Make Your Next Trip Extraordinary

Sara Edwards visiting a woman and her granddaughter in their hut, in Zimbabwe, Africa.

Authentic experiences and personal touches—through art, meaningful conversations, orphaned wildlife—made Edwards’ trip “memorable and profound.”

At sixty-seven and finally retired, I started to plan my dream trip to Africa with my adult daughter. Thanks to Katie and her team, we had a trip of a lifetime. We had one day in Johannesburg with a fantastic guide whose “day job” was as a human rights lawyer. We did highlights, such as Nelson Mandela’s house and the Hector Pieterson Museum, but we also had time to see the many murals and art that adorned the city streets. We stopped at a gentrified factory/laundry converted to art galleries and shops.

Our next stop was Harare, Zimbabwe, where we visited Wild is Life, a wildlife orphanage and rescue and rehabilitation center. Katie arranged a private tour as we were only in Harare for the morning, and the day we were there, the center was closed. The experience was so incredible! We talked with a vet caring for an injured porcupine (due to poaching) and met a pangolin and its beloved caretaker. We fed giraffes and had a delicious high tea surrounded by animals. We also got to go behind the scenes and meet the lions. Every animal there has a story!

We were whisked off to the airport to head to Mana Pools to start safari. Amazing! It’s true; big game does come right up to the deck. We went to sleep to hippos singing and lions in the distance. From Mana Pools, we flew to Bulawayo and the Matapo region. Our private guide, Paul, was a brilliant and kind man. We saw the rhinos on our first evening in the park. We stayed with them, watching and moving with them as they traveled to their watering spot, all while the sun was setting. Paul was an expert on this region of Zimbabwe and the rock paintings scattered through the hills. We visited three different sites, all of which were amazing. Paul was kind in helping me navigate trails and rock steps up to the caves. I am not very fit, and it was hot, but it was so worth it! A highlight was a visit to a village and talking to an older woman and her adult granddaughter in their hut. We had an interpreter to make communication easier. This time was a memorable and profound experience for me. I didn’t want to leave.

Next was Hwange, another adventure on safari that was equally fun. A quick overnight stop at Victoria Falls and off to Botswana for our last stop before heading home. The Okavango Delta was beautiful, and we had a leopard visit at our sundowner party. Amazing! The animals, birds, and people were fantastic in all the areas we visited. We learned so much. We left our last camp by helicopter, only to have a surprise landing in the savannah with champagne. This summary doesn’t do justice to the beauty and depth of our trip. There were many moving pieces, flights, and connections, and everything ran smoothly without a hitch, thanks to Katie and the team. We loved the tipping guide created specifically for our trip.

Vintage Jaguar in Cape Town, South Africa.

African tours, camps, and safaris kicked off with a pickup in a vintage Jaguar.

Our amazing first safari was thanks to Frankie Janssen, of Cherri Briggs’ office. We asked for suggestions on where to go and what time of year, and Frankie suggested a mid-August start, with a trip including Cape Town, Victoria Falls and Zambia because we wanted a place that included water activities.

Frankie planned our WOW Moment—actually a WOW day—for our first full day in Cape Town. She told me to trust her, and she was right. She hit all of the highlights…we were picked up in a vintage Jaguar. Our first stop was the Bo-Kaap area for a tour and Cape Malay cooking class. Then we went for a drive along the coast en route for a private tour of the Zeitz MOCAA, followed by a drive up to the top of Signal Hill for magnificent views, including Table Mountain.

Because we were flying into Zimbabwe from Cape Town, Frankie arranged for us to tour Victoria Falls right from the airport so we didn’t have to cross borders multiple times. The driver she arranged for us was especially helpful in expediting our crossing into Zambia. We stayed in 3 camps and all were first-rate. I told Frankie that I wanted a camp with photo hides and she sent us to Kaingo in South Luangwa National Park. We were fortunate to be there to see the red carmine bee-eaters, with the hide a few feet away from the nesting site. What an incredible sight! They also had an elephant hide and a hippo hide. By the first day at Kaingo, we had already seen the Big 5, as well as a chase of 3 male lions (we saw the white rhino at Tongabezi Lodge near Victoria Falls). We didn’t think there were any animals left to see, other than the wild dogs, but we saw them our first day at Sausage Tree Lodge. We also spotted a porcupine, which we never thought we’d see.

Being on the river at Tongabezi and Sausage Tree was a highlight. We loved the sunrise and sunset cruises, and we even tried our hand at fishing (only caught a turtle and a catfish…no tiger fish). Both Tongabezi and Sausage Tree Camp had special lunches and dinners in unexpected locations that really made the trip extra special. Zambia is a hidden gem. The only issue we had with the planning was our travel from Tongabezi to Kaingo. Because of the flight schedule, we had a 3-hour wait at Lusaka airport and once we landed in Mfuwe, we had a 2 1/2 hour drive to the camp. We didn’t arrive until 8:00 pm (we had started our day with a sunrise cruise, so we were exhausted). Kaingo does communal meals, so we were asked to go directly to dinner. Trying to converse with strangers after such a long trip was not pleasant, plus since we weren’t given the opportunity to put on bug spray, it was the one time I got several bites. Unless there is another way to reach Kaingo, I would not recommend it, despite the excellent photo hides.

Frankie added value to our trip, not only by planning our destinations and helping with activities, but also by securing drivers and VIP meet and greets who made our life easier. The one VIP meet and greet I would not do again, though, is in Cape Town. That added no value.

I’d highly recommend Frankie to plan your next safari!

I wanted a trip for a lifetime, to celebrate my 70th birthday with my 2 daughters. Cherri and her assistant Frankie surpassed all of my expectations. I wanted to go on a safari (top of my bucket list) and they planned a “perfect” itinerary based on my list of requirements for the trip.

They picked 3 great camps in Kenya, all with slightly different ecosystems, that were all 5 star accommodations. I was blown away with each camp as we arrived, not just for the physical accommodations but the site locations as well. The Kenyan people we met were the nicest people, and became family very quickly. The safari guides that were assigned to us were specifically requested by Cherri, and we found out were the sites’ #1 guides.

We saw all of the 5 big animals as well as every other one that we set out to see. They knew exactly where to look and their habits to allow us to observe them as closely as possible in their natural habitat. One of the many highlights we experienced was when visiting a Masai village, our guide saw a goat on the side of the road in the middle of giving birth, so he pulled over, got out of the car and actually delivered the baby and then got back in the jeep as if nothing happened and continued on. We finished our trip, just relaxing on the beach at Diani, on the Indian ocean at a stunning resort that topped it all off.

Cherri took every request I had and totally exceeded my hopes, in an exceptionally quick and professional manner. There would have been no way that I could have planned this trip on my own, and was so impressed with how they went about their business and were able to give me exactly what I wanted plus more.

I would highly recommend Cherri and her group for planning anyone’s next vacation and I am looking forward to working with her again on mine.

Karen and Rod Baesman enjoying a private dinner for their WOW Moment in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda.

Karen and Rod Baesman enjoying a private dinner in the bush.

My husband and I just returned from a bucket-list trip to Uganda! The trip exceeded our expectations on all fronts. We visited Tanzania 14 years ago and I had wanted to return to Africa ever since to see the gorillas. We decided that 2024 was the year and last June (after returning from a family trip to Greece — also planned using The WOW List) I consulted The WOW List and reached out to Cherri Briggs. I was promptly contacted by Katie McDonough and the planning began. This is my eighth trip using The WOW List so I knew we would have excellent accommodations and experiences, but what I most appreciated about working with Katie was her guidance in helping me narrow down exactly where we should go. I knew we wanted to see gorillas which meant Uganda or Rwanda, but I was all over the place about what else to see. After hearing our interests of seeing wildlife and experiencing the culture of wherever we went, Katie and Cherri recommended spending our entire two weeks in Uganda.

We spent the first two nights in Kampala. Most tourists just stay in Entebbe, but we wanted to see a larger city and we are so glad we did. We had a full day taking in the city, including visiting a couple of art galleries (we purchased a painting), sampling fried grasshoppers (delicious), walking through a market (the locals were confused by our presence, but my husband is fascinated by markets and is telling everyone about this one), and being consistently astonished at the driving and loads of all the boda-bodas (small motorcycles).

The next three nights were spent in Murchison Falls. We went on multiple game drives and two cruises on the Victorian Nile. We saw too many different types of animals and birds to name them all here, but if you are a birder, you will drool at the fact that we saw a pair of Shoebills on our delta cruise! We assumed the game would not be as impressive as what we had experienced in Tanzania, but the wildlife exceeded our expectations. Having the Nile cruises was different than what we had done previously and we had better views of giraffe and hippos, as well as different species to see and learn about. If you are going to Africa to see game, I would still say that Tanzania was better than Uganda, however, this was an excellent compliment to what we had done previously, especially since it had been 14 years. The Ugandan President’s daughter and her family were staying at our lodge, which made security interesting. On one evening, we were doing a game drive and we saw a set-up in the distance that we thought might be for the first daughter and her family because we saw men with guns. It turned out that it was a WOW Moment for the two of us! We watched the sunset and had dinner in the park — thank you Wendy Perrin! My husband commented that he is hard to surprise and to impress, but that this truly was a WOW experience!

Next we spent two nights in Kibale to trek for chimpanzees. We had an unbelievable day! Katie recommended a chimpanzee habituation experience which meant that once we found the chimps, we would spend four hours with them. We basically experienced an episode of Chimp Empire (Netflix). We saw chimps in the trees, on the ground, grooming, feeding, pounding on trees, making so much noise, mating, and having a tussle with a black and white Colobus monkey. The park guide said we were lucky, because you never know what you will see. To temper expectations, the day before they only saw three chimps in the trees. During the afternoon, we went on a community tour (coffee making, medicine man, weaving, banana beer and gin) which our guide set up for us and was well organized and well worth it. We also did a night walk led by the park rangers to look for nocturnal primates and we saw two!

Next stop was three nights in Mgahinga National Park. We trekked for Golden Monkeys and were rewarded with a large group, including so many young ones that we watched playing for almost the entire hour. That afternoon we visited the Batwa community (tribe displaced from the forest in 1991 to protect the gorilla habitat). Next day was our first gorilla trek. There is only one family of gorillas in the Ugandan part of this region. This park borders Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo where additional gorillas can be found. The family we saw has three silverbacks in a group of nine. We were amazed by how close the gorillas came to us. They didn’t seem to care about our presence at all, but we were awed by them. We were in a group of six tourists (plus three park rangers and four trackers) and to give some of you motivation, one of our fellow trekkers was 84 years old! That afternoon the employee of our lodge who had taken us on our Batwa tour took us to see the vocational center and then we asked if we could walk around. He lived in the surrounding village so he offered to show us around. It was one of the highlights of the trip. We walked the countryside and since he knew everyone and could interpret for us it was perfect. We watched people harvesting crops, even taking our turn at beating the dried beans. We chatted with people, asking questions and even showing them pictures of our family when they asked if we had children. As we passed a church, the pastor came out and invited us into his home. It was a magical day!

The travel day from Mgahinga to Bwindi included a coffee tour and a boat ride across a lake. In Bwindi Impenetrable National Park we had our final primate experience, a gorilla habituation experience. Upon finding the gorillas, we spent four hours with them. It was a very different experience than the gorilla trek in Mgahinga. The gorillas had seen people for two years, so they were not as oblivious to our presence, however, they were comfortable enough to take a 30-minute nap with us there. The terrain was different, too, denser underbrush and steeper. Once we found them and started following them, the trackers and their machetes were critical to helping us make our way through the forest. I am so glad we did both experiences, though, because spending four hours meant we got to see more behaviors. This was a family of 10, including one silverback and a six-month-old. After leaving Bwindi we spent the day in Entebbe (we managed to find another market where a teen girl wanted to take a picture with us) waiting for our flight home.

For those curious about the difficulty of the trekking, my husband and I are 59 years old and in good physical shape. We exercise regularly, including strength training, cycling and tennis. We were fortunate that none of our treks were too long. The trek to find the chimps was about 20 minutes and easy. It was a little more challenging keeping up with the chimps and our guide commented that she was thankful we could move quickly through the plant life to keep up with them. The golden monkey trek was about an hour and a half uphill. There were about 14 people plus guides and trackers and they ended up splitting us into two groups once they figured out who could hike faster. We were in the faster group and we definitely got our heart rate up! Splitting up allowed each group to spend time with the monkeys in a smaller group of people. The first gorilla hike was not difficult and it took less than an hour. It was rolling hills, not straight up. The most challenging part was the hike from the parking lot to where we met the rangers because it was straight up! In Bwindi we were truly lucky as we found the gorillas in about 20 minutes. If we had had to hike in that forest for hours, it would have been challenging. Making our way through the dense plant life was not easy and there were all kinds of opportunities to trip. The terrain was steep.

All of the accommodations were fabulous! Because we flew between locations, we had multiple guides which added to the experience. It was an opportunity to hear multiple perspectives and learn more. The planes were single-engine, 11-passenger planes. The roads in some places were quite rough! Our guides referred to the experience of driving some roads as an African massage….

While the impetus for the trip was seeing wildlife, we always want to interact with the people of the places we visit. The Ugandan people were just lovely. While most survive by growing their own food and selling what extra they have, we found them to be happy, friendly, and as interested in us as we were with them. The employees of the lodges went out of their way to ensure we had everything we could possibly want. The hospitality was above what anyone could expect.

We would highly recommend visiting Uganda and using Cherri’s office to plan your trip!

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