A winter break from Britain

littleRedPanda

littleRedPanda

Well-Known Member
Where can I go and see a few zoos/wildlife spots at the end of January?

I have the last 2 weeks off work and want to go somewhere warmer that has decent zoos, or some varied wildlife to photograph. I haven't been abroad much tbh and aim to change that this year.

The more exotic trips like Africa or Asia I can imagine would need a bit of organising, although I did recently speak to a fella at Chester who was about to embark on a week long Indian Safari, which sounded attractive and affordable.

Part of me fancies a fly/drive to California to take in some scenery and simply get that part of the world out of my system (as if a single trip could do that).

So I'm looking at 3 decent zoos within a 10 day trip, with other wild, scenic interests to take up some of the other time. I'd be quite happy going twice or thrice to one really good/large zoo/park of course.
:)
 
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I was going to suggest the canaries as there are a number of zoos to choose from but if your budget can cover California then you could also consider parts of Asia, not sure how Singapore compares in price to California.
 
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought travelling to Asia would require a course of vaccinations before going and i'll be heading off next week. I do want to go to SE Asia, but I want to do it properly eventually.
The Canaries does appeal purely for saving money for another trip in a couple of months.
 
You could do southern Spain / Portugal and go looking for wild iberian lynx (and iberian ibex), there is plenty of info on where to find them and car hire is easy. You could combine it with visits to Jerez / Lisboa....

Alternatively I would suggest the Cape Town area. There are no nasty diseases over there and the landscape is amazing with good wildlife viewing (not the really big species though). With the 2 oceans aquarium, monkeyland and birds of eden there are also several zoos. And self-drivinng is pretty straightforward in S-Africa. There are even direct flights to Cape Town from London ;).
 
littleRedPanda said:
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought travelling to Asia would require a course of vaccinations before going and i'll be heading off next week. I do want to go to SE Asia, but I want to do it properly eventually.
The Canaries does appeal purely for saving money for another trip in a couple of months.
Click to expand...

I suppose you should have vaccinations but I've never bothered with them when visiting the likes of Singapore or Thailand and I don't think many people do.
 
Thanks Ned, I think Singapore/Thailand are an option for a taster break and i'll be a little more adventurous later.

Thanks Lintworm; I did think about looking for Lynx and could visit Lisbon zoo if I failed to get any good pictures :) Seems to be various organised packages for Lynx spotting, but I do wonder if individuals are free to wonder about on these reserves unguided. I hadn't really considered South Africa, so will look into that too.
 
As far as I am aware there is a certain road which you can drive up and down, where there is a chance of getting the lynx in your car lights.
 
Donana park is closed for the night, but like Lintworm said there is the highway through the park. During the day you can freely roam through the park as long as you stick to the walking paths. Going off-road is only possible with a booked tour.
 
I was extremely lucky to see a wild Iberian Lynx (before there were any on show) in 2010. Here is an article I wrote about the experience.
https://itchyfeetmagazine.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/stalking-spains-ghost-cat/

In 2013 I did a return trip when they had just gone on show at ZooBotanico Jerez. Here is my ZooChat report.
http://www.zoochat.com/339/seeing-iberian-lynx-319167/

I will say the Iberian lynx is the ONLY reason to visit that substandard zoo. There are no other decent zoos in the region that I know of (I think there are only a couple good Spanish zoos and they are in the north).
 
Wherever you decide to go, buying an international plane ticket one week from departure is going to be insanely expensive. The exception would be if you find a deal on an undersold flight they are trying to fill.

The alternative to a warm break is to embrace the cold and go someplace even colder for snow photos. Snow leopard in Zurich and Salsburg you could reach by train and for wildlife viewing you could look for chamois and ibex in the alps. Then when you get home Britain will seem warm by comparison! :D
 
Thanks DD and DD :)
Yes, a bit short notice finding out I had 9 days holiday to take before the end of January, so I'm not well prepared and may have to pay the price.
I'll have a proper read of your (lynx) links AD, later today. As for snowy destinations, no :) I did consider just driving around some of the Dutch Zoos after seeing so many great photos from someone I follow on Flickr.
 
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