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Two travellers standing in an open plain in Africa

My Top 3 Travel Must Dos!

By Georgia Wilson

Last updated: 7th October 2013

What are your top 3 travel must dos?

As a travel advisor, I don’t think I’ll ever satisfy the need in me to explore the world. Having already visited 5 continents (Africa being my absolute favourite) I’ve been thinking what my favourite 3 moments are so far…

1. Swimming with whales

Georgia on a boat giving a thumbs up

Never have I experienced being so scared and so excited at the same time. I was in Mozambique on our Whale Shark Conservation Project.

We were on an Ocean Safari, which is where you scour the water looking for whale sharks and manta rays and once you spot one, everyone gets into the water to swim with them and take all the necessary data.

I was swimming with a Manta Ray (which also almost made the top 3 list!) and must have been following it for about 10 minutes until it got bored of me stalking it and went to deeper for some privacy. I looked up to the boat that I’d strayed quite a way from, and saw them all waving their hands at me, and shouting something…PANIC! Oh god it’s a shark and I’m going to die!!!…

It turns out that a hump back whale and her calf were swimming no more than 3 metres from me! I put my head back into the water and just watched as these giants casually sauntered past. Wow – words cannot even describe how incredible it was!

2. The Taj Mahal, India

Georgia in front of the Taj Mahal in India

Seeing one of the Seven Wonders of the World is completely mind-boggling! You see the Taj so often on postcards and adverts, it’s very surreal to be standing in front of it in real life!

The Taj Mahal was created by Shah Jahan who built it in memory of his deceased wife. I remember being touched by such a beautiful love story, what a lovely way to commemorate the love of your life…. Then found out he still had other wives to comfort him through the grief! It’s perfectly symmetrical (which very much pleased my OCD) and still had the morning mist floating above it, making the experience even more dreamlike.

3. Safari – the David Attenborough Moment!

Two travellers standing in an open plain in Africa

I was on safari with my family, 2 of which are born and bred in Zimbabwe, Africa, so adapt to the bush much better than us city folk. It was a wilderness camping trip on a dried up lake on the Zambezi… absolute wilderness. There were no other campers or safari goers; we were literally in the middle of nowhere. To add to this, there was also no toilet or shower, it was 48 degree heat, and there were so many flies that I had to be constantly moving to keep them off me. We had a wilderness guide called Gus, if I had drawn a caricature of a wilderness guide, it would have been Gus.

Thank god the wildlife was so spectacular, otherwise I would have been a complete complaining nightmare (not worse than my older and 100 times more precious sister)…poor Gus.

I could talk about the wildlife forever; countless baboons frolicking around the tents, herds of enormous African elephants, bucks, warthogs, hyenas, painted dogs, vultures, wilder beast… and the best of the lot was a pack of 4 lions.

One night, after dinner we heard a huge trumpeting sound, a poor elephant sounded like it was in the most amount of pain. Gus switched on the floodlight, and right in front of us, no more than 20 metres away, these four lions were taking down an elephant. We watched for over an hour, as they played tug of war with this poor little guy that was still alive when they started eating away. Part of me wanted to cry, but the other part was so enthralled by this act of nature that was going on right in front of me, I genuinely felt like the Attenborough himself.

What are your top 3 travel moments? Or if you haven’t been yet, what are you hoping will make the list?

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