We have a pretty soft spot for travel.  And Africa.  But especially for including your children on educational and exciting journeys.  Safaris aren’t just for adults anymore – and we have a hunch that taking kids early on these African expeditions will positively affect them (and our planet) for many years.  andBeyond’s WILDchild program takes kids to Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, and creates daily missions and excursions for children in the care of rangers, trackers, babysitters, and cooks.  BTW, the ‘Poo Walks’ have nothing to do with Winny.

Sample of Daily Missions:

Every lodge has a range of missions that is suitable to the lodge environment and will be given to the WILDchild to complete daily.

·         Poo Walks – embracing the juvenile fascination with scatology, trained rangers at Sandibe help children collect the dried dung of various animals to take back to the lodge to analyze (hyena droppings are often white due to the amount of bones these scavengers consume, while elephant dung is hardly digested and often resembles a ball of hay)

·         Animal Tracking – heading out with an expert ranger at Kirkman’s Camp to find clues such as broken twigs or freshly rubbed-off bark to find where certain animals are hiding

·         Fishing – going to the river at Xaranna to catch fish or to get a little messy with a round of “Kleilat” (a local game involving mud flinging)

·         Arts and Crafts – making traditional Zulu bows and arrows or embracing the modern, African love of recycling plastic into new objects such as animal figurines or purses at Phinda

·         Cooking – joining the chefs in the kitchen at Sossusvlei to learn to make homemade pasta and fresh bread or to decorate cookies and cupcakes.

For more details on andBeyond’s 32 extraordinary lodges and camps in Africa and India, visit andBeyond.com.