TOP 5 WILDLIFE EXPERIENCES 🐢 🦍

Hi guys, David Hoffman here from davidsbeenhere.com and if you know me, you know I love animals. From the jungle in Sri Lanka, to the bush in South Africa, to the crystal clear waters in Mexico, I love it all. So today I'm going to talk to you about my top 5 wildlife experiences. Number 1 is the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. If you've never heard about it, this is a sanctuary for elephants who have been rescued from the logging industry. They don't allow breeding and basically how it works is you can either donate, you can become a volunteer, or you can visit like I did. When you visit the park, you have the chance to come up close and personal to these beautiful animals. You'll be able to feed them, bathe them, and meet the founder, Lek. It's an awesome experience. Number 2 might be my ultimate wildlife experience of all time because it's my favorite animal, the sea turtle. Down in Mexico in the Riviera Maya, there's a place called Akumal Bay. There's hundreds of sea turtles eating year round. It's free to access the beach. I recommend getting there early so you beat the crowds. You can rent snorkel and flippers at the dive center and the dive center also offers cameramen that will come with you, take photos and video of your experience. Just remember guys, you're not allowed to touch the turtles. You can get really close, but you can't touch them. I know I said that my last experience is my favorite experience of all time, but that's because it's the sea turtle. But this experience is once in a lifetime. Gorilla trekking in Rwanda. Now if you've researched about gorilla trekking, you know you can do that in three countries. Rwanda, Uganda, and DRC. The reason you can do it in all three is because where the gorillas are in Volcanoes National Park or the mountains there, that is bordered by all three countries. So you can do it in either one. I recommend doing it in Rwanda. It's really expensive. It's about $1,500 per person to go hiking to the gorillas. I mean it's a once in a lifetime experience, so if you're going to Rwanda, you have to do this. You have to save up just to go do this. It's really incredible. So the way it works is you're going to head to base camp around 6.30am. There they'll tell you which family you're going to visit. Once you know the family you're going to visit, they'll tell you it's going to be either a 30 minute hike or up to a 4 hour hike. It really depends how far the gorilla families are, and the reason they know how far they are is because they have rangers that are tracking the gorillas so they know exactly where they are. So while you're going on your trek looking for the gorillas, your guides will explain to you about gorillas, talk to you about the history, what has happened to them, are they safe, etc. Once you get there, you have about 1 hour to take pictures and film them. You're not allowed to touch the gorillas, you're going to get pretty close, and the rangers will tell you to stay still, don't move, don't get any closer. They'll guide you on what you should and should not do. So I mean this is like the best experience of my life really, I mean getting so close to a silverback gorilla and just seeing them in the wild and how peaceful they are, it's something you have to do. And getting to Rwanda is not so complicated, either you go through South Africa, Ethiopia, I'm sure you can go through UAE or Qatar, one of these countries. So if you're going to Africa and you're going to visit Rwanda, you have to visit the gorillas. I know it's really expensive, but it's a once in a lifetime experience guys, you probably would never go back and see them, and they really are one of the most beautiful animals in the world. Next up we're going to South Africa to go snorkeling with seals in Hout Bay. So I was pretty nervous about this, okay, I didn't know about this, you know I was in South Africa, one of our friends Robin was telling us about seal diving with Animal Ocean as the company that can take you out there, and I was super nervous because obviously these are shark infested waters, so the reason why you can do this is because where these seals are on this island, there's about 5,000 of them, 10,000, I mean that's the range. The water is very shallow, it's between 1 and 5 meters, so there's no sharks. So remember guys, the water is freezing, you put a wetsuit on, you jump in the water, you can also put a weight on in case you want to go deeper in the water to get closer to the seals. They come right up to you, so don't even worry about putting a weight on. It's not so comfortable to be in that water because obviously the wetsuit, it's cold, and then you have these animals around you, but it's really an incredible experience. You probably would never get that close to a sea lion in your life unless you go here. So it's affordable, around 800 Rand per person, so it's around 60 US dollars. So if you're in the Cape Town area, I suggest you do it, it's only like a 20, 30 minute drive south, and the location is called Houts Bay. So most of you have probably seen a viral video about this. Have you ever heard about cage diving with a crocodile? It's called the Cage of Death, and that's in Darwin, Australia, in Northern Territory. It's really crazy, I mean I saw this on Instagram, and then when I knew I was going to the Northern Territory, I said I have to do it. So basically the Crocosaurus Cove is an aquarium full of crocodiles, also other reptiles and fish, but they have animals that are from the Northern Territory. This is like the outback in Australia. So if you decide to go in the Cage of Death, you're going to have a 5 meter long crocodile. That's like 15 plus foot crocodile in the water with you. You're in a plexiglass cage, you have about 15 minutes, you're going to also have your friends take pictures of you from above or from below because they can see you through the glass. It's really incredible, the people from the park, they'll feed the crocodiles, like fishing the crocodiles, and have them jump and snap right there on the cage. It's really awesome. You can either go alone into the Cage of Death, or you can go with a friend, and I would suggest you make your reservations ahead of time because there's limited spots per day. So if you're an animal lover, then you have to do some of these experiences. Really my top favorites were the Gorilla Trekking and the Sea Turtles. The Sea Turtles is very easy and super affordable. The Gorilla Trekking is more of a mission, a little harder to get to, and obviously very expensive. But that's a once in a lifetime experience. So if you have any other encounters that you recommend, please drop it in the comment below. Tell us about the experience, where it is, how much it costs, and is it worth it. So if you love this video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel, and watch another video. Thank you guys. David Hoffman. Peace out. Travel on.