Wildlife Trails Traveller Reviews

The primary objective was to photograph the bears fishing for salmon. Katmai lodge was a dream. The location, guides and facilities were excellent. Perry the manager/guide instilled confidence and was always looking to get the best positions and experiences. We were all able to capture some stunning images of the bears, as well as otters, seals, puffins .... We also visited Denali (fantastic scenery) and spent some time in and aroound Anchorage all of which really worked well. Overall a great experience.

This is the second trip we have done with Wildlife Trails. Alan and co have listened to our requirements and created an itinerary that fits. Our group are all keen photographers and he has always had good advice and our best interests in mind. Efficient, helpful and friendly, and infinitely patient as we 'tweaked' the itinerary. We would certainly use them again

Flight and transfers all went to schedule with efficient service from National car rentals. No issues with driving between locations and all suggested timings were accurate. Relatively basic accommodation more than made up for by superb locations. All guides were very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. All tours were excellent and punctual and as the holiday continued, each tour got bet and better with wildlife on our doorstep at the final location. Overall, the holiday exceeded our expectations.

Wildlife trails always responded quickly to any queries which arose during the booking and were keen to ensure that the itinerary suited our needs. We would have no hesitation in using their services again.

An eleven day trip starting and finishing in Entebbe. Three friends travelling together in very comfortable 4x4 with excellent driver/guide. Detailed itinerary planned after discussion of exactly what we wanted with Wildlife Trails. Accommodation a blend of very comfortable lodges and more basic community owned facilities -- all excellent value and matching what we wanted from trip. Spending time in close contact with Chimpanzees and Mountain Gorillas was truly memorable and a highlight of all my wildlife trips.

Superb organisation. Main points that made trip such a success: 1 Itinerary developed by Wildlife Trails to cover exactly what we wanted -- all on fairly short timescale 2. Driver was extremely knowledgeable -- not just knowing sights for big game, but detailed locations for birds which was a prime purpose of our trip. Guide was excellent on bird identification, but also arranged a specialist guide in area where he was not so familiar with restricted range birds. Expertise was way beyond what I expected (and have experienced on trips elsewhere in the world) 3 All organisation showed that Wildlife Trails really knew the area from personal knowledge rather than relying totally on local agents. I can think of nothing that would have improved the trip -- and it is very rare to be able to say that about any holiday.

A tailor-made holiday made up of a three night stopover in Oslo, a 24 hour stopover in Longyearbyen and a ten day expedition cruise around Spitzbergen with connecting flights to and from Manchester. Our central hotel in Oslo allowed easy access to museums, tours, eateries and transport links. It was an excellent "taster visit" to an interesting and fascinating city. There was easily enough to do in Longyearbyen for the time spent there without leaving the town itself. The highlight of the holiday was the ten day expedition cruise around Spitzbergen aboard Oceanwide's ice-breaker, 105 passenger, ship Ortelius, which was well organised and extremely efficiently run. During the trip we were lucky with both the weather and wildlife sightings - we had landings using the Zodiacs, daily briefings, professional advice, experience and knowledge from the multi-lingual guides, plus excellent and friendly service from the ship's crew. The cruise managed to cover all aspects and interests, including several polar bear sightings especially amongst the drift ice (one even walked up to the ship's side), walrus haul-outs, various bird colonies, whale and seal sightings, local fauna, glaciers and moraines plus the remains of various projects since arctic exploration began. All in all an amazing trip.

The holiday was arranged with personal phone calls and e-mails direct to the same person all the time, who therefore knew the background to the holiday. Having given them the outline of 'We would like to see polar bears', we had feedback from Allan of Wildlife Trails followed with discussions on the best way to achieve it. Calling on the experience of a cruise taken earlier by Allan, an expedition cruise was decided on, rather than the "Churchill Tundra Buggy" option. We then discussed the best time of the year to take the cruise, and the amount of time to spend in Longyearbyen, I then decided on adding a stopover in Oslo, so using their experience a central hotel was found for the stay, and the airport hotel for the trip back. As an added problem Allan also managed to arrange for a friend to join us on the holiday with just a couple of months prior to departure date!! We had a couple of minor problems whilst we were away, both of which were immediately dealt with and Allan got back to confirm actions within fifteen minutes. Wildlife Trails offer a very personal and efficient service which we have now used three times for holidays in different continents and have been extremely satisfied each time.

My wife and I travelled on a private safari to see Komodo dragons in Indonesia, and on to Sabah. Komodo and Rinca Island were well worth the effort ,the dragons are well worth seeing, and the time on the boat was tremendous, with stunning scenery and great snorkelling. The captain’s culinary skills were a surprise bonus. All of the lodges within Sabah were excellent, but with their own, different personalities The Rainforest lodge offers real comfort and the opportunity for good wildlife viewings, we even had a brief sighting of two Pygmy elephants en route to the lodge. Macaques greeted us as we arrived, and Dean, our guide at the lodge was excellent. Tabin is a birder’s paradise, and we saw 6 species of hornbill during our stay. Israel was our guide and was an expert birder. Gibbons were to be seen on some mornings, and the sound of their calling across the forest was memorable. The trails between the Primary, secondary rainforest and palm plantations gave opportunities for good sightings during dusk, and night drives, including Civet, flying squirrels and a number of leopard cats. Forest walking yielded our first Orang Utan sighting, a young male, a bit miffed at being stung by some bees. Myne lodge stands out for us as we love boats and we had a number of OU sightings including one great one, spending over an hour watching an older male feeding from a Ficus tree. More macaques than you can shake a stick at, and good Proboscis monkey watching too. No elephants around for us though. Special mention to Maik, our main guide and companion for our time in Sabah. Excellent guide, knowledgeable, resourceful, and with a great sense of humour. Lankayan Island is truly a paradise. A great way to relax after an arduous trip, more excellent snorkelling,and we were lucky enough to witness newly hatched Hawksbill turtles being released to make their way to the sea.

We have travelled many times now with Wildlife Trails, and have had some memorable experiences within Asia, Africa, Canada, the Arctic circle and South America. Allan and his team have always come up with an itinerary, customised to our needs. The fact that we have come back so many times says it all.

This is the best holiday we have ever been on. We love bears and all wildlife. We can honestly say the 24 days were just adrenalin filled. Every moment was an experience never to be forgotten. Getting up close and personal with bears fishing, swimming, snorkelling, playing, mothers with their cubs and so much more. Humpback whales coming up close to our boat, so close you could smell their blow! Riding the bow with dall porpoise. Sea otters with their babies, and calving glaciers cashing in the sea! Amazing! I also need to mention the guides at Katmai Wilderness Lodge who were just amazing. Perry was an outstanding guide keeping us safe but making sure we had the ultimate experience!

Really helpful. Listened very carefully to what I wanted, helping me put together the best package for our ultimate trip of a life time.

Following a hectic but enjoyable 24 hours in New York we (a family of four with two teenage boys) flew to Cuiaba in Brazil where we were met by Eduardo our highly-rated naturalist driver, boatman and personal guide for a week of wildlife watching in The Pantanal, Brazil’s great wetland wilderness. We were expecting South America’s greatest wildlife experience and we were not disappointed. Eduardo ensured that we had very close views of all the Pantanal ‘Big Five’ (jaguar, giant otter, giant anteater, yellow anaconda and hyacinth macaw) and also two ocelot. The sheer abundance of wetland wildlife was astonishing from the towering jabiru storks to the hordes of caimans in and around the drying pools. We then flew to Rio from where we were driven to Serra dos Tucanos, a small lodge for birders in the Tres Picos State Park in the heart of the Atlantic rain forest, approximately 100 km north-east of Rio. This provided very comfortable accommodation (four nights) and a pool in stunning surroundings, making it an ideal place to relax after the heat of the Pantanal. The birding was exceptional even within 50 acre lodge grounds and the many bird feeding stations, with their hordes of colourful tanagers and hummingbirds, must rival the best in the world. The holiday ended with a day’s city tour of Rio which made fitting finale to a wonderful and diverse holiday.

Our holiday was arranged by Allan Blanchard, the owner and founder of Wildlife Trails, a specialist wildlife tour operator. This was our second holiday with them. As previously, the itinerary was well thought through, the accommodation well-chosen and the arrangements all worked perfectly. However, what sets Wildlife Trails apart, in our experience, is the attention to detail at the planning stage: the iterative process of tailoring the itinerary to match exactly the requirements of the client, which Allan makes part of the total holiday experience. The end product is a truly ‘bespoke’ trip. The three lodges we stayed at in The Pantanal were all excellent in their different ways and together provided a diverse range of experiences from boat trips, night drives to look for nocturnal animals, horse riding and swimming pools which combined to keep all the family happy. It was also pretty cool to start our trip with a city tour of New York and finish with a tour of Rio; how many families do that?!

For the serious wildlife photographer Alaska is a paradise with stunning scenery, bears, whales and amazing birdlife . It is impossible to do it justice in a few weeks. I decided to spend 3 weeks concentrating on the puffins on St Paul Island, the whales in Auke Bay and the bears in Katmai National Park. Some of these places are very remote and Wildlife Trails sorted out the logistics of my trip and made helpful recommendations. They were able to put a bespoke trip together for me at substantially less than packages I had found on the web. I was lucky enough to see a huge amount of wildlife including grizzlies fighting over a dead moose, Orcas making a kill, humpbacks breaching, countless cute Arctic fox cubs, tufted and horned puffins and sea otters. As a result I got stunning photos which can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22918294@N04/sets/72157634873113206/ .

Wildlife trails were able to put together a complicated itinerary which required a lot of planning over several months. They worked very hard to find and book suitable international flights for me so I would not have to transit in the USA. entry to the States in Anchorage was very quick (15 minutes) and courteous. They worked very hard in looking at suitable places for me to do a week's whale watching. They booked a package for me to visit St Paul Island which was a great place to see puffins and foxes. They cam up with a very good recommendation for a place for me to stay in Katmai National Park, the Katmai wilderness lodge, which was first class in every respect.