.

TNR-MRU have to pay cash.

MRU-JNB-PLZ 25,000 or 50,000 United Miles depending on class of service.  Planning to add an Ink Plus in my next churn to cover this.

PLZ-JNB cash tickets are cheap.

Can use hotel points in Mauritius, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg.  Otherwise will be eco-lodges in parks or whatever else I can find at a good price.

Recap – Building Your Eco-Tourism Adventure

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Over the past couple of weeks, I have shown you the different elements to consider when building your customized ecotourism adventure and how to facilitate it with miles and points so you have more to spend on the eco-lodges and supporting the local economies.  During the course of this blog, I will be adding MANY destinations that are ideal for birders and eco-travelers in general but this is a good start!

 

1.  Identify the goal of your trip.  What bird species are you most interested in?  Are birds the only focus or do you want other animals too?  Use the right guidebooks and resources to help you plan.  Use the maps in the book to help you locate the best places to see your target species.

2.  Be familiar with airline alliances.  There are 3 alliances:  Star Alliance, One World and Sky Team.  Know which one can get you to your destination as easily and cheaply as possible.  Check this example of using miles to get to Lima, Peru.  Know how to use airline partners such as credit cards, online shopping malls and services you already use such as phone companies, internet providers, supermarkets and insurance companies to get free miles for paying for things you already use.  Don’t shop more, shop smarter!  Check the resources tab at the top of this blog for advice on this.

3.  Know how to save money by using hotel points for free nights at the gateway city before you head off into the bush.  Depending on your flight schedule, you may need a gateway hotel in your home country before the flight and/or the destination country between your international connection and domestic flight to the staging point.  See this example of Lima, Peru.

4.  Research how exactly you get to your main destination.  Can you fly?  Drive?  Take a bus or riverboat?  Or maybe a combination?  What do you have to pay for and what is included in the cost of your eco-lodge’s package.  See this example of Tambopata National Reserve for ideas on how to do this.

5.  Know how to choose an eco-lodge in an area where there are many options available.  How do you find the various options?  See this example of Tambopata National Reserve’s lodges and how I analyzed an area where there are a lot of choices and sorted them out by my priorities.

6.  Read as many reviews as possible of the lodges and try to get a feel of the people who posted them.  For example, one lodge may get a bad review because they were too remote and hard to get to by someone who likes more of a bar/social scene.  Or one lodge may get a bad review because there were or were not facilities for kids.  Trip Advisor, Fat Birder and Surfbirds all have lodge reviews or trip reports from people of all walks of life so try to find reviews by people who are similar to you.  Here is a review I did for Tambopata Research Center.  My priorities were sustainable, helping conservation efforts, abundance of parrots and other birds and preferably adults or at least teens only(no small kids).  Remoteness, social life not an issue but I did need to keep in a budget.  They have packages of various sizes to suit most anyone.

7.  If you don’t know, don’t be afraid to ask questions!  Use the comments on any of my posts if you have a specific question or want to request advice on a specific location.