A Global Network. WWF-Canada is widely viewed as a leader in the protection of wildlife and wild places both in Canada and abroad. Our Wildlife & Wild Places trips have the exclusive benefit of being able to draw upon the extraordinary worldwide network of scientists, naturalists, conservationists and activists who have devoted their careers (and in many cases their personal passions) to protecting the wonders of nature. As a result, we are able to tap the top naturalists guides in the regions where we travel, we can bring world class experts along on our trips as WWF hosts, and we are able to gain privileged access to WWF conservation projects that are supported by your donations.

The Global 200. Virtually all of our Wildlife & Wild Places trips include a Global 200 ecoregion (the most valuable and sometimes vulnerable ecoregions in the world which best represent the breadth of biodiversity and ecological processes). The Global 200 recognize the fact that, whilst tropical forests and coral reefs harbour the most biodiversity and are the traditional targets of conservation organizations, unique manifestations of nature are found in temperate and boreal regions, in deserts and mountain chains, which occur nowhere else on Earth and which risk being lost forever if they are not conserved. When you travel with us on our Wildlife & Wild Places trips, you will have the privilege of discovering firsthand the fragile beauty of these regions as well as contributing in some small way towards their preservation.

Nature's Classroom. Our Wildlife & Wild Places trips are designed to impart the maximum amount of learning and enrichment with the minimum amount of time spent sitting down indoors listening to someone else talk. This is not to say that we're not fans of either book learning or classroom listening (we are and our pre-trip material should help to satisfy this appetite), but when you have all of Nature as your classroom, we'd rather put on our boots, roll up our sleeves and dive in at the deep end. Our focus is on bringing alive the stories of local conservation leaders and WWF field staff by walking beside them through the very landscapes & regions that they are protecting or by working beside them while they carry out their invaluable conservation work. In our opinion, the most powerful memories and the most enduring lessons tend to come from being actively immersed in an experience, by living and breathing the moment rather than merely passively taking it all in.

Intelligent Choices. These trips are designed to include all of the most important trip costs so that you won't have to worry about constantly reaching into you pocket or being caught by surprise with hidden costs. We also deliberately leave some things out because we know that people have very different sets of priorities. Rather than have the abstainers subsidize the tipplers, for example, we leave out things like alcohol and other items of personal choice. We also plan in a certain number of meals on your own so that you can escape the group dynamic and enjoy a romantic meal with your loved one. Finally, we leave some days relatively unstructured so that you can pursue your own personal passion, whether it be catching up on your poolside reading or completing your ornithological life list of essential sightings.

Like-Minded Companions. Almost by definition, the kind or people who take these Wildlife & Wild Places trips are cut from a different cloth than the average tourist. While you don't have to be a donor to the WWF to take one of these trips (and in any event, you will be by the end of the trip, since a portion of the trip costs goes directly to WWF-Canada), you do have to care about the preservation of Nature's diversity and beauty, and we find that this provides enough common ground for at least a week of camaraderie, if not a lifetime of friendship. In our experience, the kind of people who take these trips are adventurous in spirit (if not always in flesh and blood), are able to adapt themselves to their surroundings (whether in a dugout canoe or a luxury wilderness lodge), are inquisitive about the world around them (and prepared to ask penetrating questions!) and are engaged in trying to make a difference, no matter how small.

Comfortable Vehicles & Intelligent Transfers. We build our journeys around multiple modes of transportation on land, including everything from 4-wheel-drive jeeps to rickshaws, but the primary means of transportation (in addition to simply walking) tends to be small air-conditioned jeeps or mini-vans. We also resort to water-based transportation when necessary (often in the form of ferries, hovercrafts, antique junks, riverboats or cruise ships), and some land-based trips involve internal flights on domestic or charter aircraft. The length of the trips varies depending upon the destination and the focus, but we always try to spend 2 to 3 nights in one place so that our travellers can unpack, relax, and soak up a bit of local atmosphere.

Quality Accommodation.  In keeping with our philosophy that roughing-it is not a pre-requisite for experiencing nature, the accommodation that we choose for our Wildlife & Wild Places trips are generally the finest and most interesting hotels or lodges available in the areas we are visiting. If we have a choice between small or large, we tend to go small, when we have to choose between charm or convenience, we are seduced by charm, and when we have to call heads or tails between modern amenities or local character, we prefer to blend in with the locals. The overarching goal is to bring you closer to nature and offer you an intimate look at the area without sacrificing comfort, and thus our properties often add to the entire wilderness experience rather than just being a place to sleep. At a minimum, they all include private bathroom facilities unless otherwise noted.

Memorable Meals. We are firm believers that the best reward for an active day of strolling through the pristine wilderness or pursing wildlife sightings in the company of naturalists is a superb meal, carefully planned to reveal the richness and authenticity of local cuisine without overwhelming a Western palate. We try to avoid eating in the same place more than once in order to provide the maximum diversity to you and the maximum benefit to the locals (to spread the benefits of our tourism dollars more widely throughout the local communities). We also try to mix up the format of dining, and thus we try to balance intimate meals in private homes with raucous dinners in the most popular local cafes, remote picnics atop a high altitude plateaus with elegant evenings in renowned restaurant. All of our trips can accommodate vegetarians as well as special dietary needs.

Small Groups. In our experience, group travel is a necessary element of gaining access to the best wildlife & wilderness experiences since the remoteness of the locations and the challenges of local travel make it difficult to do on your own. That being said, these are not "traditional" large group tours getting on and off buses - the groups we take are small (average 10-15 people) and personal, designed to uncover nature through intimate, close-up wildlife encounters that would often be impractical or impossible on your own. Small group sizes also help to minimize the ecological impact while maximizing the economic benefit to the local communities.