Guests stay close to nature — and elephants — at Sanctuary Baines’ Camp,
near the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. Photos provided
Learn more about travel options at Beer Bon Voyage and Caligo Ventures
By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley
African Gems
Travel Inc.
Delray Beach, 243-2119 (888-290-1099); www.africangemstravel.com/
If destinations such as Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and the Seychelles beckon, you might want to meet Ann Rene McDonnell. She’s owner of African Gems Travel Inc., which she runs out of her condo in east Delray Beach.
Although she specializes in ecologically friendly luxury travel, she says, “We work with all budgets and our clients’ wishes.”
For example, Sharon Dick who lives near Baltimore wanted to go on night hikes in remote jungle areas to see frogs. McDonnell made it happen.
“She customizes and personalizes,” says Dick, who has planned two trips online through AGT.
McDonnell has been in the travel-to-Africa business since 1991. She started her own company in 2006 that books hotels, resorts, camps and lodges.
“Hands down, people go to Africa for the animals,” she says. So she also books safaris in Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. These feature private tours in four-wheel-drive vehicles. At night, you can stay in lodges or in tents.
But don’t think the Boy Scout variety.
The 10 white tents at Joy’s Camp in the Shaba National Reserve of Kenya are decorated with native fabrics and handmade glass. Each sits on a raised platform and includes a bedroom, a bathroom with stone floor, flush toilet and shower with hot running water. You can step out onto a private veranda to see the surrounding hills.
And the five tented accommodations at Sanctuary Baines’ Camp set near the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana feature four-poster beds covered in mosquito net that can be moved outside so you can sleep under the stars. There also are hair dryers and minibars in the “rooms.”
Guests stay close to nature — and elephants — at Sanctuary
Baines’ Camp, near the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. Photos provided
If you want some surf with your safari, there are plenty of choices. The Seychelles is a 115-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
To get up close and personal, sailors may want to charter a bareboat.
McDonnell can arrange one up to 50 feet out of Port Louis in Mauritius or Victoria Harbor in the Seychelles. There are also cabins available on crewed trips.
Elsewhere on the continent, oenophiles can enjoy a wine tour of the vineyards outside Cape Town in South Africa. And those who want to experience nature but not give up luxury can stay at Crater Lodge perched on the edge of the Ngoronjoro Crater in Tanzania.
The lodge rooms feature bathtubs with views of the volcanic expanse, leather-backed chairs in front of a fireplace, floor-to-ceiling windows dressed in raw-silk curtains and hand-beaded chandeliers. You even get a butler to run your bath and keep the fire going.
“It’s a real contrast,” McDonnell says.
Her personal choice? Namibia. She likes its dunes and coastal areas along the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s a less traveled area with fewer crowds,” she says.
But McDonnell is about more than just travel to Africa. She donates 10 percent of her profits to Partners in Health, a nonprofit that brings medical care to Rwanda, Malawi and Lesotho.
Guests of Sanctuary Baines’ Camp tour the countryside, including the Moremi Game Reserve.
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