Botswana Safari Part 1: Intro, Logistics and Camping

Heading for Botswana

I originally made plans to go on my first African safari in the summer of 2020. I would be traveling with my usual photography companion, Alejandro Velarde, as well as another friend, Marcell Puzsar. They had both been to Africa before and had decided that Botswana was the place we should go. I was fine with that and we made our reservations for a 12 day safari starting at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and ending up at Maun in Botswana. Doing some research, I learned that Botswana has the world’s largest elephant population, healthy populations of lions and leopards, and is home to the Okavango Delta – one of the world’s largest inland deltas and a very biodiverse habitat. Even better, the country is safe, sparsely populated, and doesn’t draw the safari crowds commonly seen in other African nations.

We decided on a camping safari (more on that below) to stay close to the wildlife while also keeping costs down. We booked with Savanna Safaris and Tours who are based in Botswana. Our itinerary included stops at Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park, the Savuti, the Khwai Community area, and the Moremi Game Reserve. Of course 2020 ended up being an interesting year, resulting in several reschedules and a few changes in plans. Our tour company was completely supportive and flexible throughout and we made our trip starting at the end of June in 2022.

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2021 Favorites

2021 was once again a year of limited travel. I expected to write more posts during the year as I had extra time near home, but I really struggled with wanting to sit at the computer and write after working all day in that same spot. I have been blessed, though, to live near some really beautiful places in California and Montana and all but one of my favorite images from this year were captured in either Glacier or Yosemite National Parks. I did capture a lot of images that I really like this year, but in the end, these are my 10 favorites and are presented in the order captured.

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Changing Seasons in Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park, Montana — Avalanche Creek

With 2020 being a “work from home” kind of year, I had a chance to work from a different home in Northwest Montana for much of the summer and fall. Being close to Glacier National Park, I was able to photograph several areas of the park through the change of the seasons. Here a a few images from the western side of the park.

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Favorites from 2019

It is always challenging to select my favorite images – especially in a year like 2019 when I had a chance to visit some places I’ve always wanted to see. I made a couple of trips to the southwest in February, photographed bears in Alaska in July, spent some time exploring Montana with my wife in September, and brought the year to a close with some Maui relaxation. Each image, including many that I had to cut from the list, brings back great memories with family and friends. I’ve been sharing my favorite images for several years now, but this is the first time that my list doesn’t include anything from the Bay Area or Yosemite. So with that introduction, here are my favorites from 2019, presented in the order they were taken.

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Katmai Bears

Katmai National Park, Alaska — Alaskan Brown Bear in Katmai National Park

I recently returned from a trip to Alaska, where my main goal was to photograph the Alaskan brown bears during the annual salmon run in Katmai National Park. First, to get this out of the way, grizzly bears are a sub-species of brown bears. The bears in Katmai are considered brown bears and not grizzlies. Per the park’s website the difference is somewhat arbitrary, but grizzlies don’t have access to coastal food sources (like salmon) and tend to be smaller.

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One Day – Waving at Horseshoes

This is the second of my series of posts covering images taken within a single 24-hour period. In addition to the photos, I will include some of the travel, planning, and technical aspects of these trips. The first entry in the series covered a day around Banff, Canada on a winter day.

Today’s entry covers the morning of February 2, 2019 through sunrise the next morning. Trust me though, I am strictly adhering to my 24 hour rule for these posts. I made plans to visit the area along the Utah/Arizona border in early February with a friend. Our primary goals were to visit “The Wave” in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument as well as Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona.

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Jordan and Egypt

Once Sandee and I committed to join a tour group in Israel, we knew we’d have to take advantage of having made the long flight and see some of the other amazing locations in the area. Petra was high on our list, both because it is relatively easy to get to from Israel and because it is such a unique and famous place. If you’ve seen “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” then you have seen Petra. As I started researching tours, I found a reputable company that offered a four day tour of Jordan and Egypt that included Petra, Wadi Rum, and Cairo. How could we resist?

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Touring Israel

Jerusalem, Israel — Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Sandee and I did an 8 day tour in Israel at the beginning of December. We don’t normally do tours as we generally prefer the freedom to explore at our own pace – sometimes even taking days to just relax. In this case we knew we’d have a much better experience having a guide and we had several friends coming along with us, so we took the plunge.

Our’s was a “Bible Experience” tour led by Behold Israel and it was extremely well run. They managed all lodging, transportation and food and all were excellent. Especially the food. We had a full time guide, driver and bus and were joined though most of the tour by Amir Tsarfati who provides great information from both Jewish and Christian perspectives and gave bible lessons from the sites we visited.

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Favorites from 2018

I was very much blessed this year with the opportunity to visit some amazing places, including two “trips of a lifetime” with my wife. I had the chance to spend time in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt along with making a few day trips to Yosemite (my local national park).

This left me with an overabundance of images to choose from for my annual list of favorites. I wanted to include images from a variety of the places I visited, so some photographs I really like have been left on the cutting room floor. Such is life. So here are my choices, presented in the order they were taken.

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One Day – Banff and Yoho

Vermilion Sunrise Burn, Banff, Alberta (Kyle Jones)

I clearly need to post more – I hadn’t realized I’d only written one post this year (although I think it was a pretty good one). In an effort to rectify that, I plan to start a series of posts that each cover a 24-hour period. I’ll see how it goes, but my initial thought is that these will include planning, travel and technical stuff in addition to my normal sharing of photos. Let me know what you think in the comments and I’ll adjust based on feedback.

Today’s entry covers January 27, 2018. I was in Banff with a few friends for a winter photography trip. I’ve traveled with Alejandro many times and it always goes well. We have similar tastes in subjects and trust each other when we make a plan and decide where to shoot. We were joined on this trip by Aron and Matt. I was familiar with the work of each of them but we’d never shot together and I hadn’t even met Matt face-to-face before this trip. Fortunately we all got along really well and we were able to see some beautiful scenes. Continue reading→