Description

This trip combines intense, authentic cultural exploration with lessons in photography to improve your skills as you tour through these three vastly different African nations. Along the way, you'll have the opportunity to shoot amazing landscapes, exotic wildlife, and portraits of the people you'll meet.

DAY 1: NEW YORK (FOR THOSE WHO OPT TO TAKE THE GROUP FLIGHT)
As the group flight takes off, the trip officially begins!

DAYS 2 - 6: BOTSWANA
We begin in Kasane, Botswana which we use as our base camp for 4 days of game drives, boat safari expeditions, mokoro explorations. During this time, we will begin to learn how to compose powerful images of the African landscape and of wildlife in the wild. Inside Chobe National Park, you'll have the chance to witness the awesome sight of some of the 65,000 elephants, lions, leopards, buffalo, crocodiles, impala, springbok, giraffes, zebras, kudus, as well as many more animals you probably never expected to see in the wild! See if you're lucky enough to spot all of the Big 5 as we cruise through the park in open 4x4's! Our final day will include a night spent sleeping in the park itself. This unique opportunity will allow our group to experiment with sunset, sunrise and nighttime photography that just is not possible anywhere else on earth. Your guides will spend time each day teaching you how to fully master aperture, shutter speed, ISO as well as composition.

DAYS 6 - 8: ZAMBIA
Moving on to neighboring Zambia, we will visit the incredible Victoria Falls in the afternoon and stay through sunset for an awe inspiring sight as the sun sets directly behind the falls. The falls are listed among the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, and will no doubt offer you plenty of inspiration for dramatic photos! The next day we will explore a local craft market and spend some time reviewing the images thus far from our trip. If you want to, you can elect to take an unforgettable helicopter ride over the falls themselves!

DAYS 8 - 12: WILD COAST
We then head to the Wild Coast, just outside of East London, South Africa. From our beach side accommodations, our final leg of the trip will focus on immersing ourselves in the culture and history of this once deeply divided nation. We will split our days between cooking lessons, village visits, and adventure activities such as surfing, mountain biking and horseback riding. We will also feature some incredible photographic opportunities; hundred foot sand dunes, three hundred foot cliffs and one final game drive through a local reserve to come face to face with a pride of rare white lions. This last leg of the trip will pull together all of your photographic lessons thus far to culminate in an experience where you will be able to make the leap to shooting in full manual. Learning to control your camera and therefore composing photos that are so powerful they could be postcards and posters.

DAY 12: JOHANNESBURG
Our last day brings us back to where we first landed, Johannesburg. We will spend this day retracing some of the apartheid history of Soweto, the Apartheid museum and the events which have set the country on its current course as it grows post-Apartheid. We will visit one final spectacular flea market to bring home some gifts from Africa before we board our plane back to New York.

DAY 13: NEW YORK, JFK
Our flight lands in the morning at JFK International Airport where we will bid each other a fond farewell.

Highlights

- Explore the unique cultures of three South African countries.
- Learn travel and safari photography hands-on.
- Go on a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls
- See the "Big Five" in the wild - lions, elephants, cape buffalo, leopards, & rhinos

Travel Types

• Safari
• Nature Tours
• Photography
• Student Tours
• Tours

Type of Programs

• Adventure Travel
• High School Study Abroad
• Cultural Exploration
• Student Tours

Languages

• English

Cost in US$:

USD 3,785 plus airfare

This Program is open to

American, Asian, Australian, Canadian, European and Worldwide Participants.

Application Process Involves

• Online Application plus Application Assessment
• Physical Exam/Health Records

Typically The Application Process Time is

1 week

Travel For Teens's Mission Statement

Travel for Teens believes that teen travel should be both fun and enriching. Our programs feature choice in what you do, see, and experience, a dynamic that sets us apart from superficial tours that herd large groups from one site to another. We visit the best of the mainstream attractions while offering the opportunity to explore the culture from a less touristy perspective. We interact with our host cultures, taking cooking and dance lessons, performing valuable service work to help local communities, and conversing with the people who have spent their lives living in the places we journey to. We have crafted our unique programs to engender love for travel, hunger for learning, curiosity about differences, appreciation of similarities across cultures, and an understanding of what it means to be a global citizen.

Year Founded

2003