When I first discovered the African Conservation Experience (ACE) website, there were three projects that caught my eye. However, I was travelling with my sister, and we had a limited amount of time, so we had to compromise a little. I wanted to experience the wildlife on land, whereas she has always loved the ocean, so we wanted to combine our two passions into one trip! And ACE made that happen. After a phone call with one of the ACE consultants, who recommended projects based on what we wanted, we decided to split our time between the Phinda Wildlife Research Project and the Coastal Conservation Project.
I absolutely adored every second of this trip!
At Phinda, the game drives were amazing! We went out twice a day to track and monitor different animals, such as rhinos, elephants, lions, and many others. It was awesome to see lions so close up and learn about how they are translocated between reserves to increase genetic diversity within the population. I also learnt about rhino horn trimmings, which were equally as interesting!
The Coastal project offered something totally different to Phinda. We were participating in activities such as beach clean-ups and boat rides to look for marine fauna. One of my favourite aspects of this project was watching the seals from the boat. We also saw a huge pod of dolphins when we were out collecting data on whales, which was a pretty memorable moment!
I was able to see lots of different species, and also learned how to identify different sharks using underwater cameras!
On the weekends, we had free time to explore, and whilst we were in South Africa, the world surfing championships were on! A group of us all took a trip to Cape Town to watch it, which was so fun! I also really enjoyed dinner times in the volunteer house as we would all cook and clean together whilst chatting.
It has always been on my bucket list to go to Africa and work with wildlife, but it’s a pretty big trip and a long way to travel, so I needed to save up a lot - and I’m so glad I did. I had such a great experience - I was learning about conservation whilst having a good time!
I would definitely recommend this type of travel to people who want to see the world and help protect our environment and wildlife.
I came away with a better understanding of what conservation looks like in Africa and has inspired me to educate people about the importance of this work!
Feeling inspired by Adriana Gomez Jackson's experience?
Learn more about Coastal Conservation Project and Phinda Wildlife Research Project.
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