Build your own adventure with the Africa Safari Planner

The Africa Safari Planner, a newly launched website from adventure travel company Natural Habit Adventures, gives travelers the ability to create their own custom trips to the African bush. The site, which launched earlier this week, provides options to visit nine different countries, and stay in over 300 unique camps, while encountering some of the most spectacular wildlife on the planet.

The process begins by selecting which months you would prefer to travel in, and indicating the number of people in your group. From there, you’ll be presented with options for travel in both Eastern and Southern Africa, in such countries as Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, and Namibia. After selecting a starting destination, travelers are then given the choice of several single and multi-country routes for their African adventure, which then prompts the site to suggest possible camps to stay in for each day of the journey. Those camps are broken down into categories based on price, giving the customer the ability to budget accordingly.

That said, there isn’t much that is “budget” about these tours. They definitely fall into the upscale category, and travelers on these custom safaris aren’t exactly roughing it. No matter which camps they choose to visit, they’ll have their own comfortable rooms, complete with large beds and private showers. They’ll also enjoy gourmet meals in spacious dining rooms and access to a host of other amenities while at the lodge. Of course, you don’t go to Africa to hang out at the lodge, and each of the camps offers unique options for viewing the wildlife as well.

If you’re looking for a truly once-in-a-lifetime journey, and don’t mind paying for it, then this is an excellent tool for creating your own custom safari itinerary. There are less expensive alternatives for booking a trip to Africa, but few offer this kind of flexibility and options for travelers.

Muji Chronotebook: Right for the Road?

I’ve never been one to plan my trips down to the minute. I’d rather have a list of sites and activities that I want to check out and then figure out the timing of it all once I hit the ground. Schedules and agendas remind me too much of the office. Trips are supposed to help me break out of my cubicle and live my life untethered. But the Muji Chronotebook may be the day planner that changes my mind about how I organize trips.

Rather than being a linear day planner like the old-school Filofax, the Chronotebook lets you plan your day around a small circular “clock” in the middle of the page. The left side is for AM and the right is PM. The circles are large enough that you can recognize what time you are assigning to an activity but small enough to have most of the page left for notes, addresses, comments and other details you want to write down as you are out and about on your travels.

What I like about the Chronotebook is that it can be both a planner and a notebook. I don’t want to carry any more than I need to when I travel, but having a notebook to jot down my thoughts or ideas is key. And with the Chronotebook being a planner first and foremost, it could help you maximize your trip without feeling like you’re being too rigid with your leisure time.

I could definitely see myself in my vrbo apartment at night, planning my next day’s activties in my Chronotebook, adding details such as what trams to take and what market my favorite guidebook recommends and then going to sleep content in the knowledge that the following day in some exotic city is going to be totally rad.*

* It’s my daydream so I get to say “rad.”

[Via psfk]