Luxury Wildlife Encounters

Every region has its own season, and the same reserve can feel entirely different from one month to the next. The Great Migration reaches the Masai Mara from around July to October. Olive Ridley turtles come ashore at Ostional in their thousands over a few nights at a time.

Each of our picks centers on a different animal, from leopards in the Sabi Sands to jaguars on the Pantanal’s rivers. For a deeper look at Africa, see our luxury African safaris page.

Your expert will match the month to the wildlife you want to see and will tell you plainly when a month is wrong for it.

Botswana

Floodwater reaches the Okavango Delta during Botswana‘s dry winter, so the delta is at its fullest between June and August.

Game concentrates on the islands, and a mokoro, a traditional poled canoe, brings you quietly to elephants at the water’s edge.

Our Delta to Desert safari and Okavango and Victoria Falls journey both start here.

Latin America

Brazil‘s Pantanal is widely considered the most reliable place to see wild jaguars, usually by boat between July and October. Our Pantanal moment is built around these river safaris.

In Costa Rica, we arrange visits to the arribada at Ostional with a biologist.

In the Galápagos, a naturalist guide accompanies every landing on our Peru and Galápagos journey.

Season comes first. We plan around migration windows, nesting cycles and flood levels.

Access comes next. On private conservancies, a guide can follow an animal off-road and stay with a sighting for as long as it lasts, without a line of vehicles behind you.

Early starts are part of wildlife travel, so we build in quiet afternoons at the lodge and keep transfers between camps short, often by light aircraft.

We also consider the ethics of every encounter. We do not include animal rides or captive interactions, and we favor lodges that put revenue into conservation and local communities.