Posts Tagged ‘Through Your Eyes’

Through Your Eyes: a Kenya Safari Experience

posted: Feb 22, 2018 by: Amanda Klein with: 6 comments

One of our travelers, Deborah, recently went on our Kenya Safari Express small group tour. When she returned, she shared with us her incredible story–along with some awesome photos! Africa had been on her bucket list for decades and we are so humbled to play a small role in her unforgettable experience in this amazing country!

It’s 6 am three days before Thanksgiving, and my husband and I are sitting in a small airport café in Frankfurt, Germany sipping coffee while we wait for our next flight. While there, a couple from Texas sat down next to us to chat. As with any airport conversation, the ‘where are you going’ question popped up, and I excitedly said – Kenya on safari! After a split second of stunned silence, the woman said “I wasn’t expecting that”…to be quite frank, I wasn’t expecting it either.

Africa has been at the top of my bucket list for over 30 years. My master bedroom has an African theme, and I always watch NatGeo hoping to see another lion, cheetah, leopard — you name it, I want to see it. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with Africa, but I know one thing, I was not going to leave this life without stepping foot on the vast African savannah and seeing these incredible creatures with my own eyes. It was time to scratch this off my bucket list.

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Tags: Africa, Kenya, Kenya Safari Express, Masai Mara, Safari, Through Your Eyes, Traveler Story

Through Your Eyes: a tribute in South Africa

posted: Dec 12, 2017 by: Amanda Klein with: 1 comment

Recently, one of our travelers, Carol, shared this heartwarming personal account of an experience she had in South Africa. Memories like this stay with us forever and illustrate the transformative impact that traveling the world can have on each and every one of us. Here at Friendly Planet we are humbled to play a small role Carol’s experience!

My Dad was an animal lover. He was a banker in real life, but his true passion was animals and making things. He trained homing pigeons during the Second World War. He milked rattlesnakes for their venom to make vaccines. He raised parakeets, nursed and brought back to life numerous wild creatures over the years. He was always coming home with some critters that he found like the tiny barred owl that fell out of its nest, a beautiful greyhound dog named Tala that was abandoned after the dog races were over, and an injured and very anxious seagull that was hit by a car–left on the side of the road. Then there was the good-sized painted turtle he found walking across the road while on a trip in Williamsburg, Virginia. There was just a never-ending parade of animals always seeming to be processing through our home. My Mother supported all of this animal love, which was pretty amazing considering she was a nurse and liked everything clean and tidy.

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Tags: South Africa, Through Your Eyes, Traveler Story

Through Your Eyes: hiking the Tiger’s Nest

posted: Jun 26, 2017 by: Amanda Klein with: 3 comments

Last year we received this wonderful letter from one of our travelers, John Monahan. His beautiful story about a trek to The Tiger’s Nest Monastery—a famous Himalayan Buddhist sacred site and temple perched high on a cliff in Bhutan—reminds all of us here at Friendly Planet why we do what we do! This experience will stay with John the rest of his life, and we’re humbled to be a part of it.

Dear Friendly Planet,

I am sending you this because I want to share an experience that I had hiking to Tiger’s Nest monastery high in the Himalayas, the Mecca for Buddhism in this part of the world. I had many good experiences in Bhutan, but this one in particular was really special. You see, I was supposed to spend the last two days in Paro, the town below the monastery, before leaving Bhutan for Bangkok. But my flight in Bumthang was cancelled because of rain and the only road was not passable because of rock slides. Luckily, I was able to get on a late afternoon charter the following day, but that also meant I only had one night in Paro. Turns out, this was not enough time to visit the Tiger’s Nest, because my guide, Karma (I hope that I am spelling his name correctly), said that we would need at least five hours to complete the hike; the flight to Bangkok was at 1PM. So I asked if I could do the hike at 5AM. He agreed, even though he didn’t think that we would make it to the top in time.

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Tags: Beautiful Bhutan, Bhutan, buddhism, friendly planet traveler, monks, Through Your Eyes, tiger's nest