When you start planning your once-in-a-lifetime Amazon adventure, you’ll come to a crossroad: should you choose a lodge-based adventure deep in the heart of the rainforest or would it be better to cruise along the Amazon River and its numerous branches instead?

Every decision you make about your tour of the Amazon will be consequential to this first choice. Both travel methods offer sensational benefits unique to each other and, as expected, there are also a few downsides.

To decide which option is best for you, ask yourself these questions before planning an Amazon adventure:

• How much comfort do you need in the Amazon, one of the most challenging ecosystems on Earth?
• What is your budget for your Amazon adventure?
• How active are you normally, and how active would you like to be on your trip?
• What time of year will you travel? In the Amazon, water levels are crucial to choosing your travel style.
• How flexible can you be in regards to your travel dates?
• How immersive would you like your Amazon experience to be?

Experience the Amazon by River Cruise

The Pros

Amazon cruises have become increasingly popular, given they offer the kind of luxury and comforts most travellers used to fantasise about.

The Amazon is amazing, that’s true, but it’s also extremely harsh. It can be unbearably hot and humid and an unrelentingly challenge, where a million creepy crawlies constantly remind you that this is a place governed by nature, not man! Amazon river cruises offer a respite to all that, in between phenomenal excursions and adventures.

At the end of a long day exploring the wilderness by canoe or on foot, searching for sloths, toucans, monkeys and anacondas, it’s just heavenly to come back to an air-conditioned cabin, have a refreshing shower and enjoy a gourmet dinner in absolute comfort.

On a luxury cruise boat, you can enjoy a magnificent Amazonian sunrise from the comfort of your bed, as the scenery glides past your floor-to-ceiling window as if on a film reel. 

The Cons

So, what’s the downside? Well, all this comfort and luxury comes at a cost: Luxury Amazon cruises are certainly more expensive than many lodge-based adventures.

Cruises also depart on certain dates, follow a certain itinerary and can’t be changed. Your independence, in this sense, is compromised and you have to plan your travel around the cruise dates and accept their itineraries.

Experience the Amazon by Lodge-based adventure

The Pros

Many travellers dream of an Amazon adventure their entire life: of being surrounded by wild animals and overwhelming wilderness, of feeling like a true adventurer exploring the jungle with a machete in one hand and a bandana in the other, swinging from vines while roaring like Tarzan!

If this sounds like you, then a lodge-based Amazon adventure has your name all over it! 

The lodges are gorgeous places to stay, some of them set in stunning remote Amazonian locations.

Lodge-based journeys are immersive to the max, making you feel at one with nature and giving you an unfiltered Amazonian experience, bugs and all! Choose to stay in a lodge and you’ll be surrounded by it on all sides, seeing monkeys as you enjoy your breakfast and falling asleep to the sounds of the jungle.

Your adventure will be when you want and for however long you want. You’ll have total travel control following whichever itinerary you wish.

Lodge-based Amazon adventures can be the stuff of lifelong dreams.

The Cons

No matter how luxurious the lodge, a few basic rules remain: electricity is limited, insects are not, air-con is hard to come by and meals are a lot more basic than the kind you’re served on cruises. 

Eco-lodges in the Amazon build their beautiful thatched-roof huts with sustainable natural materials, which unfortunately allow insects to crawl through, although mosquito-netting and fans will ensure you won’t be feasted upon at night.

Top-end lodges still won’t give much reprieve from the Amazonian conditions and come in at a steep price!

Amazon Adventures – Other Things to Consider

Water levels can vary dramatically throughout the year and determine which way you will experience the Amazon despite your personal needs and wishes.

During high water levels, on-land excursions are curbed and here is where cruising reigns supreme. You can reach deeper into the Amazon rainforest than ever before, exploring various river off shoots and regions where no lodges have been built.

If you manage to reach a remote lodge to stay in, you simply won’t be able to get around much on foot, leaving you to explore by canoe.

50/50 There are also options for a 50-50 compromise, where you spend a few nights in a beautiful lodge to soak up that wondrous wild experience and then cap off your adventure in style on a cruise for a few nights. What a wonderful way to experience both!

It (almost) doesn’t matter! I’ve never met anyone who’s travelled to the Amazon and regretted the experience, no matter how much they spent or how much they suffered the heat and humidity.

The Amazon is the South American bucket-list destination that has the ability to change the way you think about the World, the way you consider nature, our planet’s wilderness and all the wonderful creatures that inhabit it.

It is an astounding place to visit, no matter how, where and when.

So choose for you: for your level of fitness and budget, for your priorities and your necessities and for your dreams and desires.

Then enjoy the magnificent Amazon!

To enquire about a trip to the Amazon, call Rosie at Mosaic Travel on (03) 5275 4583

The post Lodge VS Cruise – What’s the Best Way to Explore the Amazon? appeared first on Mosaic Travel.

Northern Territory to the East.

Great Sandy Desert to the South.

Indian Ocean on its Western edge.

Located on the northern-most part of Western Australia and covering some 421,451 square kilometres (an area three times the size of England) you find the Kimberley.

Being home to only 40,000 people means that there are fewer people per kilometre than almost any other place on the planet!

Over 60% of this population are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander who have given this region one of its most prized attractions: Indigenous rock art.

To truly appreciate the beauty and brilliance that dominates this region, navigating the Kimberley by 4WD is the way to go!

When to travel

The Kimberley has two seasons: the dry and the wet.

During the wet season – from November to April – monsoonal rains fall and rivers flood, making large areas of the Kimberley impassable.

The dry season typically has clear blue skies, Easterly winds and warm days with occasional cool nights.

If you’re wanting to see water fall’s at their prime, a visit at the end of April or May is ideal after they’ve been replenished from the wet season.

History

This is one of the earliest settled parts of Australia, and provides important geological and fossil evidence (dinosaur footprints!!) of Australia’s evolutionary history.

The Kimberley has been occupied by over 30 Aboriginal tribes for at least 40,000 years and continues to be home to Aboriginal groups practising traditional law in the World’s oldest continuous culture.

People have been drawn to The Kimberley for centuries. Firstly to grow crops, then to herd cattle in the mid 19^th  century. There was the gold rush in 1886 bringing an influx of Chinese and Europeans before pearling boomed in the late 19th century.

Today, people from all over the World come to visit the Kimberley’s National and World Heritage listed parks, its dramatic and beautiful landscapes, pristine beaches, ancient gorges, waterfalls and rugged outback.

Must Sees

Art

The Kimberley is home to hundreds of thousands of rock art paintings and drawings known as “Bradshaw” or “Wandjina” rock art. These beautiful and mysterious paintings are hidden in outback bush galleries on the huge escarpments and terracotta rocks of the North Kimberley.

Coast

More than just the red dirt dessert, the Coast is one of Western Australia’s biggest assets.

Cable beach: beautiful turquoise water for 24km’s.

Broome: World famous for pearls!

Buccaneer Archipelago: A group off Islands just off the Kimberley’s North Eastern coast (a 35minute flight). Rugged red cliffs, cool waters and white sandy beaches.

Waterfalls

You’ll find the most incredible waterfalls in Australia (if not the World) here. Fly above, swim and explore over half a dozen of them!

Purnululu National Park

World Heritage Purnululu is home to the incredible striped ‘beehive’ domes of the Bungle Bungle Range.

The rounded rock towers are made of sandstone and other finer materials moulded together by rainfall over millions of years. Their stripes are the result of oxidised iron compounds and algae.

To the local Kidja people, “purnululu” means sandstone.

Mornington Wilderness Camp

Part of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, the superb “Mornington Wilderness Camp” is as remote as it gets!

Sitting on the Fitzroy River, it’s a scenic 95km drive across the savannah from the Gibb’s 247km mark. Nearly 400,000 hectares of gorges and savannah are devoted to conserving the Kimberley’s endangered fauna and there’s excellent canoeing, swimming, birdwatching and bushwalking here.

Threats

The Kimberley faces a number of serious environmental pressures, including climate change, large wild fires, feral animals, weeds and cattle grazing degradation.

Cruise

Not sure what to see or how to fit everything in while still having a relaxing holiday?

Take a 12 day luxury cruise that includes all the highlights!

You’ll see 6 fresh water waterfalls, Bradshaw and Wandjina art, Buccaneer Archipelago, Montgomery reef, and the list goes on! 

If you’re wanting to explore more, take an optional helicopter flight or fishing trip!

Easily accessible with most Australian capitals flying directly to Broome, the Kimberley is one of Australia’s most under rated holiday destinations packed with so many beautiful landscapes and history that you won’t want to come home!

To enquire about the stunning Kimberley, call Rosie at Mosaic Travel on (03) 5275 4583

The post Australia in Focus: The Kimberley appeared first on Mosaic Travel.