Nat Hab’s ABCs of Nature Adventures & Conservation Travel

From Australia to Zimbabwe, our nature journeys will stoke your sense of awe and draw travelers with a zest for adventure!

Awe-Inspiring Adventures

Adventures await across the world: gaze up at an ethereal display of color from our Aurora Pod® on an Arctic expedition; encounter animals in abundance on an African safari; see Alaska’s mountain peaks bathed in alpenglow; cruise past Adelie penguins in Antarctica; photograph an array of wildlife aboard an Amazon riverboat; have meaningful encounters with nature and Aboriginal culture in Australia; track Asian elephants and amber-eyed tigers before visiting Agra; and experience the allure of the monarch migration in Angangueo.

More than any other phenomenon, nature elicits awe. In nature, we come face to face with beauty and wonder. Scientists have found when we encounter awe, we sense a greater purpose. We feel more connected to other beings. And we are spurred to protect the world around us and our collective welfare. By bringing travelers deep into nature and face to face with its greatest spectacles, we allow them to feel awe, wonder and joy.

When we experience the beauty and silence of wilderness, or meet an animal up close and share an inquisitive gaze, we come to understand what is at stake. In those moments, we discover what it is to love what is threatened…and we must love it, in order to protect it. Our hope is that our travelers go home transformed, as ambassadors for conservation, bent on finding political and technological solutions to address the climate crisis.

Bear Camp, Base Camp & Beyond

Our own collection of exclusive camps get you farther out into nature, away from crowds and commercial tourism—where silence, wonder and wildlife reign.

Our private fly-in Bear Camp is a sustainable base for exploring pristine brown bear habitat, providing remote wilderness accommodations in a truly exclusive setting. On a private inholding surrounded by Lake Clark National Park, Bear Camp lies between the peaks of the Aleutian Range and the headwaters of the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

With two viewing platforms and the ability to explore via our 4×4 Bear Mobile and on foot, Bear Camp offers a premier location for immersive encounters with the world’s largest coastal grizzlies. Every detail of our deluxe backcountry camp is designed for low environmental impact and elevated comfort.

• Nat Hab’s Alaska Bear Camp—Lake Clark National Park, Alaska

An exclusive refuge in the ice-bound Arctic wilderness for Nat Hab guests alone, Base Camp Greenland is located in one of the most remote places on the planet, yet provides a host of amenities usually reserved for far more civilized locales:

• Nat Hab’s Base Camp Greenland—East Greenland

Peer into the wizened eye of a giant tortoise at our private camp in the Galapagos highlands. Charming treehouses have real beds and cozy bedding:

• Nat Hab’s Tortoise Camp—Galapagos Islands, Ecuador 

Soak up bush luxury at our intimate African safari camps in Botswana, Tanzania and Kenya, where your only neighbors are animals such as black rhinos, buffalo, brown hyenas and bat-eared foxes:

• Nat Hab’s Gomoti Camp—Okavango Delta, Botswana
• Nat Hab’s Explorer Camp—Okavango Delta, Botswana
• Nat Hab’s Serengeti Plains—Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
• Nat Hab’s Migration Camp—Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
• Nat Hab’s Migration Camp—Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
• Nat Hab’s Mara East Camp—Private Mara Conservancy, Kenya
• Nat Hab’s Rhino Camp—Old Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya

Conservation Travel

Our mission is conservation through exploration: protecting our planet by inspiring travelers, supporting local communities and boldly influencing the entire travel industry.

At Natural Habitat Adventures, our product is conservation travel: life-transforming forays into the natural world that benefit wild habitats and the animals and people who live there. Our nature expeditions provide unparalleled access to the planet’s most extraordinary wildlife, landscapes and cultures. We know travel has the power to protect nature, benefit communities and preserve cultural heritage—principles we view not only as our goal, but our responsibility.

Conservation travel imbues value to natural habitats, bringing economic resources to local communities and inspiring them to protect wild places and the wildlife that thrives within them.

Diverse Departures

Your dream destination awaits! Our special departures include:

Women in the Wild |  Climate Change & Our Wild World |  Photo Tours & Photo Pro Expeditions |  Wildflower Season |  Fall Foliage Season |  Family Adventures |  Make It Private |  Private Custom Adventures

Exclusive Explorations + Secluded Wildlife Encounters = Exceptional Experiences For Our Travelers

We’re committed to bringing you life-transforming encounters with nature. We offer the best in eco-travel: our exclusive forays into remote wildlife realms are accentuated by the expertise of our Expedition Leaders. Don’t want the experience to end? We offer over 30 extensions, from The Chimpanzees of Greystoke Mahale to the Okonjima AfriCat Extension.

Films

Watch our fascinating films to see how we’re helping make the world a better place through conservation travel. They include:

• Zapa and the Jaguar
• The Silverback
• The Bear Coast: A Conservation Story
• Endangered Migration: A Monarch Butterfly Story
• Conservation in Zimbabwe: A Nat Hab Guide Story
• The Big Bad Wolf: A Yellowstone Conservation Story
• and more!

Green Team

Under the leadership of our in-house Green Team, Nat Hab is consistently raising the bar on eco-friendly operations, from materials sourcing to recycling to helping our staff cycle or carpool to work—and rewarding them for their efforts!

Representing departments across the company, these dedicated volunteers are constantly looking for ways to further weave sustainable practices into our home office (such as organizing a local volunteer day to support regenerative urban agriculture at Growing Gardens) and field operations (such as actively making choices on the most sustainable options for meals). Learn more about our green office community and discover all we’re doing to go even greener.

Eager to get involved? If you’re a teacher, apply for our Monarch Butterfly Scholarship Grant. If you’re traveling soon, pick up reusable toiletry containers at our Gear Store (5% of all Adventure Gear sales is donated to Nat Hab Philanthropy, which provides annual funding to small grassroots conservation projects around the world).

Health & Wellness

We believe nature is vital for our souls, our health and the health of our planet. When we spend time outdoors, our hearts feel lighter and our minds clear. Our bodies get stronger, too, as we hike through Scotland’s heather-clad highlands, paddle Portugal’s Douro River or snorkel in the Galapagos Islands. We are all drawn to safeguard what we hold dear. Connecting with nature, whether locking eyes with a leopard in the African savanna or hearing wolves howl in a snowy wood, inspires us to protect those places we love most.

Your wellness retreat in nature is complete with superlative lodgings, sustainably sourced food and immaculate itineraries that take all the hassle out of planning. Rest easy under the careful eye of our expert guides, relax in comfort and seclusion, and be reinvigorated by the natural wonders and wildlife you encounter each day! Return home refreshed and ready for your next adventure!

Immersion In Nature

Nat Hab delivers life-enhancing nature and wildlife experiences to small groups of travelers passionate about the natural world. Our unique itineraries are meticulously designed to offer intimate encounters with nature in our planet’s most riveting wild destinations, while setting the industry standard for sustainable practice. We combine an innovative approach to travel with personal attention to every detail, creating opportunities for adventure and discovery that transform lives. Our travelers come home more connected, inspired and exhilarated to be alive.

Justice

Natural Habitat Adventures is committed to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Conservation is everybody’s business.

Knowledge

Our travelers delight in the treasure trove of knowledge at their disposal on each adventure. A careful study of wildlife behaviors and the ecosystems in which they reside results in better animal encounters (and photos!).

As naturalists, biologists, professional photographers and environmental educators, our Expedition Leaders are each a fountain of knowledge, deeply enriching our guests’ experience. They receive in-depth training plus exclusive resources from World Wildlife Fund’s team of scientists. While many of them hold master’s or doctorate degrees, they are chosen for their good nature as well as their good grades. Many of our guests are global travel veterans, sophisticated and independent—but they choose to go with us because of the consistent top-quality leadership on our trips.

What have you learned on our Nat Hab trips? Put your keen knowledge to the test with our travel quizzes!

African Wildlife  |  Madagascar Wildlife  |   Uganda & Rwanda’s Primates  |  India Wildlife & History  |  China Wildlife & History  |  Bhutan & Nepal   |  Borneo’s Orangutans  |  New Zealand  |  Galapagos Wildlife  |  Monarch Butterfly Migration  |  Costa Rica Wildlife  |  Amazon Rainforest  |  Brazil’s Pantanal  |  Patagonia  |  Alaskan Wilderness |  Yellowstone   |  America’s Southwest Canyonlands  |  Northern Lights   |  Beluga Whales  |  Greenland  |  Iceland  |  Scotland

Lodges & Our Definition of Luxury

We offer the finest accommodations in nature, such as Denali Backcountry Lodge, EcoCamp Patagonia, The Ahwahnee and Nat Hab’s Tundra Lodge. Standard tour companies tend to choose big, centrally located hotels and lodges that are often overrun with tourists. We, on the other hand, recognize that meaningful nature adventures require the quiet and seclusion of remotely located and small lodges. Such lodgings, where luxury is defined as much by proximity to wildlife as by superlative comfort and amenities, are a key part of our mission to offer the world’s greatest nature adventures.

Natural Habitat Ursus, Natural Habitat Petrel & Other Magnificent Vessels

Our privately chartered ship, the Natural Habitat Ursus, accommodates up to eight guests on our Alaska Grizzly Encounter: Kodiak to Katmai adventure. Ideally designed for exploring the remote waters of coastal Katmai National Park, we are able to watch brown bears in some of the world’s most pristine wilderness in exceptional solitude without leaving an impact.

The 115-foot Natural Habitat Petrel is a motorized luxury catamaran designed for comfort, stability and style. Like its namesake, a seabird common to the Galapagos, the Petrel is elegant and swift with eight large staterooms that accommodate up to 16 guests.

The elegant new Zimbabwean Dream, sister ship to the famous African Dream, offers just 16 guests the optimal way to explore vast Lake Kariba and its wild surroundings. On our Southern Africa Odyssey, you’ll have access to a variety of wildlife, such as hippos, crocodiles, elephants and dozens of bird species.

Incorporating sustainably sourced rainforest materials in its construction, the Delphin II offers a constantly changing panorama of the Amazon river system, with expert naturalist guides on board. Look for monkeys, macaws and pink river dolphins among giant lily pads.

Aboard our privately chartered sailboat, navigate a maze of inlets in British Columbia’s Inside Passage—a wilderness voyage into the Great Bear Rainforest in search of the spirit bear. And encounter the wonder and mystique of Haida Gwaii from a deluxe custom-designed sailboat as we explore the ancient temperate rainforest, a vibrant intertidal zone teeming with colorful sea creatures, and a human heritage that dates back 13,000 years.

Explore the Antarctic Peninsula aboard an ice-strengthened motorsailer, surrounded by seals, whales, penguins and icebergs. Our private expedition vessel—with a world-class skipper and seasoned polar crew—rewards serious adventurers with a rare experience of one of the most remote and magnificent places on Earth. Or voyage aboard the Hanse Explorer, a 156-foot luxury expedition yacht carrying just 12 guests—this intrepid vessel elevates comfort and style to a matchless level in its class.

Nat Hab Travelers Experience the World’s Greatest Nature Journeys

Our passion is to help travelers rediscover their connection to the natural world, while protecting it in the process. Nat Hab caters to a distinct kind of guest: one who shares our love for this planet, who is a seeker of life-affirming experiences, and who considers nature home—where you go to feel your most connected, inspired and alive.

Once-in-a-lifetime Experiences

Outside magazine named us The World’s #1 Adventure Travel Outfitter, a designation that gives us great pride. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg—we’ve won countless awards over the 35+ years we’ve been in business, from Virtuoso’s top Sustainable Tourism Leadership award to Travel + Leisure’s Top Tour Operator & Safari Outfitter, plus multiple awards from AFAR and National Geographic Traveler for many of our groundbreaking nature adventures—and that’s just a sampler!

And those bringing you these once-in-a-lifetime experiences are our home office team. As the winner of Outside magazine’s award for the best company in the country to work for multiple years running (we are humbled!), we can confirm that there is absolutely no crew of individuals more enthusiastic about their mission than our Nat Hab staff.

Photography Adventures

For some travelers, the most meaningful experience of nature happens through photography. We help photographers pursue that artistic journey, whatever their ability or experience. That’s why we tap exceptional expertise to offer specialized photography trips at two different levels.

Photo Tours: For avid amateurs from beginners to accomplished intermediates and open to all ability levels, these adventures are a photography-oriented version of our existing itineraries. They’re designed to facilitate photographers’ needs, from sunrise shoots to slower pacing and extra vehicle space for your gear—plus extra weight allowance on certain flights to accommodate equipment. Our guides are accomplished photographers and instructors, offering teaching tailored to each guest’s interests and ability.

Photo Pro Expeditions: These in-depth adventures are the most intensive nature photography expeditions you’ll find. Led by top photo guides, they are designed for serious photographers with advanced skills, including professionals, and a deep commitment to the craft. The overarching emphasis is on getting coveted iconic shots. We spend extended time in key locations, maximizing shooting opportunities. These trips include extra room in our vehicles plus additional weight allowance on select flights to accommodate your gear.

Quality & Value Guarantee

Raising The Bar On Conservation

Our goal isn’t simply to be the most environmentally responsible tour operator in the world, but to continually raise the bar on sustainability, and to challenge other travel-related businesses to raise their standards as well.

Reducing Waste

Nat Hab is leading the way in eliminating disposable plastic, creating the World’s First Zero Waste Adventure and reducing waste in our office operations.

Carbon-Neutral Travel 

Since 2007, Nat Hab has offset all CO2 output generated on our trips and in our office operations, making important strides since to increase our commitment and lead the travel industry.

Nat Hab Philanthropy 

In addition to our partnership with WWF, Nat Hab supports a wide variety of philanthropic initiatives in the destinations we visit, from rewilding and reforestation efforts to conservation education programs. Our commitment to conservation and sustainable development inspires our leadership role in boosting grassroots efforts in places our guests have come to know and love.

Sustainability Report 

This colorful, highly readable document features our efforts over nearly 40 years to fortify the bridge between conservation and travel—the connection that launched us, and the foundation for all we do today. 

Small Groups & Safety You Can Count On

Can you imagine trying to walk silently along a rainforest trail, careful not to disturb shy wildlife, with 20 or 30 other travelers? Or stepping ashore on a remote island to explore pristine coastal wilderness with dozens of other tourists at your side? We know meaningful nature encounters can only occur in small groups. That’s why our trips average just nine travelers, by far the smallest number in the business. As a result, you can expect not only more personal, close-up wildlife encounters, but a lower-impact presence on the planet’s fragile natural places we treasure.

In addition to enjoying the seclusion of a small group, you’ll have peace of mind knowing our Expedition Leaders undergo rigorous training to ensure our guests’ safety and well-being. In consultation with outside experts we have developed an intricate risk management plan with emergency notification procedures to ensure efficient handling of any unexpected circumstances. Unlike companies that solely book guests into local accommodations with local operators, we have our own staff standing by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to any emergencies or contingencies that may arise.

Transformative Trips

Nat Hab offers more than 70 trips to nature destinations across the planet! With tantalizing adventures offered on all seven continents, there’s something for every traveler. Browse by country, wildlife (big cats or bears?) or interest (kayaking adventure or rainforest tour?).

Unique Itineraries

Venture into the unknown and experience unimaginable beauty. With World Wildlife Fund’s top scientists and staff by our side in the planning process and guide training, and with years of experience scouring the planet for captivating nature destinations, we possess resources and insight not available to other tour companies. Compare itineraries: You’ll see that ours include access to private wildlife reserves, lesser-known corners of national parks away from tourist crowds, and secluded small lodges and camps situated where wildlife viewing is best. All this adds up to a superlative nature adventure!

Vehicles That Are Top-Notch With Plenty Of Extra Room

With adventures all over the planet, we use many different types of vehicles, from small 4×4 jeeps for tiger watching in India, to our exclusive Polar Rovers with giant tires custom-designed for polar bear viewing on the Canadian tundra, to our own North America Safari Trucks with pop-top roof hatches for 360° wildlife watching. We also limit the number of travelers in each vehicle to below capacity (often well below the number most other companies place in them), ensuring a more comfortable experience and better access to viewing and photos.

Our other modes of transportation are equally thrilling, whether internal flights by light aircraft to maximize time in nature, scenic helicopter flights that provide stellar photographs, Zodiac excursions, private chartered boats, trains, horseback rides, snowcoaches or dog sleds!

In 2023, Nat Hab debuted our first off-grid electric safari vehicle in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. This green innovation—among the first of its kind in Africa—is part of our broader initiative to continually elevate the game drive experience for a more immersive and sustainable safari.

World Wildlife Fund’s Travel Partner

Because of our commitment to environmentally friendly travel and the exceptional quality of our worldwide adventures, World Wildlife Fund—the world’s leading conservation organization—selected Natural Habitat Adventures as its exclusive conservation travel partner, a relationship that began in 2003. When you travel with Nat Hab and WWF, you become an integral force for change in addressing the planet’s most pressing conservation challenges.

Your tourism dollars help transform the future of at-risk natural places, flowing to local communities who live with and steward nature, creating jobs and improving livelihoods. Your presence becomes a powerful incentive for communities to protect their natural resources, making wildlife worth more alive than dead, and wild lands worth more intact than degraded. During the course of our relationship, Nat Hab has contributed more than $5 million to the work of WWF. Learn more about our innovative partnership.

eXpedition Leaders

We know a successful nature adventure can only happen with an outstanding guide at the helm. That’s why we’re proud to have earned the reputation for the finest naturalist Expedition Leaders on the planet! No other company undertakes as rigorous a vetting process and in-depth guide training as we do. In addition, when you include resources from World Wildlife Fund’s team of scientists—exclusively available to Nat Hab as WWF’s travel partner—we can safely make the claim that Natural Habitat Adventures has the best guides in the business…It’s part of our guarantee!

Your Nature Escape & Your Daily Dose of Nature

Stories are made on adventures. Explore the flagship travel blog of Nat Hab and WWF, Good Nature, as you dive into traveler tales, conservation inspiration and stories of enthralling wildlife encounters across the planet. Scroll to the bottom of any post to sign up for our eNewsletter, which includes Your Nature Escape, highlighting nature news, travel tips and more.

Zero Waste Adventure

Since 1985, Nat Hab has taken a winding road to transform from a fledgling one-man operation to become the world leader in conservation travel. As such, we’ve had a number of historic firsts, including becoming the world’s first 100% carbon-neutral travel company and operating the World’s First Zero Waste Adventure. Nat Hab has shared our 12 Lessons Learned for Zero Waste Travel with the media and our peers in the travel industry so that others can follow our lead.