The best way to explore an off-beat destination

My African safari in Kruger National Park was one of my absolute favorite travel experiences of recent memory.  A safari, in and of itself, is amazing.  But this one went so far beyond my expectations, it left me reeling. What made it beyond amazing?  Staying at the Ngala Tented Camp of &Beyond Safaris, in the heart of Ngala Private Game Reserve. To start our adventure, we jumped on a charter flight at Johannesburg, making the two-hour flight directly to Ngala. The views over South Africa weren’t bad, either. Soon, we touched down at Ngala — and were welcomed to Ngala Tented Camp, our incredible oasis in the middle of the bush. Luxury in Africa Before arriving, I knew that we would be camping in luxury tents.  As I’ve mentioned here a few times, I’m a lifelong camper from a camping family.  I first went camping at twelve days old.  I took my first steps in a tent. So continuing to camp around the world has been special to me, especially when I ge...

I tend to be a bit of a worrier.  So before my plane touched down here in Sayulita, Mexico, the following thought was stuck in my head: OH MY GOD, EVERYONE HERE IS GOING TO HAVE THE ABS OF A LESBIAN GYM OWNER AND I’M GOING TO BE HUFFING AND PUFFING AFTER A PUSH-UP AND A HALF. In my nightmare, I had this image of Terri being a drill sergeant, blowing a whistle and having us do five-mile runs before 90-minute workouts and screaming obsenities at us.  I pictured Kim as a human pretzel, ordering us to have our legs above our heads for twenty-minute stretches, yelling that our lovers would thank us when we got home. Thank God that was not the case! I’m happy to report that Nourish Retreats has been a revelation: even people like me who aren’t that good at working out can do well at a fitness retreat! I do enjoy fitness, especially dance and yoga, and for a long time, I worked out four days a week at a gym that I loved.  But I ditched my membership about a year ago and...

Someone somewhere once said that friends who travel together, stay together. Keeping this in mind, me and my two best childhood friends make sure that we go for at least one trip every year. We were planning a trip to Bangalore this time and arrange a reunion with classmates. While we were searching for a budget accommodation for the trip, I came across a social media contest which was offering 5 room nights at one of the Treebo hotels in Bangalore City . I registered and to my surprise, ended up winning the contest. They offered me 5 complimentary room nights at Treebo Greenwood Premier Suites in Indiranagar. This itself was a great start to our trip. We arrived at the Kempegowda International Airport at midnight, because we had heard a lot about Bangalore traffic. To our surprise, we reached Indiranagar in no time. The hotel staff was efficient and received us as soon as we arrived. We were given our room and within half an hour we were off to the dreamland.   We had a lot of thin...

Paris has my heart. No matter how many times I visit I fall in love all over again. This year I ticked something off my Paris bucket list I have been thinking about for years – staying in a Paris Perfect Apartment. I first heard about this exclusive collection of decked out Parisian apartments with views of the Eiffel Tower from my friend and author Kat Lawrence (she wrote one of my favourite Paris books – Paris Dreaming ) and have been myself dreaming of staying ever since. The Perfect Paris Apartment Once I had decided this was the trip that I would finally make my dream of living inside a Parisian apartment a reality, the tough choice began: which apartment to choose!? The Paris Perfect website has so many beautiful apartments to choose from that my toughest decision was choosing just one. I settled on the St Emilion apartment in the 7th arrondissement, with an incredible close-up view of the Eiffel Tower. This apartment was offering a special discou...