Author Archives: sam

Monks, Mountains, and MacBooks

We spent the majority of our time in India on an incredible travel adventure to the northern tip of the country in the Himalayas. Our good friend Courtney introduced us to her friend and SaS alum, Laura, who lives with her husband Darren in the mountains of McCleod Ganj, Dharamsala. Dharamsala is the town where […]

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Screwed by Screwpine

Between South Africa and India we enjoyed a stop on the lush and beautiful island of Mauritius, northeast of Madagascar in the calm and clear blue-green waters of the Indian Ocean. Only two days and one night ashore are nowhere near long enough to spend in such a tropical paradise, but we managed. We rented […]

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Indlovu Project

Our last day in Cape Town, we joined Courtney Miller, a friend and video journalism professor, on a practicum she created for her students to visit the Indlovu Project in the township of Khayelitscha. The disparity between the luxurious A and V Waterfront area where our ship was berthed and the ramshackle tin homes of […]

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Tea and Crumpets in the Bushveld

We rounded out our safari at the Garden Route Game Lodge where we got a chance to see oodles of animals including all of the Big Five except the ever-elusive leopard. As it was at Addo, the staff at Garden Route blew us away with scrumptious feasts, luxurious chalet accommodations, and impeccable service. Our knowledgeable […]

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High Flyers, Radio Riders

The Elephant Back Safari reserve has a grass runway and small 7-seater prop plane. One of our wilderness game guides, Andre, has his pilot’s license. When he suggested that we could take a little aero tour, we didn’t hesitate to say yes. We flew out over the Addo Elephant National Park and eventually reached the […]

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Cribs: Addo Edition

Great travel is about fun people, enriching experiences, and beautiful sights. Our amazing safari adventure showed us that it can also be about exquisite accommodations. At Addo we had a private chalet with outdoor jacuzzi, indoor and outdoor showers (heated by a solar-powered geyser), sheets almost as fluffy and highly threaded as the ones Grandma […]

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Unforgettable Facts About the Animal Who Never Forgets

During our stay at Addo, we learned so much about elephants as we interacted with them and spoke with our incredible guides. Ellie facts are so crazy cool that they deserve their very own post! Here they are: Elephants require around 16 hours of grazing time a day. Their digestive systems are very inefficient, and […]

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Taba, Mukwa, and Duma: Ellies Extraordinaire

Since South Africa is at least 20 hours of flight/travel time from the U.S., we decided that we had better live it up a little while there, so we splurged on a 4-day safari that started with a couple nights at the Addo Elephant Back Safari Lodge in Addo Elephant National Park. The Elephant Back […]

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I Am Because We Are

As many of you already know, an honored and revered shipmate on our voyage around the world with Semester at Sea is none other than Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Even a five second interaction with this man is enough to brighten your week. We and our shipmates have enjoyed a wonderful amount of extra time with […]

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Father’s Home Link

I realized that I forgot to post the link to the Father’s Home Care Ministries organization we visited in Ghana in the Bright Future for Ghana post. I’ve updated the post with the link, but for those of you who only read the blog via RSS subscription, here it is: http://www.fathershome.org/

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