101 Things to Do Before You Die: the Great Outdoors by The TI Review Team

Go 4x4 in the Kalahari: Mark Eveleigh

Now you can take on the Kalahari, too, but on your own terms: travelling light, third millennium style. All you need is a Land Rover Defender expedition vehicle, fitted with long-range fuel-tanks, 10-gallon water containers and a high-level exhaust (in case of the unlikely event of a flood). At night you sleep out, as nature intended - with just the flimsy walls of a predator-proof rooftent between you and the Kalahari night.

Go On a Tiger Safari by Mark Eveleigh

Like the hunting technique of the animal itself, successful tiger-spotting is made up of 98% patience and 2% frantic activity. The relative openness of the dhok forests and meadows of Ranthambhore National Park have earned its tigers a reputation for ‘unusual visibility’ and it is rare for a visitor to spend more than three or four days on safari here without a sighting of one of the world’s most awesome predators.

Catch an Okavango Croc by Mark Eveleigh

There was something delightfully irresponsible about sitting in the bow of a small boat, scouting the moonlit channels for the blood-red eyes of prehistoric super-predators...and the usual Okavango safari does not often include an opportunity to wrestle a Nile crocodile. But the suspense and thrill of these activities were enhanced by the fact that, as a volunteer on an Earthwatch research expedition, I was playing an active part in the conservation of one of Africa’s most fascinating creatures.

Safari in Lapland by Anna Jankovich

Go on a husky safari in Lapland.

Travel the Savannah Way by Liz Johnston

Travel the Savannah Way from Cairns on the east coast of northern Australia to Broome on the west. Stop at rock-fringed waterholes, visit wondrously beautiful gorges in the midst of desert country and call into indigenous communities to buy art and talk to the artists at work. Take scenic flights from Broome over the thousand islands and horizontal waterfalls of the Buccaneer Archipelago and from Kununurra over the Bungle Bungle Mountains.

Take a Night Drive in the Kruger Park by Barbara Erasmus

South Africa: The sun is fading and the trees are etched against the sky. A grey loeri calls its familiar cry as a discord of hadedahs flies overhead in formation. The stars came out to stud the sky like glow-worms. We’re silent and excited as we pass shadows that translate into rhino or eland. The spotlight picks out a silent owl, motionless on a gnarled branch.

Visit Kakadu by Anthony Toole

Australia’s largest National Park, and a magnificent wilderness of spectacular scenery and an abundance of wildlife.

Ride a Camel in the Sahara by Eamonn Gearon

Algeria: No life can be thought of as complete without spending at least one night alone in the Sahara. To make this superior experience better, transportation into one’s chosen spot of desert ought to be facilitated by camel. Tent not required.

Meet the Mountain Gorillas by Eamonn Gearon

Rwanda: Spending just one hour in the company of the mountain gorillas is worth a hundred with most any person alive. To reinforce the beauty of this experience, one can get higher by climbing the Mount Karisimbi volcano. Rwanda’s highest peak takes you through the rainforest and on up breathless sub-Alpine delights.

See Adele Penguin Guano by Belinda Jackson

Antarctica: Smell the guano and hear the roar of 100,000 Adele penguins at a breeding colony.

See The Valley of the Moon by Tom Kay

See the valley of the Moon in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The driest and one of the most intense places on the planet, the Atacama Desert is situated in the north of the same country that is home to some of the heaviest rainfalls way down south. It is here in the north, however, where the predictably harsh and barren landscape by day is transformed at night. Under a full moon, the salt crystals from the days’ evaporation give the landscape a wintry feel, as if there has been a dusting of snow. Spend a night here under the moon and stars and the goose bumps will only subside as you fall asleep.

Ride in Central Asia by Ben Mallalieu

Ride with a line of Central Asian horsemen across an empty plain under a sky heavy with snow.

Visit a Gardenia-Perfumed Forest by Susan Storm

Rab, Croatia. Walk through the gardenia-perfumed forest on the tiny Croatian island of Rab, where the only sounds are of silence, the falling of petals, the hush of history under carved Roman pillars and the swish of apprentice waves on rolling stones.

Dream a Dream of Nowhere in Patagonia by Susan Storm

Patagonia, South America. A land of stones and dust and desiccated skies. Vultures hovered overhead, a rhea and her chicks skipped by, a glacier groaned, old volcanic fallout covered lone haciendas, a gaucho and his steed loped out of an echoing canyon, and a wobbling mirage of pelicans confirmed that nowhere does exist.

Travel to Galapagos by Isabella Tree

Galapagos Islands - for a spectacular adventure into the geology of the planet, the origins of life, and nature ‘red in tooth and claw’. Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, likened the Galapagos to ‘heaps of cinders dumped here and there in an outside lot’ - conditions are so inhospitable, and some of the volcanic islands so recent, it’s a miracle anything survives here at all. It’s not beautiful, except in a bleak, black, predatory kind of way, yet the place is teeming with wildlife, and the mutation of species from island to island so clear and dramatic, it feels like you’re being given a ring-side seat at the theatre of evolution.

See the Monarch Butterflies of Mexico by Isabella Tree

Morelia, Mexico: No one knows why or how 35 million monarch butterflies fly all the way from the Great Lakes in Canada, down the entire length of the United States, to over-winter in one small pine forest at 12,000 feet a few hours’ drive from Mexico City - but they do. The sight - and sound - of hundreds of thousands of bright orange butterflies whirling around you is indescribably and unforgettably moving, and marred only by the terrible guilt of accidentally treading on one that’s just landed, exhausted, from its 6,000 mile journey. We celebrated the millennium here with our two young children and they still haven’t forgotten being covered head to toe in butterflies. Wear a white T-shirt - it seems to attract them the most.

Spend Midnight Alone with the Turtles by Andrew Ferree

South Akumal: Sit on the beach at midnight alone with the Turtles, watch them lay their eggs and maybe see them hatch and scurry into the moonlit path of the ocean.

Hear the Haunting Call of the Loon by Rory MacLean

Canada: Hear at dawn the solitary, haunting call of the loon, Canada's Great Northern Diver. Quetico is an 1800 square mile wilderness park of 600 lakes and a thousand tangled rivers to the west of Lake Superior. I love to canoe across the water's dark mirror, paddling with an inside flick of the blade, leaving a trail of twisting whirlpools in my wake. Remember to wear life-jacket.

Travel the Tenere by John Warburton-Lee

Africa, Sahara: Travel the Tenere, a remote region of the central Sahara, with a Tuareg guide to open your eyes to true desert life.

Visit a Remote Swamp in Botswana by Mark McCrum

Botswana: How about a swamp? Though Botswana’s Okavango is now no longer truly remote, you’re still out there in genuine wild Africa, rather than an artificial game reserve. Hire a dug out canoe (or mokorro) and let yourself be paddled through the silence and the reeds as fish eagles soar overhead. Steer clear of hippos and crocodiles (the first are more dangerous) and keep your eyes peeled when you land on an island. Lions, water-buffalo, elephants roam here among the shyer wildebeest, so make sure that fire is well-stocked for the night and the tent flaps are closed.

Visit Big Sky Country by Sarah Anderson

United States: See Western Montana - 'Big Sky Country' - which fills you with the feeling of being one with the world. An exciting and magnificent state with mountains, rivers, forests and bears.

Join a Wildlife Study by Rupert Isaacson

Earthwatch's Mountain Lion project in southern Idaho, where you help live-capture the beasts in the snow, is one of the most intense 10 days you'll ever have. Sweating through the thigh-deep drifts after a pack of hounds as they rush to 'tree' the mountain lion. Then, after it's been tranquilised, you measure the beast, record its vital statistics, take pictures, all the while thinking: 'My God, I'm holding a real live mountain lion in my hands!'

Want some more ideas? Take a look at Travel Intelligence's 101 Things to Do Before You Die: Travel Experiences