Oct 9th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Uganda's hotels are facing tough times. Despite their country having top attractions such as Nile rafting trips, the Great Rift Valley, and safaris in the many national parks filled with wildlife, the average hotel is running at only 50 percent capacity. Adding to this problem is that wealthy Ugandans don't go for internal tourism, preferring to jet off to more exotic destinations like Europe. ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
elephants posts
Uganda hotels to charge less for locals
Oct 9th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Uganda's hotels are facing tough times. Despite their country having top attractions such as Nile rafting trips, the Great Rift Valley, and safaris in the many national parks filled with wildlife, the average hotel is running at only 50 percent capacity. Adding to this problem is that wealthy Ugandans don't go for internal tourism, preferring to jet off to more exotic destinations like Europe. ...Photo of the Day (10.14.2010)
Aug 14th, 2010 at 12:01PM:
This shot looks like it could be a still from a sweeping epic. Out of the frame there could be a colonial settler, a rugged man with a breeze blowing through his dark hair.... Maybe he has a lady far away that he's thinking of - perhaps she's back in Europe? Or was she lost to malaria? Yes, I think that's it. Maybe this handsome young man was all set to shoot an elephant, but then he ...India's Kaziranga National Park has world's highest tiger population
May 1st, 2010 at 9:00AM: Zoologists studying at Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India, have declared that it has the greatest density of tigers in the world--32.64 per 100 square kilometers, in fact. By way of comparison, Corbett Tiger Reserve, which is in the number two slot, has "only" 19.6 per 100 square kilometers.
Park officials say there's such a healthy population because of the large amount of tasty wildlife ...Namibia clamps down on poaching in national parks
Apr 13th, 2010 at 9:00AM: There's been a rise in poaching in Southern Africa in recent years. Hunters are killing rare animals and selling their pelts, ivory, and other body parts to a multibillion dollar international network of dealers. The southwestern African nation of Namibia, however, has managed to avoid this trend.
This is due to strong criminal penalties and new measures implemented by the Ministry of ...Mozambique attracting more tourists
Apr 4th, 2010 at 10:00AM: Mozambique is enjoying a tourism boom, but it falls short of what officials in the large southeast African nation hoped for. According to the latest figures, tourism earned the nation $195 million last year, up $10 million from the previous year. This figure only accounts for hotels and other easily tracked income, not money spent in shops or for informal tours. More than 1.5 million people are ...Saving elephants in Chad
Jan 15th, 2010 at 3:30PM: Central Africa is one of the last regions with a sizable population of African elephant, but their numbers are only a fraction of what they used to be. In Zakouma National Park in Chad there are an estimated 600 elephants. Twenty years ago there were 40,000. Zakouma takes up 3,000 square kilometers of savanna in southern Chad and has populations of elephants, giraffes, lions, cranes, and other ...Nepali festival features elephant football
Dec 30th, 2009 at 1:00PM: The annual Chitwan Elephant Festival in Nepal always brings large crowds to honor South Asia's favorite animal. This year, as this funny video shows, visitors were treated to a football match between two teams of elephants. That's football in the Nepali sense, meaning soccer, not American football. Thankfully the elephants weren't tackling each other. The festival has been going on for six years ...Health tourism is big business for Ghana
Nov 6th, 2009 at 8:30AM: Ghana is not a big tourism magnet. Unlike other African countries that offer wild safaris and impressive archaeological remains, this West African nation has relatively few attractions to offer international visitors. But that's changing under a new plan to promote health tourism. As the name implies, health tourism involves more than recharging your batteries on some serene beach. It's a chance ...Seven jobs that may soon disappear: Travel to where they are while you can
Sep 1st, 2009 at 12:30PM: With Labor Day approaching, as we think of work, consider the culturally significant jobs in the world that may not be around in the future. Here is a look at seven that are hallmarks of particular regions.
First up. Traditional Glass Blower. In one of the furnace rooms at Cam Fornace in Murano, Italy, a short water bus hop from Venice, is a black and white photo from the 1920s (or thereabouts). ...Adventure destination: Chitwan National Park, Nepal
Jun 22nd, 2009 at 8:30AM: When travelers think about Nepal, the first thing that comes to mind is the towering peaks of the Himalaya and some of the best trekking on the planet. The tiny mountain kingdom is the home of Mt. Everest and the Annapurna Circuit, but many visitors are surprised to find that the country has a subtropical lowland area, and that there is an amazing national park there. Chitwan National Park is ...Seven Endangered Species You Can Still See in the Wild
Mar 30th, 2009 at 8:00AM: There is no doubt that we are fascinated with wildlife. We love to watch diverse and interesting animals, preferably in their natural habitats, and we're often willing to travel to remote places, sometimes at great expense, to see them. If you enjoy the kind of travel that allows for these kinds of animal encounters, they you'll want to check out BootsnAll's list of the Seven Endangered Species ...Photo of the Day (11-19-08)
Nov 19th, 2008 at 6:00PM:
Yes, this is an elephant balanced on its trunk. David and Chi who captured this image at the Musée and Domaine nationales of the Castle of Fontainebleau in France said this sculpture was part of a larger exhibit. What a wonderful use of a castle. The exhibit looks like it may have been like a trip to some strange wonderland.
Unfortunately, the exhibit ended on November 17. My ...Face to Face with West Africa's Wildlife
Oct 10th, 2008 at 11:30AM: The Penjari Biosphere is a wildlife preserve in a remote corner of the West African nation of Benin. Like many such wildlife areas, it struggles with poachers and environmental problems, but tourism, in the form of photo safaris like the one in the video, is an important source of income for the area. Even the most jaded tourist, wary of tourist traps and non-authentic experiences, would find a ...
Elephants that paint
Apr 13th, 2008 at 12:00PM: On Anderson Cooper 360° last week, there was a brief video of a elephant painting a picture in Thailand as part of a show geared towards tourists. I wonder if this is a new trick? When I was in Chiang Mai a few years back, we went to Mae Taeng Elephant Park on a tour that included elephant, ox-cart and raft rides. I don't recall the painting demo. I do recall one elephant putting a foot on a ...
Clubbing and elephant-feeding, all in one night
Jan 20th, 2008 at 10:00AM: Here's one quirky thing about Bangkok. In the Nana red-light district, it's not surprising to see go-go dancers next to an elephant handler. Each night, you'll find on average half a dozen elephants roaming the streets of Bangkok. Their handlers, known as mahouts, go about trying to get tourists to buy on-hand treats, such as sugar cane, for the elephants. It turns out to be a pretty lucrative way ...The World's Craziest Sports
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:30PM:
Forbes Traveler is running an interesting story on what they're calling the world's craziest sports, including chess boxing, typewriter tossing, cheese chasing, camel wrestling, and something called kabaddi, an Asian sport that's a mix between the popular children's game of tag, and swimming -- without the water. The game "involves trying to 'tag' members of an opposing team and making it back ...Goodbye Elephants in Zoos
Apr 6th, 2006 at 10:01AM: A sad, sad story right out of my backyard.
Looks like keeping elephants around isn't as easy as it might seem. Turns out they eat a lot and need lots of room to
roam. Who knew? And so it goes at the Bronx zoo where officials there have decided that they will shut down
their elephant exhibits when the animals they currently have die. The zoo has an their playful pachyderms on display
for almost a ...Vengeful Pachederms
Feb 20th, 2006 at 11:19AM: Here's a short, true story. Years
ago when I was traveling in the middle part of Thailand, near a town called Kanchanaburi. I made a visit to a National Park there famous for its wild
elephants. I went out in a Jeep late one night with a small group of folks and a big spotlight, and we came upon a herd
of wild elephants hanging out at a watering hole...or maybe it was a salt lick. I forget. No ...
