Top 10 Animal Encounters Worth Having

Top 10 Animal Encounters Worth Having

From someone who has spent a lifetime with animals and can tell the difference.

I have been an animal rescuer and advocate for most of my life. I have spent enough time around animals, domestic and wild, captive and free, to develop a pretty clear sense of something most people don’t always see from the outside, whether an animal is thriving in its environment or just enduring it. Whether an interaction is genuinely good for them or simply tolerated. Animals communicate that clearly once you know what you are looking at.

That impacts how I approach this entire category of travel.

Some of the encounters on this list involve animals living in fully wild settings. Others involve animals that are not, and I want to be honest about that. Not every animal can or should be returned to the wild. Sometimes the best possible life for an animal is one that looks different from what nature intended, and the right facility, the right program, and the right level of human care genuinely give them something better than the alternative. I have seen that too, and I respect it.

What every experience on this list shares is the same thing. The animals are celebrated. Their well-being drives every decision. And when you are there, you can feel it in how they move, how they engage, and how they carry themselves.

If you love animals and you want encounters you can feel as good about as you feel in the moment, these are my ten.

01. GORILLA TREKKING RWANDA

Nothing else comes close.

You hike into the jungle, and then you see them. A gorilla family, wild and completely free, moving through their world with zero interest in impressing you. The trek to get there is real, the immersion is complete, and the moment you lock eyes with a mountain gorilla, something shifts that I genuinely cannot explain.

I have done this multiple times, and I still don't have the right words for it. Spiritual is the closest I've come.

This is the pinnacle of animal encounters on the planet, and very few people will ever get to experience it.

volcanoessafaris.com

02 JET SKI WITH DOLPHINS CATALINA ISLAND, CALIFORNIA

They choose you. That's what makes it different.

You cannot go find dolphins. They find you, and they decide whether you're worth their time.

When a pack of wild dolphins shows up to your jet ski in the open water off Catalina, they are there because they want to be.

At that speed, at that proximity, with that water clarity, you can see their eyes looking back at you. I have done this trip more than fifty times and seen dolphins every single time. It never gets old.

http://etski2catalina.com

03 WALKING WITH ELEPHANTS ZIMBABWE

They let you in. That's the part that stays with you.

These are wild elephants. Not trained, not performing, not restrained. They have simply chosen, on their own schedule, to allow people near them once a day. You walk beside them, feed them, touch them. They are so large that you register as completely harmless to them, and that dynamic creates something genuinely moving.

I am particular about elephant encounters because so many are exploitative. This one is not. This is the only elephant experience I would recommend without hesitation.

http://victoria-falls-safari-collection.com

04 SWIMMING WITH MANATEES CRYSTAL RIVER, FLORIDA

One of the most surprising animal encounters in the world.

People underestimate this one until they are floating six inches from a thousand-pound sea cow that has absolutely no concern about their presence.

Crystal River is where hundreds of manatees gather, and you simply grab a snorkel and join them. They surface for air every few minutes, move slowly, and treat you like furniture in the best possible way.

Our kids were completely captivated. It is quiet, beautiful, and unlike anything else on this list.

05 NO CAGE SHARK DIVING FIJI

The most intense underwater experience I have ever had.

I have dove with sharks in nearly a dozen different environments around the world, including great whites off Guadalupe Island.

This is still the one. You scuba dive to one hundred feet, the sharks are fed nearby, and suddenly there are hundreds of them, massive, circling, brushing past you on all sides. It is almost overwhelming in the best possible way. Two dives, zero cages, full immersion. I could not recommend this more clearly.

http://fijisharkdive.com

06 WALKING WITH CHEETAHS ZIMBABWE

Giant house cats that run fast. Affectionate ones.

Cheetahs carry the same reputation as lions and leopards, and that reputation is wrong. They are the most cat-like of all the big cats, right down to the purring.

In Zimbabwe, you can walk beside wild cheetahs who have chosen to be in your proximity, sit next to them, and feel them lean into you the way a house cat does when it's decided you're acceptable.

The speed and power you know they possess makes the gentleness even more striking. You spend the entire time grinning.

elecheetahexperience.com

07 WILD HORSES SALT RIVER, ARIZONA

This one catches everyone off guard.

The Salt River is already a popular spot for kayaking and floating, but most people have no idea that hundreds of wild horses roam its banks. As you paddle downstream, they appear along the shoreline, drinking, cooling off, watching you with the calm authority of animals that have nothing to fear. You can paddle right alongside them.

Having owned horses myself, I understand the difference between a domesticated horse and a wild one, and the wild horse has a majesty that is genuinely hard to describe. Unexpected, and absolutely worth it.

08 SWIMMING WITH WHALE SHARKS CEBU, PHILIPPINES

Controversial. Worth doing. Here is how to do it right.

There is a lot of debate about this one, and I went in skeptical. What I found is that the whale sharks are entirely unbothered.

They show up at the same time every day for concentrated feeding, which means they get a full day's worth of plankton in a fraction of the time. The tourists splashing around them are an irrelevant detail.

Skip the snorkel surface experience because the crowds make it chaotic. Do the beginner scuba option instead. Going under and looking up at something that large and that calm in open water is spectacular.

09 SAFARI THE SERENGETI, TANZANIA

There is a reason this is the one everyone talks about.

As someone who has done multiple safaris across Africa, the Serengeti is still the standard.

The scale of wildlife here is unmatched. Giraffes, hippos, leopards, lions, wildebeest crossing in the hundreds of thousands. The reason it became iconic is the same reason it remains iconic: nothing else delivers this concentration of extraordinary animals in their natural state. Book a private guided version.

We had lions climb onto our vehicle to investigate us. That does not happen everywhere.

10 DOG SLEDDING BIG LAKE, ALASKA

Watch what an animal looks like when it's doing exactly what it was built to do.

Dog sledding surprises people on this list, and I understand why. What changes your mind immediately is watching those dogs the moment the sled starts moving.

They are not working. They are thriving. The joy is visible and unmistakable, and being pulled through some of the most pristine winter scenery Alaska has to offer while that energy surrounds you is something I did not expect to affect me the way it did. The team at Happy Trails Kennel, Iditarod champions among them, run the experience at the highest possible level. Don't miss it.