Choosing a Travel Agent and Preparing for Your Birding Trips

Speak to your regular travel agent and ask if anyone in the company is knowledgeable about arranging birding trips. It is possible that your agent can work with a counterpart at a more specialized firm to arrange the package that best suits your needs in terms of price and services offered. Chances are good that you will prefer to have tour guides and coordinators, especially if it will be necessary to seek permission to observe birds on private land or if other permits are required. You want a company experienced in handling all these details since you want your focus to be on bird watching. An entity with an established record for arranging birding trips is your best bet.

You'll want to know what kinds of transportation will be utilized for specific birding excursions so you can plan accordingly and of course you will have the normal questions about lodging and meals. (Don't forget to ask about the appropriate scale of tips for guides and drivers.) Find out how many other people will be on the trip and if you will have any opportunities to strike off on your own. To a large degree a bird watching vacation is a group activity and you need to be prepared for that. If you don't like being with groups of people, ask your agent to plan a private trip with the exclusive services of a hired guide. (Be prepared to pay more under those circumstances.)

Always find out what supplies you will need to provide for yourself. The basics include insect repellant, sun-screen, hiking boots, a field guide appropriate to the region in which you will be traveling, a small notebook, flashlight, camera, binoculars, and a back pack for day trips. More exotic locations will require more complex supplies and possibly even inoculations against parasites and diseases. Make sure you understand all that is required of you in terms of trip preparations. Also, remember that you may need to do extensive walking and even some climbing. Make sure your overall health and physical fitness are appropriate for the kind of trip you are attempting.

A bird watching vacation for bird watching in Texas or in the jungles of South America will be an adventure and will result in more species checked off your life list of birds.