There’s a reason that a safari is at the top of many people’s travel bucket lists. Wildlife encounters – the truly wild ones, where you see animals in their natural habitat – can only be described as magical.
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While the Big Five dominate the conversation, it’s a wide, wild world out there, with everything from black rhinos in Namibia to the elusive snow leopard in the Himalayas.
To help narrow down the search, travel company Bailey Robinson has created the Wildlife Experience Index which ranked 30 of the world’s most remarkable experiences.
Each experience was evaluated across six factors, including rarity, based on population numbers and how difficult it is to encounter the animal in the wild; remoteness, or how far the experience is away from tourism infrastructure; conservation importance, which was informed by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species; exclusivity, which looked at access restrictions and visitor limitations; accessibility, or how easy it is to reach the encounter; and, finally, encounter potential, by examining the known opportunities for observation.
Each of these factors was scored out of 10 before being combined to produce a score out of 100.
The best wildlife encounters around the globe
The top score overall went to mountain gorilla trekking in Rwanda or Uganda, thanks in part to its 10/10 encounter potential score, with expert trackers ensuring you see what you came for.
In the case of Rwanda, there are just 96 permits issued each day, making the experience as exclusive – and as unobtrusive to the gorillas themselves – as possible, while at Uganda’s Bwindi National Park, treks are limited to just eight visitors per habituated family per day.
Second place went to Antarctica’s emperor penguin expeditions, with the experience scoring 10 out of 10 for both remoteness and exclusivity. Kazakhstan's saiga antelope expeditions were ranked third.
Asia and Africa dominated the list, while eight of the top 10 experiences involved threatened species.
“What particularly stood out to us was the relationship between rarity and remoteness,” Sarah Parker, sales director at Bailey Robinson, said.
“The world's most extraordinary wildlife encounters tend to involve travelling further, going deeper into wilderness and experiencing something that very few travellers will ever have the opportunity to see.
“For us, the real luxury is the opportunity to experience something rare and meaningful, while travelling responsibly and supporting the places and conservation projects that make these encounters possible.”
The top 10 wildlife experiences around the world
- Mountain gorilla trekking in Rwanda or Uganda – 90/100
- Emperor penguin expedition, Antarctica – 88.5/100
- Saiga antelope expedition, Kazakhstan – 87/100
- Snow leopard tracking, Ladakh or the Himalayas – 85.5/100
- Javan rhino tracking, Indonesia – 85/100
- Black rhino tracking, Namibia or Kenya – 84.5/100
- Polar bear expedition, Svalbard – 84/100
- Bornean orangutan encounter, Borneo – 84/100
- Eastern lowland gorilla expedition, Democratic Republic of the Congo – 81.5/100
- African wild dog safari, Botswana or Tanzania – 81/100