As we humans squabble over the planet, an escape into the world of wildlife may never have felt more appealing. But, inspired by all those Attenborough blockbusters, it can be tricky to choose that trip of a lifetime. Should you opt for a sure-fire classic, such as the Serengeti migration, or try something more offbeat, such as tramping Patagonia for pumas?
Some wildlife holidays focus on a single species, such as tigers or gorillas. Others are more about immersing yourself in a particular environment, such as a desert, to see what nature brings. Either way, the experience can take many forms, from safari jeep to hiking trail or expedition cruise, and you can do it with expert guides or – in some places – by yourself.
The good news is that the more we travel to watch wildlife, the more the world has an incentive to protect it. Every continent has its highlights. Here are – arguably – the 20 finest.
Europe
1. Bears and wolves in Finland’s forests
Europe lost its big predators centuries ago. Or so you thought. But hole up in a hide in eastern Finland and you’ll realise that’s not quite true. Brown bears are the main event, emerging from the forest to root around in front of you. Dusk and dawn may also bring wolves, loping through the half-light, and perhaps a rare wolverine. Meanwhile, there are drumming woodpeckers, bugling cranes and the therapeutic joy of simply sitting still, watching and waiting.
How to do it
Taiga Spirit offers a six-night Special Mammals Wildlife Week, including three nights in bear-watching hides plus guided excursions for other wildlife, from €1,570pp (£1,364), excluding international flights.
2. Birdlife spectacular in the Danube Delta
A lunging flotilla of white pelicans corral fish into the shallows, while purple herons stalk the reed-beds, bee-eaters flutter overhead and an otter slips quietly through the lilies. With the chorus of frogs, the wriggle of water snakes and the dusk wailing of jackals, you could be somewhere exotic. But this is Romania’s Danube Delta: a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Europe’s most prolific wildlife wetland. A houseboat offers the best experience.
How to do it
Wildlife Travel offers a nine-night houseboat tour of the Danube Delta from £2,390pp, including international flights.
3. Polar bears in Svalbard
Everyone is gathered on deck as your ship nudges through the pack ice, cameras trained on a polar bear that stands beneath the glacier, sniffing the frigid air. You’ve already spied a pod of surfacing belugas, watched countless little auks in clifftop colonies and tramped the tundra past staring reindeer, but this is the sighting you’ve waited for. Few A-list animals come with a grander backdrop than the fabled Lord of the Arctic.
How to do it
Aqua-Firma offers an 11-day North Spitsbergen Arctic Sailing Voyage in a three-masted schooner from €4,990pp (£4,335), excluding international flights.
Africa
4. The Serengeti’s great migration
Not for nothing is this called the greatest wildlife show on earth. Countless wildebeest span the horizon, driven inexorably onward by distant rains and the promise of fresh grazing. Danger is everywhere – lions lurking in the long grass, cheetahs chasing down stragglers, crocodiles lining the riverbanks – but still the herds keep moving, joined by their outriders: zebras, topi and gazelles. Vultures patrol above as the circle of life plays out before you on Africa’s most panoramic stage.
How to do it
Safari Bookings offers an eight-day Great Migration Safari, including four days in the Serengeti, from £2,319pp, excluding international flights.
5. Walking in Zambia’s valley of the leopards
There is no more intense way to experience the African bush than by walking in it. And nowhere does walking safaris better than Zambia’s Luangwa Valley. Big game sightings are not guaranteed – it’s as much about tracks, trees and bird calls – but afterwards, a game drive feels like watching wildlife on TV. Whether you’re following leopard prints along a riverbed, identifying hyena scat or retreating from an oncoming elephant, you will seldom have felt so alive.
How to do it
Expert Africa offers a seven-night guided walking safari in South Luangwa from £5,730pp, excluding international flights.
6. Gorilla trekking in Uganda
Meeting the eyes of a wild mountain gorilla leaves a lasting impact. Perhaps it’s the sense of awe at that slumbering power, or perhaps it’s the pull of some ancient primate connection. Either way, your sweaty forest climb is soon forgotten as you crouch among these endangered apes while they quietly do their thing. A guided hike in Uganda’s Bwindi National Park allows you one precious hour with a habituated troop. It’s an hour you’ll never forget.
How to do it
Volcanoes Safaris offers a seven-night gorilla and chimpanzee safari, taking in the Bwindi and Queen Elizabeth National Parks, with trekking permits, from $9,280pp (£6,842), excluding international flights.
7. Tracking desert rhinos in Namibia
Namibia’s landscapes are as stirring as its wildlife, with towering sand dunes and sculpted monuments of sandstone and dolomite. In the arid wilderness of Damaraland, you can enjoy the best of both, tracking down rare black rhinos and unique desert-adapted elephants, while seeking out the special creatures that thrive in these conditions, from oryx and brown hyenas to such fascinating smaller fare as shovel-snouted lizards and fog-basking beetles. At night, the desert starscapes are unbeatable.
How to do it
Yellow Zebra Safaris offers a 10-day desert flying safari that includes four days in Damaraland, plus Etosha and Sossusvlei, from $10,369pp (£6,763), excluding international flights.
8. Bizarre is beautiful in Madagascar
The dawn mist rises from the canopy as your guide leads you up the trail. From somewhere ahead comes the unearthly siren wail of the Indri, the island’s largest lemur. Meanwhile, closer at hand, other weird creatures appear: a giraffe-necked weevil, a leaf-tailed gecko, a rainbow-hued panther chameleon that extends a sticky tongue to trap a hapless cricket. Madagascar’s isolation from mainland Africa has given it a cast list of wonderful wildlife found nowhere else on the planet.
How to do it
Rainbow Tours offers a 12-night Madagascar Reef and Rainforest tour, taking in wildlife, beaches and snorkelling, from £4,725pp, including international flights.
Asia and Oceania
9. Tigers in India
The piercing whistles of spotted deer sound the first alarm. This sets off the grey langur monkeys, with their guttural warning barks. The message is unambiguous: a tiger is approaching. You sit tight in your jeep and wait. And when it appears, padding out onto the track in front of you, the entire forest seems to shrink to this single blazing point of power and grace. It’s an awesome animal: the very apex of apex predators.
How to do it
Wildlife Worldwide offers a 15-night tiger safari taking in three key reserves in Madhya Pradesh from £5,495pp, excluding international flights.
10. Orangutans in Borneo
Orangutan is Malay for “old man of the forest”. Sadly, the forests that shelter this endangered ape are fast disappearing. But in Sabah’s Danum Valley and along the nearby Kinabatangan River, you can still meet one in its natural habitat, manoeuvring through the branches with remarkable agility on long, shaggy limbs, or quietly contemplating the universe while munching on a breadfruit. Look out, too, for the likes of crocodiles, pythons and lorises in this prolifically biodiverse corner of the world.
How to do it
Naturetrek offers an 11-day tour of Sabah, including rainforest reserves, boat trips and an orangutan rehabilitation centre, from £5,695pp, including international flights.
11. The dragons of Komodo
The Komodo dragon is the world’s largest lizard. This formidable reptile, which may reach three metres, is found on the Indonesian island of Komodo, where it occupies an apex predator role, using a venomous bite to prey on wild pigs, deer and buffalo. Small-boat tours around the archipelago include guided hikes to view the dragons plus some of the world’s finest reef snorkelling, including close encounters with manta rays.
How to do it
Audley Travel offers a 15-day Indonesian Island Explorer tour, taking in the Komodo archipelago and ending in Bali, from £7,270pp, including international flights.
12. Marsupials of Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, is a top spot for Australia’s unique, indigenous mammals. The island is free of the invasive foxes and rabbits that have depleted wildlife on the mainland, so the likes of grey kangaroo and tammar wallaby thrive here, plus smaller delights such as brown bandicoot and short-beaked echidna. Birds range from little penguins to black cockatoos, while a visit to Seal Bay brings close encounters with Australian sea lions, plus possible southern right whales offshore.
How to do it
Intrepid Travel offers the five-day Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail, a guided hike that takes in the best of the island’s wildlife. From £1,739pp, excluding international flights.
North America
13. Brown bears and the salmon run, Alaska
Summer in Alaska’s Katmai National Park sees sockeye salmon fighting their way over the thundering Brooks Falls as they head upstream to spawn. Lying in wait are Alaskan brown bears, perched on the rocks and wading into the rapids to snatch their catch. Over 40 bears may gather at once: an extraordinary spectacle, enjoyed from special viewing platforms, with a majestic backdrop of snow-capped volcanoes, and bald eagles swooping down for leftovers.
How to do it
Journeyscape offers a 16-day self-drive Wildlife and Wilderness tour of Alaska that takes in the bears of Katmai, plus glaciers and whale-watching cruises, from £4,880pp, excluding international flights.
14. The big game of Yellowstone
The world’s first national park, established in 1872, remains one of the most impressive. Here you’ll find most of North America’s large mammals, from grazing herds of elk and bison to wandering grizzly bears and prowling wolf packs. Meadows carpeted with wildflowers host ground squirrels and sandhill cranes, while bighorn sheep roam the peaks and beavers forage along the waterways. Take a guided tour or explore it all by yourself on the many hiking trails and loop roads.
How to do it
American Sky offers a seven-night family-orientated, escorted small-group tour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks from £3,429pp, including international flights.
15. Whale-watching in Baja California
A grey whale nudges her calf alongside your skiff as you circle the warm waters of San Ignacio Lagoon. And that’s just the start of your Baja California cruise. Other cetacean sightings will include mighty blue whales, lively humpbacks and schools of common dolphin over 1,000-strong. On desert islands, you’ll meet California sea-lions along the beach and blue-footed boobies atop the cliffs. And donning mask and snorkel, you’ll slip overboard to meet a whale shark, the world’s biggest fish.
How to do it
Reef and Rainforest offers a nine-day Baja Ultimate Whales wildlife cruise from £4,285pp, excluding international flights.
16. Mexico’s monarch migration
Between January and March, a high-altitude pine forest west of Mexico City hosts one of the world’s great wildlife spectaculars. Millions of monarch butterflies festoon the oyamel fir trees of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, forming a quivering, fluttering coat of orange over trunks and branches. The insects have migrated here from the USA and Canada. Come spring, the next generation will head back north. A short, guided hike or horseback ride takes you to the best viewing spots.
How to do it
Responsible Travel offers a seven-day Monarch Butterfly Migration holiday to Mexico, with a butterfly tour, local history and culture, from £1,985pp, excluding international flights.
South America and Antarctica
17. Galápagos Islands cruise
The beaches of the Galápagos are a wildlife obstacle course: sea-lions lounge in your path, marine iguanas waddle out of the surf and frigate birds swoop on giant wings low overhead. Small wonder that Charles Darwin was so inspired by this unique archipelago. Every island offers a new delight: whether tiptoeing past giant tortoises on Santa Cruz, marvelling at penguins on Fernandina or snorkelling amongst hammerheads off Genovesa. Liveaboard small boat cruises are the way to go.
How to do it
Explore! offers a 10-day Galápagos tour, taking in the central, west and east islands, with seven nights on a liveaboard catamaran, from £4,875pp, excluding international flights.
18. Jaguars of the Pantanal
There is nowhere better than Brazil’s Pantanal to see South America’s greatest predator. A small boat cruise through this vast wetland labyrinth offers superb sightings of these formidable spotted cats, stalking caiman and capybara along the sandbars or simply lounging on the bank, enjoying the river breezes. Other special wildlife abounds, from tapirs and giant river otters to stately jabiru storks and dazzling hyacinth macaws. It’s the continent’s closest equivalent to an African safari.
How to do it
Journey Latin America offers an 11-day Wildlife Brazil holiday, including jaguar-spotting in the Pantanal, plus Iguazu Falls and Rio de Janeiro, from £6,725pp, excluding flights.
19. Pumas in Torres del Paine
A herd of guanacos lift their heads as you pause for a breather. Their eyes are fixed not on you but on a puma, who leads her two cubs along the crest of a windswept ridge. Behind them tower the granite peaks of Torres del Paine, where an Andean condor circles against the snow-capped summits. You shoulder your backpack and continue along the trail – eyes peeled for wildlife in one of South America’s most picturesque wildernesses.
How to do it
Natural World Safaris offer a six-day small-group Puma Tracking Safari in Torres del Paine, staying in unique geodesic domes, from £5,845pp, excluding international flights.
20. Penguins, whales and elephant seals in South Georgia
Only a few species of animal find a home on this remote sub-Antarctic territory, but they do so in breathtaking numbers. Beaches are packed with millions – literally – of king and Macaroni penguins, plus thousands of fur seals and southern elephant seals. Offshore islands host colonies of wandering albatross, which glide over waters where humpback, fin and blue whales break the surface. Add a stunning mountain backdrop, and this is one of the world’s great wildlife spectacles. Visit on an Antarctic cruise.
How to do it
Oceanwide Expeditions offers a 20-night Antarctic Cruise that includes four days in South Georgia, plus the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, from £14,000, excluding international flights.