Today’s stop on the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van is: JohnnyJet.com. Visit the blog and com­ment on today’s post for a chance to win Alaska and Seat­tle Tour­saver books and a $50 Magellan’s Travel Sup­plies gift certificate.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Today’s stop on the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van is: CiaoBambino.com. Visit the blog and com­ment on today’s post for a chance to win a Napa Val­ley Get­away with a one-night stay at the Westin Verasa and a gourmet lunch for two aboard the Napa Val­ley Wine Train.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

What Else Will You Do Dur­ing the World Cup?

Are you head­ing to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? You’re going to enjoy a few games and maybe go on safari, but have you thought about doing some ser­vice work while you’re there?

Ele­vate Des­ti­na­tions has put together a few cus­tomized com­mu­nity tours in South Africa that will show trav­el­ers some of the chal­lenges fac­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Johan­nes­burg, Dur­ban, and Cape Town. Spe­cial tours can be orga­nized for a min­i­mum of one to two days.

Sug­gested Tours in South Africa

• Johan­nes­burg—Visit com­mu­nity projects in Soweto with for­mer soc­cer play­ers such as Andre Arendse and Linda Buthelezi.
• Cape Town—Tour three dif­fer­ent city com­mu­nity empow­er­ment projects on a one-day tour.
• Dur­ban—Head to the Indigo Skate Park in the Val­ley of a Thou­sand Hills, a rural area in Dur­ban where skate board­ing has brought hope to this community.

Down­load Ele­vate Destination’s World Cup Com­mu­nity Tour­ing pdf.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit Ele­vated Des­ti­na­tions or call (617) 661‑0203.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Today’s stop on the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van is: The Tran­quilo Trav­eler. Visit the blog and com­ment on today’s post for a chance to win a copy of Moon Belize accom­pa­nied by per­sonal travel advice from the author about your trip.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Today’s stop on the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van is: NovelDestinations.com. Visit the blog and com­ment on today’s post for a chance to win a lit­er­ary prize pack, includ­ing a tote bag, the book Novel Des­ti­na­tions, Bliss travel kit, note­cards, tea, book­marks, and a key chain.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Is the Lingo 16-Language Trans­la­tor (avail­able from Magellan’s Travel Sup­plies) on your hol­i­day wish list? If so, read this entire post to find out how to enter and win a trans­la­tor for yourself!

I’m thrilled to announce the first (and, hope­fully, annual) Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van. Start­ing today, I invite you to fol­low 15 top travel blog­gers for a chance to win prizes in cel­e­bra­tion of the season.

Prizes range from hotel gift cards and overnight stays to dig­i­tal cam­eras and noise-cancelling head­phones to lug­gage and cam­era bags to travel guide­books and DVDs. Magellan’s Travel Sup­plies has signed on as a spon­sor of this event. If you’ve got a trav­eler on your hol­i­day shop­ping list, check out the unique gifts avail­able at Magellan’s web­site.

Each day, between Decem­ber 2–15, a dif­fer­ent travel expert’s blog will be fea­tured in this round robin event. You’ll have a chance to win one of over a dozen prizes by read­ing and com­ment­ing on the daily blog post.

The Car­a­van starts tomor­row! Sim­ply visit the Lux­ury Cruise Bible blog each morn­ing to learn about the fea­tured Car­a­van “stop-of-the-day” between Decem­ber 2 and 15, and then enter to win.

LuxurySafariExperts.com will be fea­tured on Decem­ber 15, 2009. Mark your cal­en­dar and be sure to com­ment on my post that day in order to be entered in the giveaway.

Com­plete Travel Car­a­van Schedule

Decem­ber 2: LuxuryCruiseBible.com (Andrea M. Rotondo)
$100 Mar­riott gift card

Decem­ber 3: DreamofItaly.com (Kathy McCabe)
One-year online sub­scrip­tion to Dream of Italy newslet­ter & DVD ($79 value)

Decem­ber 4: NovelDestinations.com (Shan­non McKenna Schmidt & Joni Ren­don)
Lit­er­ary Travel Prize Pack
(A tote bag, Novel Des­ti­na­tions book, travel kit, note cards, tea, book­marks, and a keychain.)

Decem­ber 5: TheBrooklynNomad.com (Andrew Hickey)
Imag­ine: A Vagabond Story by Grant Lin­gel and $50 Magellan’s gift certificate

Decem­ber 6: The Tran­quilo Trav­eler (Joshua Berman)
A copy of Moon Belize, accom­pa­nied with per­sonal travel advice from the author about your trip

Decem­ber 7: CiaoBambino.com (Amie O’Shaughnessy and Kristi Mar­celle)
Napa Val­ley Get­away
(One-night stay at the Westin Verasa in Napa, Cal­i­for­nia,
plus gourmet lunch for two on the Napa Val­ley Wine Train)

Decem­ber 8: JohnnyJet.com (John DiS­cala)
Alaska and Seat­tle Tour­saver books ($198 value) and $50 Magellan’s gift certificate

Decem­ber 9: What a Trip (Nancy D. Brown)
Two Otter­box cell phone cases ($50 value each)
and
One Briggs and Riley Base­line 20” Carry-On Expand­able Wide-Body Upright ($369 value)

Decem­ber 10: JtheTravelAuthority.com (Jea­nine Barone)
Moun­tain­smith Tour FX Cam­era Bag ($99 value)

Decem­ber 11: CruiseDiva.com (Linda Coff­man)
Fodor’s The Com­plete Guide to Caribbean Cruises and a World Ground­ing Set (cour­tesy of Magellan’s)

Decem­ber 12: EllenBarone.com (Ellen Barone)
Day pack from First Ascent, a new extreme adven­ture line of gear and cloth­ing
by Eddie Bauer and part­ners ($79 value)

Decem­ber 13: MyItchyTravelFeet.com (Donna L. Hull)
“Library Edi­tion” of the most recent sea­son of “Rudy Maxa’s World”,
includ­ing six DVDs con­tain­ing 13 shows on des­ti­na­tions in India, Turkey, Japan, Thai­land, St. Peters­burg, Esto­nia, and Argentina ($112 value)

Decem­ber 14: EuropeUpClose.com (Terri Fog­a­rty)
Fuji­film FinePix J28 10MP dig­i­tal cam­era with 3x opti­cal zoom

Decem­ber 15: LuxurySafariExperts.com (Andrea M. Rotondo)
Fold­ing noise-cancelling head­phones cour­tesy of Magellan’s Travel Supplies

If you love explor­ing new des­ti­na­tions and revis­it­ing old favorites, you won’t want to miss the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van & Give­away! You just may dis­cover a few new favorite travel blogs to bookmark.

Win a Lingo 16-Language Translator

Help us kick off the Car­a­van right now! Fol­low @luxcruisebible and then tweet about the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van between Decem­ber 1 and 15. Include a link to this blog post and the #car­a­van hash­tag and you’ll be entered to win the Lingo 16-Language Trans­la­tor, cour­tesy of Magellan’s Travel Sup­plies. Entrants must have a U.S. mail­ing address. Entries must be received between Decem­ber 1–15, 2009. One win­ner will be ran­domly cho­sen from eli­gi­ble entries on Decem­ber 21, 2009. Win­ner will be noti­fied via Twit­ter DM (direct message).

Just log onto Twit­ter and tweet some­thing like this:
Check out the Travel Blog­gers’ Car­a­van. 15 travel blog­gers and tons of cool prizes to win. http://bit.ly/6zfZEr #caravan

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

I really like what Aber­crom­bie & Kent is doing with its orga­ni­za­tion, Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy. The tour pack­ager that’s known for high-end expe­di­tions to the far cor­ners of the globe is now offer­ing indi­vid­u­als the chance to be part of the solu­tion to a local prob­lem in a far-off location.

As the hol­i­day sea­son approaches, Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy is remindng every­one that dona­tions make fan­tas­tic gifts for friends and fam­ily who have everything.

“This year the focus is on what money can­not buy—shared expe­ri­ences and trea­sured mem­o­ries,” says Aber­crom­bie & Kent Vice Chair­man Jorie But­ler Kent, who guides Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy. “Our guests are look­ing for more mean­ing­ful ways to cel­e­brate with their fam­i­lies and asked us to cre­ate a Gift Pro­gram that makes it easy to donate to projects mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in places they have visited.”

With the help of A&K’s 62 world­wide offices, Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy has iden­ti­fied grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions, spear­headed by ded­i­cated local experts in con­ser­va­tion, edu­ca­tion, com­mu­nity devel­op­ment, and pub­lic health.

These are inspir­ing gifts designed to honor a friend or fam­ily mem­ber.  Dona­tions range from $10 for a sim­ple HIV test to help pre­vent the trans­mis­sion of AIDS to an unborn child to $500 for a field trip for Maa­sai chil­dren who have never been on safari.

Here are three pro­grams being offered right now. Visit Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy to read about all dona­tion pro­grams through­out the world.

HIV Test­ing in Uganda
Uganda Bwindi Com­mu­nity Hospital
—$10 helps assess the HIV sta­tus of a local res­i­dent with a sim­ple field test.

Restore a Nat­ural Land­mark 
in Morocco
Morocco—Protection of the Palmeraie—
$50 plants a tree to help restore the del­i­cate ecosys­tem in this thousand-year-old date palm grove, a Mar­rakech landmark.

A Safari Field Trip
Kenya — Friends of Conservation—
$500 gives 20 Maa­sai chil­dren the chance to dis­cover their nat­ural her­itage and learn the value of pro­tect­ing wildlife with a field trip to the Masai Mara National Reserve.

Dona­tions can be made online through Aber­crom­bie & Kent Philanthropy’s secure web­site www.akphilanthropy.org with 100 per­cent of all dona­tions going directly to the project selected.  Gift cer­tifi­cates will be deliv­ered to the recipient(s) elec­tron­i­cally or printed and mailed.

To make a dona­tion as a family—or in honor of a loved one—go to www.akphilanthropy.org. One hun­dred per­cent of your char­i­ta­ble gift to Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy goes directly to sup­port local projects world­wide. Aber­crom­bie & Kent Phil­an­thropy is estab­lished in the United States as a 501©(3) not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tion. Your char­i­ta­ble gift is tax deductible as pro­vided by law.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Okay, British Air­ways won’t take you to Africa for free, but with a new pro­mo­tion they’ve announced with part­ner credit card Chase Visa, they will give you 100,000 bonus miles that can be used to travel to many amaz­ing African  gate­ways, including:

Egypt (Cairo, Hurghada, and Sharm el Sheikh)
Kenya (Nairobi)
Mau­ri­tius
Morocco (Mar­rakech)
Namibia (Wind­hoek)
South Africa (Cape Town, Dur­ban, Johan­nes­burg, Port Eliz­a­beth)
Tan­za­nia (Dar Es Salaam)
Uganda (Entebbe)
Zam­bia (Liv­ing­stone, Lusaka)
Zim­babwe (Harare)

So how do you get this prac­ti­cally free trip to Africa? By sign­ing up for an unprece­dented bonus mile deal: earn 100,000 miles with a new British Air­ways Visa Sig­na­ture Card from Chase.

Card Ben­e­fits

• receive 50,000 miles after your first purchase
• spend $2,000 within three months of open­ing your card and receive an addi­tional 50,000 miles
• earn 1.25 miles for each $1 spent
• earn 2.5 miles for money spent on BA purchases
• spend $30,000 in a cal­en­dar year and you’ll receive a 2-for-1 com­pan­ion award certificate
• $50 off a British Air­ways flight if booked before Decem­ber 31, 2009 (for travel before the end of 2010)

This promo is espe­cially entic­ing since British Air­ways offers what they call “House­hold Accounts.” This means you can com­bine miles with any­one liv­ing at the same address. That makes man­ag­ing miles SO much eas­ier! You’ll retain your own Exec­u­tive Club mem­ber­ship but your mileage bal­ances will be combined.

You may use British Air­ways miles on any OneWorld air­line, including:

Amer­i­can Air­lines
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
Japan Air­lines
LAN
Malev
Quan­tas
Royal Jordanian

Other British Air­ways part­ners also include:

Aer Lin­gus
Alaskan Air­lines
Brus­sels Air­lines
Caribbean Air­lines
Mexicana

This British Airways/Chase Visa promo is def­i­nitely some­thing to look into, espe­cially if you’ll be trav­el­ing to Africa in the com­ing years. I know that’s how I’ll spend my miles! Apply for the card now.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

South African Airways

South African Air­ways is run­ning a promo for roundtrip econ­omy air from New York or Wash­ing­ton, D.C., from Novem­ber 1–December 9, 2009 and Jan­u­ary 7–April 30, 2010. The roundtrip price is $930 per per­son. Sim­i­lar fares are avail­able from other U.S. gateways.

Here’s the fine print: Fare is for travel in econ­omy class and inclu­sive of fuel sur­charges. Valid for travel Novem­ber 1 to Decem­ber 9, 2009 and Jan­u­ary 7 to April 30, 2010. Seats are lim­ited and may not be avail­able on all flights. Travel taxes are addi­tional. Can­cel­la­tions before depar­ture are sub­ject to a $250 penalty and no shows are non-refundable. After depar­ture, tick­ets are non-refundable. Changes prior to depar­ture are not per­mit­ted. Changes after depar­ture are sub­ject to a $250 fee. Tick­et­ing must be com­pleted within 48 hours after reser­va­tions are made. Max­i­mum stay is 12 months. Fare does not include (a) Pas­sen­ger Facil­ity Charges of up to $18 USD depend­ing upon the itin­er­ary cho­sen (b) Fed­eral Seg­ment Fee of $3.60 USD per flight seg­ment (flight seg­ment is defined as one take­off and one land­ing) © Sep­tem­ber 11th Secu­rity Fee of $2.50 USD per flight seg­ment that orig­i­nates at a U.S. point (d) inter­na­tional gov­ern­ment taxes and fees of up to $200 vary­ing by des­ti­na­tion and cur­rency exchange rates at the time of pur­chase. Addi­tional bag­gage charges may apply.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Photo cour­tesy of South African Airways

An inter­na­tional team of researchers has devel­oped a remark­able new roadmap for find­ing and pro­tect­ing the best remain­ing hold­outs for thou­sands of rare species that live only in Mada­gas­car, con­sid­ered one of the most sig­nif­i­cant bio­di­ver­sity hot spots in the world.

An inter­na­tional team of researchers has devel­oped a remark­able new roadmap for find­ing and pro­tect­ing the best remain­ing hold­outs for thou­sands of rare species that live only in Mada­gas­car, con­sid­ered one of the most sig­nif­i­cant bio­di­ver­sity hot spots in the world.

In their con­ser­va­tion plan, the researchers, led by con­ser­va­tion biol­o­gists at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, not only included lemurs—those large-eyed, tree-hopping pri­mates that have become poster chil­dren for conservation—but also species of ants, but­ter­flies, frogs, geckos and plants.

Alto­gether, more than 2,300 species found only in the vast area of Madagascar—a 226,642-square-mile (587,000-square-kilometer) island nation in the Indian Ocean—were included in the analy­sis. Cen­tral­iz­ing and ana­lyz­ing the sheer quan­tity of data avail­able to develop a map of con­ser­va­tion pri­or­i­ties pro­vided an unprece­dented ana­lyt­i­cal chal­lenge. The results are described in the April 11 issue of the jour­nal Science.

First, a mas­sive team of researchers col­lected highly detailed data to learn the exact loca­tions of thou­sands of ani­mal and plant species across the island. The researchers then used soft­ware spe­cially devel­oped for this project, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a com­puter sci­ence researcher at AT&T, to esti­mate the com­plete range of each species. A sep­a­rate opti­miza­tion soft­ware, cus­tomized for this project by researchers at Finland’s Helsinki Uni­ver­sity, was used next to iden­tify which regions are most vital for sav­ing the great­est num­ber of species. Species that have expe­ri­enced a pro­por­tion­ally larger loss of habi­tat due to defor­esta­tion were given top pri­or­ity in the result­ing con­ser­va­tion plan because they are at greater risk of extinction.

“Never before have biol­o­gists and pol­icy mak­ers had the tools that allow analy­sis of such a broad range of species, at such fine scale, over this large a geo­graphic area,” said Claire Kre­men, UC Berke­ley assis­tant pro­fes­sor of con­ser­va­tion biol­ogy and the project’s co-lead researcher. “Our analy­sis raises the bar on what’s pos­si­ble in con­ser­va­tion plan­ning, and helps deci­sion mak­ers deter­mine the most impor­tant places to protect.”

The team’s work demon­strates that rely­ing on a sin­gle group of species for a con­ser­va­tion plan does not pro­vide ade­quate pro­tec­tion for other species groups.

“Pre­serv­ing bio­di­ver­sity in the midst of tremen­dous pres­sures, such as habi­tat destruc­tion and global warm­ing, is one of humanity’s great­est envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges in the 21st cen­tury,” said Kre­men, who worked on this project with New York-based Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, where she is an asso­ciate con­ser­va­tion­ist. “Con­ser­va­tion plan­ning has his­tor­i­cally focused on pro­tect­ing one species or one group of species at a time, but in our race to beat species extinc­tion, that one-taxon approach is not going to be quick enough.”

Accord­ing to some esti­mates, about half of the world’s plant species and three-quarters of ver­te­brate species are con­cen­trated in bio­di­ver­sity hot spots that make up only 2.3 per­cent of Earth’s land sur­face. Mada­gas­car, a devel­op­ing coun­try off the south­east coast of Africa, is one of the most trea­sured of these regions of biodiversity.

An esti­mated 80 per­cent of the ani­mals on Mada­gas­car do not occur nat­u­rally any­where else on Earth. Half of the world’s chameleons and all species of lemurs are endemic to this island. They are joined by whole fam­i­lies of plants, insects, birds, mam­mals, rep­tiles and frogs that are found only in Madagascar.

“The diver­sity of Mada­gas­car is not yell well under­stood, as a large num­ber of species has been recently described, and new dis­cov­er­ies are made every year,” said study co-author David Vieites, a post­doc­toral fel­low at UC Berkeley’s Museum of Ver­te­brate Zool­ogy and in the Depart­ment of Inte­gra­tive Biol­ogy. “For exam­ple, since our study began three years ago, some 50 new species of amphib­ians were dis­cov­ered. Sadly, because of the high rate of habi­tat destruc­tion, huge num­bers of species will go extinct before sci­en­tists have a chance to doc­u­ment them.”

Fresh atten­tion was paid to Mada­gas­car when, in 2003, the country’s gov­ern­ment announced an ambi­tious goal of tripling its exist­ing pro­tected area net­work from about 5 mil­lion to 15 mil­lion acres (20,234–60,700 square kilo­me­ters), or about 10 per­cent of the country’s total land surface.

“Mada­gas­car is one of the poor­est coun­tries in the world, which makes the government’s com­mit­ment to bio­di­ver­sity even more remark­able,” said Ali­son Cameron, co-lead researcher of the project, and post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence, Pol­icy & Man­age­ment. “Gov­ern­ment lead­ers have devel­oped a very pro­gres­sive vision for social and eco­nomic devel­op­ment, in which the nat­ural land­scape is viewed as a valu­able resource.”

The MacArthur Foun­da­tion sup­ported this project with a joint grant to UC Berke­ley and the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, whose staff in Mada­gas­car work with gov­ern­ment offi­cials there to incor­po­rate the results of this study into con­ser­va­tion pol­icy. The Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has already estab­lished sev­eral new pro­tected areas within the country.

Ulti­mately, a diverse group of 22 researchers from muse­ums, zoos, herbaria, uni­ver­si­ties, non-governmental orga­ni­za­tions and indus­try con­tributed to this new analy­sis. The authors received help from an addi­tional 62 non-authored col­lab­o­ra­tors who, in turn, were part of much larger research teams that col­lected the data used in this study.

Another co-author affil­i­ated with UC Berke­ley is Brian Fisher, an adjunct pro­fes­sor at the campus’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence, Pol­icy & Man­age­ment and chair of ento­mol­ogy at the Cal­i­for­nia Acad­emy of Sciences.

For their analy­sis, the researchers uti­lized decades worth of field data painstak­ingly col­lected through­out Mada­gas­car by intre­pid biologists.

“Sim­ply iden­ti­fy­ing the species on the island and deter­min­ing where they are located is very dif­fi­cult,” said Kre­men. “The ter­rain is rough, there are few roads, and we often had to hike 18 miles (30 kilo­me­ters) to get to the field site. Once there, we’d live for months in a tent under a tarp, endur­ing leeches and tor­ren­tial rain­falls, eat­ing rice and beans, to doc­u­ment the range of ani­mal and plant species in a spe­cific area. This is truly hard-won data.”

The rich data source allowed the researchers to map out the habi­tat of 2,300 species through­out every square kilo­me­ter of the island. “We spend years of our lives col­lect­ing this data, and peo­ple some­times won­der why we do it,” said Kre­men, who per­son­ally spent the greater part of eight years pri­mar­ily col­lect­ing field data in Mada­gas­car. “It is grat­i­fy­ing to know that the data col­lected may lit­er­ally put some species on the map for protection.”

Based upon this work, some sur­pris­ing areas emerged as con­ser­va­tion pri­or­i­ties, includ­ing coastal forests and cen­tral moun­tain ranges, which had large con­cen­tra­tions of endemic species. Such regions, the researchers noted, have his­tor­i­cally been neglected in favor of large tracts of forest.

“Ear­lier efforts at con­ser­va­tion plan­ning focused on whether a pro­tected species was included in a des­ig­nated area, but that region may not include a sig­nif­i­cant frac­tion of the species’ pop­u­la­tion for it to remain viable in the long term,” said Cameron, who also pro­vides tech­ni­cal advice to the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and the gov­ern­ment of Mada­gas­car. “In con­trast, our analy­sis goes fur­ther by max­i­miz­ing the pro­por­tion of every species, so that they achieve max­i­mum con­ser­va­tion, within the tar­get of 15 mil­lion acres set by the gov­ern­ment. This is a huge shift in approach, made pos­si­ble through advances in com­puter tech­nol­ogy that allowed us to cen­tral­ize such a large amount of data and to ana­lyze it all together.”

The researchers noted that sim­i­larly rich sources of data exist in other parts of the world, and that their method of analy­sis could be eas­ily trans­ferred to other high pri­or­ity regions for conservation.

—Sarah Yang for UCBerkeley