African Safari Zebra, Photo by exfordy

There are so many experiences that are perfect for a family holiday, you should do your own research into the type of holiday to suit your family exactly, but here are some ideas to get you started:

Hiking and Trekking – The wild untameable landscape offered by the enigmatic continent has been attracting all manner of hikers and trekkers for years. The most famous culprits of its pull include The Atlas Mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. South Africa can offer the Drakensberg Mountains and The Ugandan Rwenzori Mountains have also seen their fair share of interest over the years. The flora and fauna found whilst trekking in Africa are what really make the experience unforgettable but a 4 – 5 day trek may not be suitable for young children. For a trekking holiday to suit you, you should search for family holidays with Mahlatini.com.

Beach Holidays – Beach holidays in Africa really cater for all budgets. From the super luxurious islands of the Seychelles to the huts that line the tranquil Indian Ocean. Again it’s the wild life that mainly attracts visitors to these paradise beaches. If you travel further south you are in with the chance of spotting anything from penguins to sharks! Needless to say, the water sports on offer are second to none on many of the African coastlines. Beach holidays in Africa are perfect for sun worshippers and families looking for a myriad of activities.

Safari – A classic safari may be just the ticket for you and your family while travelling through Africa. The big five have been attracting visitors from Europe for many, many years and continue to do so. The best places for seeing the most majestic wildlife you can imagine would be the nature reserves in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. Do your research to make sure your trip is best fitted to the needs of you and every member of your family.

Lifecruiser Love Africa
 

Botswana is, however, also one of the most exclusive and expensive countries in Africa for a family safari and the older the children are, the more they will remember and appreciate.

For a nice family safari you could, for example, start in northern Botswana and visit Chobe National Park. This game rich park will allow you and your family to see as much wildlife as you’re ever going to see and has some fantastic options for your stay. From smaller camps that will make you feel at home to larger lodges that will have all the facilities needed for a family, everything is here.
From here you could then go to the famous Okavango Delta, a must for any Botswana safari itinerary.

The good thing about Botswana is that there is a very good infrastructure in terms of connecting flights. Not only are these going to be interesting for the kids providing them with a wonderful bird’s
eye view over the country, but they also reduce the time it takes to get from one place to the next. Being stuck in a vehicle for long periods of time can be very tiring for the children but also for the
parent’s nerves!

In the Okavango Delta itself a good option is to stay at a small and personal luxury safari camp that will take time to look after you and your family. There are quite a few to choose from, with camps also offering family tents and special children’s activities. During these activities the specialist guides and staff will try and teach your kids about the bush and its wildlife in an interesting way, so that they even go home with a larger understanding of the natural world. Apart from the children focused activities there are, of course, also all the other normal activities such as game drives, night drives, bush walks and trips to special build hides.

After a few days in the Okavango Delta head into the Kalahari Desert or to the big salt pans such as the Makgadikgadi Pan. Here there is another range of activities including spending a day or two with the Bushmen. At the salt pans there is also an option to go camping in the wild; which is something that children will normally really enjoy!

Botswana may not be on everyone’s list for a family safari but it is definitely a destination worth keeping in mind!

Lifecruiser Love Wild Life Safaris
 

We did a research and decided to list the best and perhaps a bit more unusual beach attractions we wish to see if going there in the future. Let us know what you think!

South Africa offer tourists holidays destinations and tours as the famous Garden Route, Safari’s, Oyster Catcher Trail, horseback riding, kayaking and wine-land’s visits, but also lots of other things to experience.

1. Swim with the penguins

I was quite surprised when discovering that there is a whole African penguin colony on the Boulders Beach, Cape Peninsula, near Simonstown.

We would actually be able to swim with the penguins – or should I say kiss with the penguins…?

Photo by Paul Mannix

I could watch them for hours playing in the water, as they are skilled swimmers, or when they’re waddling around funny on land. Fascinating creatures indeed that surely will put a big smile on my face!

The penguin colony has grown tremendously, partly due to the restriction of trawling in False Bay, which has helped to increase the food supply for the penguins.

2. Thunderstorm Lightening at Beach

A thunderstorm moving towards Milnerton Beach, Cape Town. Since we love thunderstorms, we want to see how the weather can transform within 60 minutes from fine to bad!

Photo by Warren Rohner

It’s difficult to catch a shot of when the lightening strikes, we’ve tried before…

3. Wilderness Beach Stairs

Wilderness Beach on the Garden Route has perfect stairs for our future daily exercise to get in shape: to go up and down those stairs…

I wonder how many times we would manage?

Photo by Crystian Cruz

There is a bridge way down there if you look more to the right in the picture, that we want to cross.

4. Cows on Ntafufu Beach

I think I might prefer to share the Ntafufu beach (Eastern Cape) with those cows…

Photo by philipp

…rather than the tourist crowdy beaches that can be found everywhere else in the worlds most popular tourist destinations.

5. Lions Head

I want to take shots like this mirrored Lions Head, Camps Bay, Cape Town. We both love to photograph reflections.

Photo by Damien du Toit

Can the reflection be any more perfectly clear? I doubt it.

6. Sun City Fake Beach

It’s quite incredible that there are fake beaches created everywhere in the world nowadays. To transport extra fine sand yes, but to build up a whole new beach area?

Photo by Shayan Sanyal

Even though the Sun City theme park beach is a fake beach, I sure would want to go there.

7. Bouberg Beach Paragliding

We’re not paragliders ourselves, but it’s always something so fascinating to watch others flying around in the air.

Photo by Ian Wilson

This paraglider is at the Blouberg Beach, Cape Town. I love the colors in this photo, the red paraglider wing against the very blue sky with the white sand below.

8. Noordhoek Beach Shipwreck

We want to check out the skeleton of the Kakapo Shipwreck, stranded at the Noordhoek Beach along the Cape Peninsula in 1900 after mistaking Chapman’s Peak for Cape Point.

Photo by Alan Green

A Captains biggest mistake makes an interesting tourist attraction in the end.

9. Noordhoek Beach Rider

Noordhoek Beach also is famed for its long white sandy beach, ideal for horse riding.

Photo by MauritsV

Who hasn’t had a dream about riding a full throttle gallop along a beach and then cool off in the Sea?

10. Muizenberg Victorian Beach Huts

The colorful beach huts at Muizenberg were used already during the Victorian-era in the 19th century.

Photo by Paul Mannix

I would have loved being around at that time. Just imagine how it would look back then wearing a Victorian swimwear!

11. Camper Van at Kleinmond Beach

One time in our life, we want to rent a cool camper van like this one at the Kleinmond beach, to be able to sleep at the beach and live a summer like a drifting surfer that is following the wave reports.

Photo by John Charalambous

Whether or not you’re after surfing hotspots, wonderful coastal or hill hikes or just is an ordinary sun worshipper, there obviously are suitable beach areas for every one…

If you where to choose among the many available South Africa holidays attractions or activities, which one would you choose as number one?

Lifecruiser ♥ Beach Holidays
 

An old fishing village from the beginning, now growing tourist spot – as so many other places in Spain.

As a matter of fact, it was because of a Swede who came there in 1956 suffering from multiple sclerosis, hoping the climate would help, that tourism in Los Cristianos developed. The word spread and it became a rehab resort for many Swedes and still is.

That’s also why the main street in Los Cristianos is known as Avenida de Suecia (Avenue of Sweden) and there is the Casa Sueca, a Swedish Lutheran Church, down by the seafront.

However, we didn’t know that fact when we came there and I only took photos of the other church in Los Cristianos, which actually were the first thing we saw there since we were able to find a parking spot right at the side of the church.

As you can see in the bottom of the photo, there is a Christmas scene there, a nice sight at the square in front of the church.

Of course there are opportunities for a lot of shopping there too, though as usual, I were hunting for some where to eat and therefor only bought a pair of shorts (which you will see in another of my upcoming posts).

Now, you might wonder what’s special with the photo above? It’s the name of the shop: DASS, which actually is a Swedish slang word for: toilet!!! *giggles*

Los Cristianos also got a lovely pedestrian walkway – wheelchair friendly – with nice cafes, which runs along the shore and port. There are lot of people strolling around enjoying the sunshine.

There are several beaches, including a more new and man made beach: Playa de las Vistas, that one as well as Play de las Teresitas as I mentioned earlier is covered in sand imported from Sahara.

In their rather small port, the ferries to the nearby islands of La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro is embarking. Oh, and even boat trips for dolphin and whale watching.

We didn’t go over to La Gomera, despite that we had thought of it earlier, because it were very cloudy over La Gomera every time we were close, so we skipped it.

Instead we sat down at one of the restaurants at the seafront, enjoying a wonderful and relaxed dinner together.

We can’t always run around seeing as many things as possible, we have to stop and really take in the wonderful scenes we’re offered at the moment also, right?

Lifecruiser ♥ Los Cristianos
 

Playa de las Teresitas, Tenerife’s absolutely top beach according to many – including us – is a 1,5 km long beach with beautiful sand and palm trees.

It’s one of the most popular beaches among Tenerife’s inhabitants. The Anaga mountains protects it from one side and a breakwater 500 m off shore on the other side, making it warm and safe. Not a beach for the surfers for once.

We we’re introduced to it as Tenerife’s only white beach, but actually it’s golden and not white. Maybe the sand whitens a bit in the summer heat…?

The beach is artificial, man made with sand shipped in from Sahara in Africa when the beach was enlarged around 1973.

We’ve seen Sahara sand before, in Fuerteventura, another Canary Island, but that sand were more white and more fine than this one.

It’s located about 7 km outside the capital of Tenerife, Santa Cruz, adjacent to the fishing village of San Andres up about the eastern corner of the island. It’s only about 150 km from the coast of Morocco.

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We didn’t experienced it as a typical tourist beach, more like a popular beach for the locals and maybe that’s why it was lacking a bit when it came to the facilities like dressing rooms, showers, toilets and lunch restaurants.

There were several stands with beverages and more simple food like bocadillo sandwiches and maybe some tapas.

However, for the hungry Lifecruiser it wasn’t enough, so we left for some food hunting… *giggles*

Lifecruiser ♥ Beaches
 

1. I got an email that instantly got stuck in my brain. An email that clearly disturbed my concentration. That practically screamed to me to write a blog post about it. That email were written by Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch.

2. It was about the United Nations Foundation‘s anti-malaria Nothing But Nets campaign, a grassroots effort to prevent malaria in Africa. Together with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) they have a huge campaign about an immediate need of 275,000 life-saving bed nets to 630,000 refugees in Africa to save their lives.

There were also a link that shows the story of refugees fight with malaria, plus an invitation to find out more in a conference call with malaria experts from the UN Foundation and the UN High Commission on Refugees, Nov 19.

3. My first reaction was that this was an unusual way to reach out, being contacted directly by email plus invited to a conference call.

I did respond well on it though. When it comes to saving lives, I don’t think anything or any method should stop us, do you…?

4. I did check it out and I must say that I got really impressed over all the work that is put into this good cause, not only by United Foundation and NothingButNets, but lots of other including private persons.

5. Then I remembered the #1 excuses I’ve heard from persons why they don’t like to donate money: they’re not sure where the money goes, if it’s eaten up by administrative costs. In this case, you don’t have to doubt:

“The United Nations Foundation is a registered public charity under section 501(c)3 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. 100% of your donation will go to providing nets to children in Africa; no portion of your donation will be diverted for administrative costs”.

6. You can read what the United Nations Foundation says about the campaign here: United Methodists Join the United Nations Foundation in Anti-Malaria Net Distribution Effort

7. Read these horrible Buzzkill Facts from NothingButNets:

“Each year, malaria afflicts approximately a half-billion people (roughly the population of the United States, Canada, and Mexico combined), kills more than a million per year and 90 percent of those who die are children”.

8. What about a vaccine? It isn’t there yet. Those insecticide treated bed nets are the quick solution as well as cheap and effective. One of those nets covers a family for years.

9. All of us need to be confronted by these kind of facts and picture proof sometimes, because we live our good protected lives and keep forgetting that such misery actually exists – or rather burying our heads in the ground like an ostrich not wanting to realize it.

We need to support humanitarianism in a much larger scale now than ever. Considering how many wealthy (comparable) people living in this world, it’s not really flattering that not more efforts are done to help other human beings in misery.

Ponder this: If we’re not doing anything, we’re actually letting other humans suffer and die, when there are such easy methods that helps.

We’re a bunch of selfish bastards…. (Excuse me, but isn’t it true?)

10. Watch the video and see how it impacts you:

11. There are several different ways to help out, which you can find at their page I’ts Easy to Help.

12. I CHALLENGE YOU to at least display a banner in your blogs sidebar to help spread the message. It doesn’t cost you anything!

(Click to go to NothingButNets banner page to download a banner. Do not link directly to the banner I have here or at their page, since that’s called “hotlinking” and is eating up their bandwidth. Host your downloaded banner somewhere like Photobucket, Imageshack)

13. Surely you can be without the candy you were going to buy and instead click the button below to go there and donate $10 – show some humanness and save a life!

Lifecruiser ♥ Lifesaver
 
 
Thursday Thirteen Code | Thursday Thirteen in Technorati
 

We see so much disasters in the news that we’ve gone somewhat numb, no feelings for other humans left other than the ones in our nearest surroundings. We’ve become more selfish. Despite the fact that we nowadays can spread the news more far away, our feelings seem to be the opposite.

Whatever your opinions are, political or not, you can’t close your eyes for the humans living – or dying – in miserable conditions. If you’re human.

Some of those countries are possible to visit as a tourist and if not, we can always travel in mind, by videos or other peoples telling us how it is.

Blogs are such wonderful sources. I decided to write this post when reading the blog about Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth started by Cooper.

Darfur is just one of too many places around the world that needs our support and that we open up peoples eyes for this inhuman suffering that is going on and is allowed to continue. Sure, it’s complicated and difficult to stop, but we should never stop trying.

Read some suggestions of What You Can Do Now here.

You can start with reading and subscribing:

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Then have a look at the site Eyes On Darfur, to see the horrible proof with your own eyes.

Despite the fact that Sweden is a very small country, about the size of California and with only around 9 millions inhabitants, we’ve always been handling quite much international help, including accepting a lot of refugees to stay in our country. Sweden’s support for Sudan has been going on for about 30 years now.

Sweden has now said yes to increase this support for extra humanitarian support in Chad where the refugees is counted to be around a half million persons. Of those are at least half of them refugees from Darfur. The support (32 million SEK) is being distributed by different FN-organs to cover the most emergency needs like water, food and health care.

What’s stopping us from going to those countries in need, to help them? When I Googled “volunteer work africa”, Google delivers pages after pages, so there is no lack of need obviously… Considering how many people there are around, it’s clearly not enough of them becoming volunteers.

Among other things, it’s security as well as health issues that might stop us – and our families. You have to be healthy (both physically and mentally) to try something like this. When I was young, I was to unsecure to do it alone and when becoming older, I already had a lot of health issues unfortunately.

So, if not if had been, I could have done some travel this way when I was younger healthier. It’s without doubt a great way to see the real world and get some real life experience that is totally unbeatable.

I wish that it were more opportunities to travel to recover our compassion and our humanity without the must of doing volunteer work. Maybe more of us would go then?

Any one that knows of any travel agency that arrange those kind of trips? Me neither….