Trufflepig as a company was started by Trip Planners and is run by Trip Planners, and in a world of distractions and fads we maintain a single-minded focus on our core objective: planning great trips. Trufflepig’s Trip Planners are destination specialists and trip designers, whom we (and others) consider to be the best in the […]
I have by now lost count of the number of times I’ve been to Botswana, but with my long-standing interests in wildlife and photography, I can say without hesitation that I don’t think I will ever tire of it. Put simply, Botswana inspires me – and in turn it inspires our travellers. Of all the […]
Whenever I’m asked when the best time to go on safari is, my enthusiastic – if rather unhelpful – answer is “it’s always a good time to be on safari’. So, with a view to being slightly more helpful, I wanted to talk a little about Emerald Season. Conventional wisdom for years has been that […]
The Pearl River Delta, in the early 2000’s, was a place of heavy industry, pollution, run off, waste and ruin. It was rubble and rebar. Home to factories like Yue Yuen (a company that produces the majority of the shoes for Nike, Crocs, Adidas, Reebok, Asics, New Balance, Puma, Timberland and Rockport) and Samsung, the […]
Over a decade ago, I first visited Greystoke Mahale. It left its mark on me then and has lived rent free in my head ever since. I went back again this year and immediately renewed its tenancy. Mahale is an interesting case study in the way that the experience of going on safari has evolved […]
I signed up for an adventure and got a lot more than I bargained for. In a good way. It started with a basic task (put one foot in front of the other), and led me to a lasting experience I was hardly prepared for: ten days in a vacuum-like state, practically closed off from […]
This week, Cambodia, the land of funk, rhythm, blues, and rock. That’s right, this slice of southeast Asia is steeped in the cult of rock and let me tell you there are some gems to look out for. Anthony Weersing and Tyler Dillon have put their collective minds together to bring you an hour of […]
The clock strikes 9:15 AM in Rio de Janeiro. It’s April, and the heat is not excessive, so the weather allows for a lazy Saturday morning. Yet, there is an urge to explore the vibrant streets of the city and pay homage to the ever-present sun. I get up and take a quick shower, while […]
As a kid growing up in the South, you hear a lot about the Civil War. I was told stories of Generals, of Robert E Lee, a well rehearsed account of what happened, from one particular point of view, the white south. I was seldom taught the history outside of this perspective, it was either […]
I hate soup. As a child (and even now, if I’m being honest), I always used a fork when eating thin, brothy soups. It was rebellion in cutlery form. When I became a vegetarian as a teenager, all my mother could think to feed me was soup after soup after soup. She still sends frozen […]
By now, many of us have seen the headlines and desperate images coming out of Morocco, where on Friday night a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck, with its epicentre in the High-Atlas mountains, a remote area of villages south of Marrakech. Parts of the Taroudant region, and the Marrakech Medina were also affected. First responders have […]
The Rabat-Tangier A-5 is a modern, four lane tollway traversing some of Morocco’s most fertile agricultural land, crossing several major rivers just before they finish their course in the nearby Atlantic, and passing beside the main coastal towns of what was once the Spanish protectorate of Morocco, namely Larache and the colourful artistic medina of […]
The drive from the new Chengis Khann International Airport to city center in Ulaanbaatar is 55 km. Initial planning for the airport was done in 2006 with a US$385 million 40-year loan agreement signed between the Government of Mongolia and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. It was built and opened on the 4th of […]
On a recent trip to Oaxaca, one of the culinary and cultural hearts of magnificent Mexico, I was lucky enough to experience the wonder, strangeness and joy that is the Day of the Dead (el Dia de los Muertos). I’d always been somewhat flummoxed by the differences between Day of the Dead and Halloween and […]
Bold statement coming in: I’m declaring 2023 the year for Peru and, heck, why not 2024, too! The short and the sweet of it is as follows: the shadow cast by the pandemic, coupled with political unrest earlier this year, has resulted in a slower return to travel than many other countries have experienced over […]
Nature is fragile, let’s preserve it. This sentence is the introduction to my video as well as my conclusion after having spent most weekends in the past 5 month in Camargue. Patiently, I explored most areas the park: its lakes, channels, tracks, beaches and salt flats, in search of the best locations. And when the […]