This video is hilarious! I was curious to see how someone would handle this if it is a problem (no idea if it is). I was thinking “Why doesn’t he simply carry the bag on and watch it as it goes through the x-ray”? Or put some of it in a Scottevest and wear it on the plane?
Most birders will want to be up before dawn to head out to the birding location so how do you find out when sunrise is?
Type in the nearest town. In this case I will search Santa Marta, Colombia to get an idea of sunrise & sunset in El Dorado Reserve. Here are the results for March 2016. You can check any month and year with the drop-down boxes. Looks like if you want to see Santa Marta Parakeets, you will need to leave the lodge by 5am to be in position by 6am. If you want to try for the parakeets coming in to roost for the night, be in position by around 3pm to maximize birding time as this location is up a very bumpy road so you need to take your time.
If you want to go birding overseas but you don’t have a lot of money, you need to put a lot of time and effort into the planning of the trip. After all, more financially advantaged people could simply call a birding tour operator, pay the fee and have everything organized for them! So here’s how I plan my trips.
At this point I am in the miles-collecting stage. I have a bucket list of trips I want to do and which airline’s programs will get us there. It can take awhile to accumulate the miles as Australia is pretty far from everywhere! I’ll be applying for credit cards and directing spend to credit cards that will get us to the planned destinations. I’ll also be maximizing category spends (for example grocery stores with 3 x points per $) and trying for retention bonuses.
I will also be researching key bird species and where to find them, then working out the best place to see them and choosing spots that offer the best bang for my buck – meaning more species in addition to the key species. I’ll be reading reviews of eco-lodges and working out how to book them.
Flights open up for booking around 11 months in advance so since I want to get the best flight with my miles I book as soon as I see them open for sale. I’ll book seat assigments and if the only option involves a bank of 3, I will try to get a free middle seat. I will also have made contact with some eco-lodges and probably made a soft booking with confirmation to come once I have the flights booked. I give preference to lodges that make it easy for me and accept credit card or Paypal for the deposit. I HATE wire transfers as they have every disadvantage you can think of. They cost money in transfer fees, you have to have the cash on hand and you don’t earn miles for them. If bird species can be seen in more than one country, all else being equal, I would choose the country that makes it easier for me to visit – no visa or visa on arrival.
I’ll be booking accommodation using portals to maximize points and paying with miles earning credit cards. I try to stagger them every couple weeks to spread out paying for them. I’d be contacting guides for rough estimates on guiding fees and making any arrangements for permits or national park bookings. If I have a self-drive birding excursion, I’d be booking car rentals around this time.
I’ll be double-checking entry requirements to make sure they didn’t change visa requirements for Australians and applying for any required visas as they are usually only valid for 90-180 days. I usually have all accommodation booked by now although some may be only under deposit. I’ll also be checking eBird for recent bird sightings and making any adjustments necessary.
Final payments are usually due around this time for lodges that I have under deposit. I will start lining up any guides that have to be booked in advance or letting the lodge know that we need one so they can arrange it. I’m still checking eBird and keeping on top of weather issues such as rainy seasons or roads closed by flooding. I’ll start organizing any foreign currency I need to arrive with for taxis and first day expenses. I’ll also be monitoring my flight bookings for changes and checking seat charts to see that they haven’t been changed or no one has taken the middle seat. Since I have pet birds, I will organize my birdsitter around this time.
I’m basically just tying up loose ends by now as everything should be well organized. More monitoring of flights, Trip Advisor, eBird, currency rates. I make sure all my bills are pre-paid until at least the month we get back. I notify banks/credit cards where we are going so we don’t get fraud notices.
If my airline offers online check in, I will do this. We will be packed by this time with all batteries charged and ready to go. I double check the birdsitter and bank accounts to be sure there is enough to cover the cash withdrawals I will be making on the trip. I’ll double check on how we are getting to the airport which is usually by bus unless it’s an early flight in which case we’d get Uber or taxi. I’ll email the first few lodges to reconfirm and remind them we are coming.
All documents will be packed and triple checked as I am paranoid about forgetting something important. We get the house in order and make sure everything is locked up. I like to update any programs on my laptop and iPhone apps before we go and then turn off automatic updates as I don’t want a lengthy download happening someplace with slow internet.
The Zika Virus has been getting a lot of press coverage lately and if you are headed to a country where it is found, you may be wondering if you should cancel your trip. The CDC website has a comprehensive page about Zika, how to avoid it and who should be the most worried. There is a special caution for pregnant women. The map below shows where Zika has been reported.
Zika virus is transmitted to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. These are the same mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya viruses.
So in a nutshell, you want to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes, especially in Zika affected areas but it’s a good practice no matter where you travel to as there are other diseases like malaria & dengue fever.
We will be in 2 countries that have reported Zika – Ecuador & Colombia so you can be sure that we will step up the mosquito bite prevention!
Brazil normally requires a visa from citizens of most countries for which you apply online and have to send your passport to the consulate to have the visa attached. But for one window of opportunity this summer, citizens of countries which have a strong Olympic history will be able to enter Brazil without a visa for maximum 90 days. These countries include the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan.
Although this opportunity is basically intended to support the Olympics in Rio, you do not have to present Olympic tickets to take advantage. So if you want to visit Brazil for eco-tourism & birding and HATE having to apply for visas, now’s your chance! Honestly, I wish I had known about this in time or I would have planned Brazil for this year’s trip as well!
Personally, I would do anything to avoid traveling during the holiday season. It’s so much more stressful with all the crowds and potential weather delays in the northern hemisphere. But if you MUST travel, here’s a nice little slideshow I found. Happy Holidays!
I’ve had this happen a few times even though I am very careful with my credit cards. Usually the bank sends an alert to my email (email works better than texting for me) and even if I am overseas I check my emails and get the alert. I usually do advise them I will be in a certain country so I don’t have cards being declined in awkward situations.
Last weekend, I got one of those unwelcome emails early Sunday morning. We were up early at Rainbow Beach Holiday Park to see any resident birds before the first morning birding excursion. I can get a decent cell signal so I downloaded my emails and got the bad news. Someone had tried to charge over $400 in the UK when I haven’t been there in years! Thankfully the bank caught it. The strange thing is that this card had been in a sock drawer the last few months and only used 4 times in the last week – local BP station, BP station in Gympie (gotta get those Velocity points), Hungry Jack’s, Gympie and the Rainbow Beach Holiday Park to pay for the stay. All of these are pretty innocuous low-rosk businesses in Australia. I have no idea where the hacking took place or how it was done. Maybe I let my guard down because I was in a location I felt safe in. Maybe someone hacked one of those businesses or went through a rubbish bin.
I then had to try to get a good enough signal out to call Citibank in the USA. It took a while but I finally got through and they cancelled the card and agreed to Fedex me a new one to my home in Australia. The card arrive 5 days later so all is well. It could have been worse – I could have been in the middle of the Amazon and not gotten the email for days instead of 3 hours from home. But it was a good wake up call and be careful where I use my cards.
It’s a nice idea in theory – not having to carry bulky passports around and look after them while traveling in the bush. CN Traveler’s article suggests that cloud based passports are the way of the future. I would really love to be able to cut back on documents I have to carry, nothing worse than bulky neck pouches full of documents and wads of cash because credit cards are not widely accepted in certain countries – or at least the remote areas of these countries that eco-tourists get to. I wonder how it works with countries like Brazil and Ghana where you still have to send your passport off to get the visas? What about West Papua where you need a surat jalan to visit remote areas? I’m all for anything that makes the red tape easier but I don’t think it’s going to happen in my travel lifetime!
Over the last few years, we have been concentrating on elaborate overseas birding trips funded by airline miles. Now that the miles opportunities are slowing down, we’ll be doing more road trips out of our home town of Brisbane to birding hotspots. This has always been part of the plan as I mentioned back around New Years. We are actually very lucky in that there are many to choose from within a 3-4 hour drive!
I thought I’d point out a few advantages road trips have over trips that involve flying.
Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging about some cool places you can drive to from Brisbane. We just returned from Lake Coomunda (green dot near Oman Ama) and Karara/Gore/Durikai (red dot). Then I will cover a road trip we did last year which was a bit longer and involved driving to Bowra Station near Cunnamulla (not on this map but to the west of Inglewood), the Stanthorpe/Girraween area (blue dots) and Lamington National Park (purple dot).
This is by no means a complete list of birding hotspots in Queensland, they are just the ones I have been to personally.
Eco-tourists are a breed apart yet the one thing we have in common with “normal” travelers is the decision to be frugal or splurge. Conde Nast Traveler has their suggestions but do they work for us?
1. Checking a bag – I say nay. We don’t really need a big wardrobe for birding. Who’s going to be looking at us when there are so many stunning birds to look at? Besides, who wants to risk having a bag go astray or waste time at the carousel? I never bring more than 3 days worth of clothes and wash along the way. I can fit everything I need plus camera gear between the eBags Motherload convertible backpack and my Scottevest
2. In-flight Internet – I say nay. There’s enough to keep me amused while in-flight with the airline’s AVOD and I can always keep a few movies or eBooks on my tablet. Or just get some sleep!
3. Out-of-Hotel Breakfasts – Usually necessary due to birder’s hours unless it’s a transit city stay. If breakfast is included in the rate, I’ll take it. Birding lodges will have breakfasts served at birder-friendly times. Otherwise, we grab something at a supermarket and bring it along.
4. Taxis – I say mostly nay unless there is a safety issue. I wouldn’t want to walk around some town late at night with my gear. Plus there is just something wasteful and un-green about taking a taxi if there is safe public transport available.
5. One lavish meal – I’m not a foodie so easy for me to say nay on this one. Birding lodges usually provide meals in the package. If birding from a city with short drives into the bush such as Panama, we are happy to just grab takeaway and bring it back to the hotel.
6. Souvenirs – I say YEA! But only if they are locally made items, preferably by people who are honoring their native wildlife in the artwork. Always support local communities to encourage eco-tourism! Molas from Panama, numerous paintings, batiks, statues and arpilleras from Peru’s Amazon have all found a place in our home and serve as wonderful memories of our trip!
