JEK
Senior Insider
From December 27, 2015 to January 19, 2016, we knocked a few places off of our bucket list.
Highlights:
Flew for more than 76 hours and over 35,000 miles on a NatGeo 757 with 76 other travelers and a staff of 20, including a chef.
Crossed the equator 4 times.
Visited 12 UNESCO World Heritage sites along the way:
City of Cusco, Peru
Machu Picchu, Peru
Easter Island (Rapi Nui National Park), Chile
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia
Angkor, Cambodia
Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa Tibet
Taj Mahal, India
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Petra, Jordan
Wadi Rum Protected Area, Jordan
Medina of Marrakesh, Morocco
If you ever have a chance to take any NatGeo trip, go for it! Everything was perfectly attended to from the luggage deliveries at every stop to landing cards that were filled out with our names and passport details. Tips were all included and we were each given $10 of local currency at each stop for small item shopping. At each stop the chef would wash the dishes from the plane and then prep his inflight meal for the next day with food that was locally sourced at each stop.
Upon arrival at each hotel we were checked in and only had to pick up our keys and wait for 30-60 minutes for the bags to arrive. Many special touches in meals, entertainment and small gifts at each hotel.
Tour groups were usually 10-12 with amplified headsets for the local guides and we traveled with two NatGeo anthropologists who gave lectures on the plane prior to each stop.
Lot's of walking and many, many steps to the lofty places at high altitude, but we came through in flying colors!
Highlights:
Flew for more than 76 hours and over 35,000 miles on a NatGeo 757 with 76 other travelers and a staff of 20, including a chef.
Crossed the equator 4 times.
Visited 12 UNESCO World Heritage sites along the way:
City of Cusco, Peru
Machu Picchu, Peru
Easter Island (Rapi Nui National Park), Chile
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia
Angkor, Cambodia
Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa Tibet
Taj Mahal, India
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Petra, Jordan
Wadi Rum Protected Area, Jordan
Medina of Marrakesh, Morocco
If you ever have a chance to take any NatGeo trip, go for it! Everything was perfectly attended to from the luggage deliveries at every stop to landing cards that were filled out with our names and passport details. Tips were all included and we were each given $10 of local currency at each stop for small item shopping. At each stop the chef would wash the dishes from the plane and then prep his inflight meal for the next day with food that was locally sourced at each stop.
Upon arrival at each hotel we were checked in and only had to pick up our keys and wait for 30-60 minutes for the bags to arrive. Many special touches in meals, entertainment and small gifts at each hotel.
Tour groups were usually 10-12 with amplified headsets for the local guides and we traveled with two NatGeo anthropologists who gave lectures on the plane prior to each stop.
Lot's of walking and many, many steps to the lofty places at high altitude, but we came through in flying colors!
