A partnership between Natural Habitat Adventures, a leading conservation travel company, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) takes eco-conscious travelers to locations threatened by climate change while allowing them to offset their carbon footprint for an entire year.

The Climate Change & Our Wild World program provides travelers with a first-hand view of three locations that are seeing the worst impacts of the climate crisis: Greenland, the Arctic, and the Amazon.

The poles are the epicenter of the climate crisis, with temperatures in the Arctic expected to increase 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit) over the next 50 years, at least twice the global average. Meanwhile the Amazon rainforest, one of the Earth’s most diverse ecosystems, is suffering from climate-fueled wildfires and deforestation.

The first tour of 2025, slated for August, will take travelers to the virtually uninhabited and rarely visited east coast of Greenland, allowing them to witness how the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is accelerating due to man-made climate change, contributing to sea level rise.

In early November, the Arctic tour will explore the Canadian north, where the shrinking ice cover is pushing polar bears toward extinction. This time of the year sees the highest concentration of polar bears near the outpost town of Churchill, Manitoba, as they gather for the start of their winter hunting season.

The Amazon trip that starts in late November will explore the river’s headwaters in the Pacaya Samiria Reserve, a 5-million-acre wildlife sanctuary on the eastern flank of the Andes that is home to pink river dolphins, scarlet macaws, sloths, and monk saki monkeys.

In recent years, traveling to areas threatened by the climate crisis has taken off, triggering a trend known as “last chance tourism,” which sometimes leads to overtourism and contributes to environmental degradation due to the carbon footprint associated with traveling.

But Nat Hab and WWF have taken strides to reduce the environmental impact of their trips while offering travelers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to advance their understanding of the climate crisis. For example, groups typically average 10 people and feature leading conservationists, mostly from WWF, who give presentations and engage in daily discussions with tour members.

“The beauty is that they provide excellent info both on a general level, but also insight that few have access to or will seek themselves, due to the very complicated and multi-layered nature of climate work,” Court Whelan, chief sustainability officer for Nat Hab, told Travel + Leisure.

“I truly feel that these trips are generating the next round of climate advocates, with people emerging from the trip as more informed, inspired, and ready to pursue and advocate for solutions than most people in the world,” Whelan said.

In addition, Nat Hab has designed a comprehensive program to offset emissions stemming from the tours that provides funding to green energy, emissions reductions, and forest conservation initiatives in countries hard-hit by the climate crisis, such as Ethiopia, Indonesia, and India.

To avoid “greenwashing,” Nat Hab selects projects that are vetted through third party verification and prioritizes initiatives that seek to advance UN Sustainable Development goals.

“This way, we feel like we’re doing the most good, while making sure the offsets are extremely valid and meaningful,” Whelan said.

The company estimates that these collaborations offset 40 metric tons of emissions for each traveler in the Climate Change & Our Wild World program, more than twice the average annual carbon footprint of people living in the U.S., which is at 16 metric tons.

“Our main focus when offsetting is probably more to raise awareness about emissions and the ability to offset, to hopefully educate and perhaps even instigate travelers to look into offsetting in their own lives,” Whelan added.

Koh Lanta, an island in the southern Andaman Sea off Thailand’s west coast, is one of the country’s true hidden gems.

There are no Western chains here. No bar girls. There is still unbuilt beachfront, although in five years it may be gone. There are plans to build a bridge that will soon connect Koh Lanta to the mainland. Once it’s done, it’ll be an easy 45 minutes to Krabi International Airport (KBV). But that’s a travel writer’s worry for another day. 

For now, Koh Lanta remains relatively undiscovered, especially by Americans. During my second consecutive January visit—November to March are the best months to come to the island in terms of the weather—I didn’t meet another American. Scandinavians, however, are a different story. There are nonstop flights from Stockholm to Krabi International Airport, and I spoke to quite a few Swedes and Norwegians who were eager to escape the winter darkness. I found plenty of those snowbirds at both Rawi Warin Resort & Spa, a kid-friendly luxury hotel, and at Pimalai Resort & Spa, one of the island’s top properties (it has two Michelin Keys)—my wife and I spent a nearly perfect week there this year.

Founded 22 years ago on 100 unspoiled acres, Pimalai boasts 3,000 feet of prime Kantiang beachfront. Most mornings, I slow-jogged its entire length, which verges on the Platonic ideal of a tropical beach: mostly empty, with soft sand that can be found both in and out of the gentle water. Pimalai is luxury done right, with more beach and poolside lounges than hotel guests. While there are small resorts at both ends of Kantiang, in the morning, I saw almost no one.

Because of the terrain, Pimalai feels like two resorts, each with an infinity pool and restaurants. There are only 121 total accommodations. Deluxe rooms are located near the beach, while pool villas are tucked into the terraced hillside. All guests get access to round-trip van service to the Krabi Airport and a speedboat transfer to Pimalai’s pier—this cuts 45 minutes off travel time. Again, real luxury.

One memorable morning, my wife and I were picked up at Pimalai to begin a day-long snorkeling charter to Koh Haa and Koh Rak. Because we’re old and crafty, we sat up front beside the driver, Jaroon, while other passengers crammed into uncomfortable bench seats in the bed of the pickup. After 40 years of chasing the sun on unspoiled (and then only slightly spoiled) Thai beaches, we’ve learned that the best part of travel is the people you meet and talk to. Like most Thai people, Jaroon was gentle, affable, and warmly friendly to tourists. He apologized for his English (which was quite good) and laughed when I told him my name was “Khun Khon-di,” which roughly translates to “Mister Goodman.”

Because Koh Lanta is in the far south of Thailand—near Malaysia—90 percent of its inhabitants are Muslim, including Jaroon. He admitted that many of his friends drank alcohol, although he didn’t, perhaps because he had 500 rubber trees on his property, from which he gathered latex each morning starting at 3:30 am, before going to work. Income from his rubber trees doubled his monthly salary as a driver, which had enabled Jaroon to send his daughter to college in Bangkok, a fact of which he was justifiably proud.

The snorkeling that day on Koh Rak was spectacular. I saw lots of healthy soft and hard coral. There were fish everywhere, large and small, and though I’ve been diving and snorkeling in Thai waters for quite some time, I saw something I’d never seen before: a 15-legged crown-of-thorns starfish. It was an electric blue mammoth with black thorns peppering its surface.

On the boat back from Koh Rak to the pier, our captain made a detour past a mangrove forest inhabited by a large band of swimming, fruit-loving monkeys. I’d never seen monkeys in the water before, but I got the idea these monkeys eagerly awaited our boat’s arrival for their daily treat of leftover watermelon and pineapple.

One evening later in the week, we hired Jaroon to drive us to Old Town, on the east side of Koh Lanta. This coast fronts the Straits of Malacca, rather than the Andaman Sea, and lies along a traditional trade route to Malaysia. The east coast of the island doesn’t have sandy beaches or upscale resorts, but it does have Moken (a group of Indigenous sea nomads) communities. The other big attraction of this unique place is the simple restaurants that are built on wooden pilings—we listened to the waves break as we feasted on squid and grouper.

We loved our time on Koh Lanta and at Pimalai, which was incredibly well-run; our room was serviced, unobtrusively, three times a day. The international breakfast buffet included obscure regional specialties, Thai noodle soup, an array of tropical fruit, and organic juices. The food at Rak Talay, the beachside seafood restaurant where we often ate dinner, was not only sumptuous, but for a five-star, surprisingly affordable.  If you visit, try the soft-shell crabs. You’ll be amazed by the flavor and by how many crabs comprise a single order. 

I can still taste them—and hope to again.

If there was a loyalty program for safaris, I’d have million-miler status. I can recite the safety speech verbatim (keep all body parts inside the Land Cruiser if you want to keep all body parts), tell the difference between male and female giraffes (ladies have furrier ossicones, or horns), and set up a stunning sundowner (pink tonic water is the secret to picture-perfect gin and tonics). I’ve flown in helicopters over elephant herds in Botswana, navigated hippo-infested waters by wooden canoe in Zambia, and watched kudu graze from the comfort of my private plunge pool at a five-star camp near Kruger National Park. But if you ask me about my favorite way to see the Big Five, you may be surprised. It involves padded shorts, PBJs paired with Fanta, and climbing into ice baths as cold as the African sun is hot.

Are cycling safaris safe?

“How risky is this?” I asked the first time I went on a cycling safari. Kyle MacIntyre, our Natural Selection safari guide who was raised in rural Botswana, handed me a helmet and smiled. “Cycling is a very natural and pure form of being in the bush,” he said, simultaneously dodging the question and assuring me. I took comfort in the rifle—capable of taking down a bull elephant, but never needed—mounted to his mountain bike. “You can hear all the alarm calls from the birds, the snapping of twigs, and because most animals won’t be by the busy roads, you have a better chance of seeing them by bike.” MacIntyre wasn’t wrong. In the four days we spent cycling and camping together in the Kalahari Desert, I noticed the wildlife either eyed our two-wheeled endeavors with curiosity or indifference. They definitely didn’t see us as food.

Why book a cycling safari?

My first cycling safari was so riveting, I now prefer game rides to game drives. On a game ride, you can’t kick back the way you can on a drive. All five senses have to be firing at once. It’s equal parts exhilarating and exhausting. And in the case of my most recent cycling safari this past October—the inaugural Wagora Bike Ride at Singita Explore—I made lifelong friends and pedaled for a purpose. Instead of just seeing the Big Five, we were saving them.

“Ready to ride?” asked Braya Masunga, operations manager at Singita Explore. Masunga, who greeted my cousin, Rosie, and me with welcome drinks and cool towels, won’t tell you, but Singita Explore is the luxurious tented camp where Leonardo DiCaprio stays when he’s in Tanzania. You won’t find any paparazzi in these parts—just the continent’s coolest anti-poaching unit. In fact, the five-day cycling safari we were about to embark on is named after Kitaboka Wagora, an anti-poaching scout who was murdered by a poacher in 2008. Proceeds from the Wagora Bike Ride are donated to the Grumeti Fund, a non-profit that employs nearly 100 anti-poaching scouts tasked with protecting wildlife in this 350,000-acre section of the Serengeti.

What does a typical day on a cycling safari look like?

Like game drives, game rides start early. Fortunately, rising and shining in the bush is easy. Singita Explore’s cooks have coffee brewing over the open fire and a carb-heavy spread waiting for us. With the help of a headlamp, the on-site bicycle mechanic, a Kenyan named Godfrey, makes sure our tires are adequately aired and ready for the day’s 20 miles. The goal is to be cycling no later than sunrise. This is when it’s coolest, and the animals are most active.

Sporting matching cycling jerseys, our peloton is a motley crew. I’m an avid roadie who learned how to ride from my friend, the 17-time Tour de France legend, George Hincapie. Meanwhile, Rosie barely feels comfortable on a beach cruiser. Skyler Nuelle—the Grumeti Fund’s head of partnerships and impact analysis—recently mountain biked up Mount Kilimanjaro in a four-day stage race, and Vicky Mkessa, programs coordinator for the Grumeti Fund, has never been on a bike before. We’re escorted by a couple of safari guides who can track and tell us about the animals we’ll see, and at least five armed anti-poaching scouts, most of whom don’t speak English. We may not speak the same languages, but there’s something about riding in a group—taking turns breaking the wind for each other—that bonds us in ways bumping around in a vehicle never would.

In Botswana, we cycled on “elephant highways”—well-trodden paths made by Africa’s biggest five. But here in Tanzania, we’re riding on a mix of dirt roads and single-track paths winding through the Grumeti Game Reserve, grasslands home to lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, hyenas, zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, buffalo, and the rare eastern black rhino. We see everything except leopards and cheetahs as we ride. My favorite sighting is a pair of lions we watch through binoculars at one of our rest stops. Most cycling safaris feature refreshment tables—covered with orange slices, PB&Js, and soda—approximately every eight miles. If you need to use the bathroom, you find a tree.

I love working out and seeing wildlife at the same time. It makes me feel less guilty about indulging in the Instagram-worthy brunch waiting for us when we ride back into camp. But before diving into the buffet, we dunk ourselves in ice baths. After refueling, it’s time for a nap and massage, followed by afternoon tea and a game drive. We return around dark and discuss the next morning’s ride and route over a multicourse dinner fit for Mr. DiCaprio. Full bellies, sore legs, and happy hearts, we’re all looking forward to tomorrow’s 5 a.m. wake-up call. There’s something about being on a bike that brings you back to childhood, and we can’t wait to feel like kids again (especially if it means we get to watch “The Lion King” in real life).

As a travel writer, there are days I wish I could jet off to a Nordic wellness retreat and sweat away my stress in a sauna. But packing my bag for a spa getaway is pricey, and hitting one up several times a year is far out of budget. 

Leave it to Amazon to have the solution. The retailer is selling at-home saunas that look similar to ones at a wellness retreat, but for a fraction of the cost. I’m eyeing an infrared home sauna that fits two people, has double insulation for durability, and is $250 off when you use the on-site coupon.

Jnh Lifestyles Joyous 2-person Infrared At-home Sauna

When you take into account the price of round-trip flights, lodging, food, transportation, and spa treatments, investing in an at-home option makes sense. You can experience spa-like sauna treatments whenever you want, minus the additional costs. 

The wooden design gives it a natural look, and the reversible glass door punctuates its sleek and modern aesthetic. At 47.3 inches by 39.5 inches, it can fit right in your basement or large walk-in closet. And up to two people can fit inside, so you can decompress by yourself or with your partner after a long day of work. 

It even includes luxe features, like two built-in Bluetooth speakers for playing meditation sounds or your favorite relaxing music. It also has seven cool-to-touch carbon fiber heaters to help distribute heat throughout the sauna, and the digital control panel allows you to set the temperature and time for your session.

Jnh Lifestyles Joyous 2-person Infrared At-home Sauna

The infrared sauna uses built-in LED lights to create heat, unlike steam saunas that rely on an external device to generate steam and heat. Out of 1,434 Amazon ratings, 1,219 were a perfect five out of five, which just attests to its quality. One reviewer said it was a “breeze” to put together (about 30 minutes with two people), only takes around 10 minutes to heat up, and comfortably seats two people. They’ve been using it almost daily. Another fan confirmed that it was easy to assemble, and added that it provides plenty of heat to detox.

Shop the Jnh Infrared At-home sauna while it’s still on sale, and check out more at-home and portable saunas available at Amazon, below.

Shop At-home Saunas at Amazon

Dynamic Saunas 2-person Home Sauna

X-Vcak Portable Steam Sauna

Kasue Portable Infrared Sauna

Steupoek Portable Steam Sauna

HyberVital Portable Sauna

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