Choosing a Tour

People who are new to birding may want to consider any of our shorter domestic departures, those tours designed to immerse one in the birds and wildlife of a particular area in a week or less while avoiding sensory overload. Our spring and fall tours to Cape May (New Jersey); winter tours to the Rio Grande Valley (South Texas), New Mexico, Southern Arizona, and Southern California; and summer tour to Southeast Arizona are all excellent choices for newbies. A longtime favorite of ours is the Montana Owl Workshop. This short trip focuses on the science of birds, the fundamentals of field identification, understanding the importance of habitats, and other relevant topics. However, most VENT tours are appropriate for birders of all skill levels. On any tour you may meet other participants who are also new to birding, as well as birders of intermediate or advanced skill levels. We have found that participants who are more experienced are usually happy to assist new birders!

Some tours involve very little walking due to the type of vehicles used and the nature of the birding. Examples include our tour to Cuba, most of our tours to Africa and the United States, and some of our birding and natural history cruises. Our Relaxed & Easy tours typically include less walking and lighter physical activity.

Our tour to El Triunfo in Mexico includes more walking than most of our other tours. Our trips to Big Bend National Park & the Texas Hill Country, Belize (Chan Chich Lodge), and Panama's Canopy Tower also offer a fair amount of time on foot.

Children 14 years or older are welcome on our trips when accompanied by their parents. Some cruises are especially appropriate for families, as the range of interests accommodated on these trips is broader.

Our cruises, our Africa or India trips, or any “Birds, Nature & Culture” tour would be enjoyable for non-birders.

Many of our tours take place amid the world's most beautiful scenery, notably in Antarctica, Alaska, Bhutan, New Zealand, Big Bend, Colorado, and Hawaii. Wildlife photo opportunities are best on our Africa and India tours, the Pantanal in Brazil, Argentina, Alaska, and Australia.

Although the main focus of most of our tours is birding, we certainly take advantage of opportunities to see other wildlife—mammals, reptiles and amphibians, flowers, and butterflies, etc. In North America, our Alaska and Yellowstone trips offer the best wildlife-viewing opportunities. All of our Africa trips are very good for mammals as well as birds. This is especially true of our tours to South Africa, Northern Tanzania, and Namibia, Botswana & Zambia. Next to Africa, India offers the best mammal viewing in the world. India is also a fascinating country from a cultural standpoint. The Pantanal of Brazil offers arguably the greatest all-around natural history experience in the Western Hemisphere, with close encounters with an array of spectacular birds, mammals, and reptiles assured.

Each year, VENT offers a number of tours designed for those who desire more in their travels than birding and natural history "only." Our program of "Birds, Nature & Culture" tours includes Birds & Art tours in a number of European countries, while other tours to England, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and Israel incorporate a variety of cultural attractions including castles, ruins, archaeological sites, architectural wonders, museums, and musical performances. On all of these tours, some days may be dedicated exclusively to birding and time in nature while other days are devoted to historical and cultural attractions. Other days still will combine elements of both! Additionally, our cruises to the Mediterranean region and the British Isles present marvelous opportunities to combine a variety of interests, while our Amazon River Cruise offers an optional pre-trip to Machu Picchu.

We suggest starting with the American Tropics, close to the U.S. and offering an unparalleled array of marvelous birding and natural history experiences. Excellent field guides exist for most Latin American countries. Good first trips include any trip to Central America (Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama) or Trinidad. These trips will give you an opportunity to become familiar with most Neotropical bird families including motmots, trogons, jacamars, woodcreepers, parrots, antbirds, ovenbirds, and others. Later you'll want to venture south to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, where diversity is even greater. On the opposite side of the world, you will eventually want to consider a tour to Southeast Asia, which offers superb tropical birding in India, Thailand, and Cambodia. Finally, for those who don't mind working hard for their birds, Papua New Guinea offers some of the most challenging tropical birding anywhere, with opportunities to see the famous birds-of-paradise.

In general, you will be pleasantly surprised with the traveling conditions on most of our tropical tours. During the past two decades we have witnessed the development of many very good lodges in Latin American countries, especially in Costa Rica, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, Belize, and Panama. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile are highly developed countries with excellent services. Many lowland areas in the tropics are warm and humid, but other areas in the highlands are delightfully cool.

Excellent choices are trips that visit the lowlands of Costa Rica or Panama; the Amazonian regions of Brazil, Ecuador, or Peru; Papua New Guinea; and Thailand and Borneo in Southeast Asia. The following tours offer the opportunity to see the rainforest under expert leadership:

• Short Costa Rica
• Best of Costa Rica
• Panama's Canopy Tower
• Panama's Darien Lowlands: Canopy Camp
• Amazon River Cruise
• Manaus, Brazil: Amazon Rainforest & River Islands
• Papua New Guinea
• Thailand Highlights
• Borneo