I've always said that I believe very little of what I hear and only some of what I see.  The same goes for photographs as I know now that they can be edited and manipulated in many ways.  I still often get asked by many of my friends and people why I would want to visit some of the places I do - especially Antarctica and Tanzania in Africa. 

It's great to be able to punch a few buttons on my cell phone and pull up some images from my Instagram account and show people a few pictures of these places.  I can tell by the looks on their face that they understand why I would want to travel so far away into places that many perceive to be dangerous.   At least I can show them why I wanted to see certain places in person.

You can use any of my photos in a variety of sizes for free without worrying about getting in trouble as they are free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0.  My profile on Pixabay is HERE

Above is a photo of myself in Paradise Bay and below is Paradise Bay which I thought was the most beautiful part of Antarctica which is saying a lot.

This ship seemed so small compared to the other ones I saw and compared to the glaciers surrounding it

The sun would go down around 11:00Pm and come up around 3:00 AM
The glaciers were so much bigger than I expected and it really was not as cold as I expected.  It was generally around 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

This was the closest thing I saw to a sunset and it was almost midnight

The following photos were taken on in Massai Land and on safari in Tanzania.

  These zebra kept running back and forth past these lions.  I was so scared they would get caught playing their "game".

Thank you very much for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to leave any comments or questions.  I really enjoy hearing from my readers.  I hope you are all having a wonderful week.   

~Michelle

 In late July of 2013 I traveled to Tanzania with a group called "The Giving Lens".  This group was founded by Colby Brown who was the lead photographer for National Geographic for four years.  We visited schools, an orphanage, families affected by AIDS and went on a three day safari in the Serengeti National Park and Ngorogoro Crater.  This trip would be classed as "adventure travel".  During the ten days I was there we stayed in three different areas of Tanzania including Moshi, Karatu, and Robunda.  I have many public albums with hundreds of photos on my Facebook page in case you want to see more.

Participants had the option of sleeping overnight in a boma in Masailand  like this one:

This was one of two group trips that I have been on in the past year or ever for that matter.  I decided to write this post so the post I will be writing later this week might make more sense.  With the growing popularity of group travel, I think it's very, very important to choose the right trip and know what questions to ask before committing to one of these trips.  Here is a brief synopsis of the 10 day trip I went on eight months and nine trips ago.  

Visiting Children in the Schools

I took this photo of Colby Brown and I was honored that he used this photo in an article he wrote on his blog A Road Less Traveled:  

 http://www.colbybrownphotography.com/an-adventure-through-tanzania-with-an-iq260-from-phase-one/

My photo is at the very end :)

The kids loved my sunglasses at the schools we visited:

Visiting Children in an Orphanage

Visiting Massai Land

 Safari in the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorogoro Crater

 I will leave you with a beautiful aerial view of Mount Kilomanjaro, which is the closest I got to the summit, as I was leaving Tanzania:

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I love to read your comments or questions and and reading other people's blogs as well.  Your e-mail address will never be published.  Take care my friends!

  ~Michelle