Stephan Shipe Welcome back to the Scholar Wealth Podcast. This week we're joined by Clint Saint, founder and CEO of Live Life Safaris, a concierge African safari planning service. Live Life Safaris designs tailored, high-touch safari experiences, and this year was recognized as one of the Triad Business Journal's Fast 50. So, Clint, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about how you got into this world. Clint Yeah, thanks, Stephan, and thanks for having me. So I grew up in South Africa. I live in the US now, right here in North Carolina, but I grew up in South Africa. And really, our family vacations growing up were to the safari areas of Southern Africa. So when I moved to the States, my wife is American and that's how I ended up here, I knew it was a lifestyle that I'd really miss. So we created a business primarily to keep having those African experiences and share it with other people. Stephan Shipe And how long have you been doing this now? Clint So we've been in business fifteen years. Stephan Shipe Okay. And a lifelong experience to go along with it. Clint Yeah, exactly. So it's always been a passion of mine. Growing up as a kid, we grew up on a farm, so it was always outside in the wilderness, fishing, hunting. These days no hunting, but it's all the photographic safari stuff, and it gets me back into the bush a lot, which is what I'm passionate about. Stephan Shipe When I hear or talk to clients about African safaris and just going over to Africa in general, the intimidation factor seems to be higher than going to Europe. Is there any truth behind that, or is it a different type of experience of traveling or planning that needs to go into it? Clint I think there's two sides to it, right? You've got some people who are a little nervous of the wildlife and the proximity to those wild animals. And then also you've got some people who are a little nervous of maybe a crime scenario, right? Because Africa does have, you know, a reputation for not being the safest, especially certain parts. But we try our best to ease people's minds. Our tours are always fully guided. We don't spend a whole lot of time in the cities, and when we do, we're avoiding, you know, places where you could potentially encounter anything. And touch wood, in fifteen years we've never had as much as a cell phone stolen. So we're pretty proud about that. But it's all about conversation and education and just easing people's anxiety pre-travel. Stephan Shipe And going through your site and everything I know about you, the difference of how you plan for these trips seems different from other types of trip planning services that are out there. There's a higher touch to that. Can you talk a little bit about what that difference is? Clint Very much high touch. Yeah, so we believe that an experience like this to Africa is very often something on the top of someone's bucket list. And so we want it to be an extraordinary experience from start to finish. So even through the planning phase, I like to jump on a video conference call with the potential traveler. All of our business actually comes from travel advisors, and so they are bringing their clients onto a call with me and we're planning it together. We'll do a Teams call or a Zoom call, and I ask certain questions that really get that potential traveler to talk. Because all of the destinations we offer in Africa, we offer ten different countries in Africa, from Kenya all the way down to South Africa and everywhere in between, and they're all different. They're also special in their own way, but every one of those countries is going to be a particular match for a particular client. And so, asking the right questions, knowing what kinds of experiences they're looking for. Are they looking for high-end luxury camps with all the amenities? Or are they looking for raw, immersive experiences in the middle of the Luwa Plains of Zambia? So all very different. And through those initial conversations it kind of guides us as to what direction that initial itinerary is going to take. And then we go do a lot of back and forth, making sure we've selected the right camps, showing them pictures, showing them videos, explaining experiences. And so it's very much a consultative process. It's not like going online and booking a hotel or booking a cruise. I always say that's a very transactional process of booking a vacation. But for us, booking safari the way we do it, it's very consultative, and it's not a transaction. Stephan Shipe So that's one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about today, because I know nothing about the space, right? But I talk about it regularly with clients, about different types of travel budgets and what they look for. When you think about the matching of different types of destination and just experiences in general, give me like the categories here, right? If you have maybe the younger couple looking for adventure, they're going out, they want to do the camping, they want to be in the tents in the middle, like what does that experience look like? And then give me the kind of, I'm looking for a relaxing trip experience that I don't want to be in a tent scenario. And then give me the multi-generational option, because one of the big things that we keep seeing is somebody comes in, you have kind of this first generation that says, I don't want to go on this vacation alone. I'm going to take my kids and my grandkids, and you know, ten, twenty of us are going to go to Africa. So what kind of trips would you think about that would be ideal for those types of places? Clint Yeah, and that's very important in that conversation, right? So we operate at a high-end luxury level, then we've got a good four-star category, and we also have a three-star category. So we can cater for most budgets, right? And we've been in the business long enough to understand how most American travelers like to travel. So our market is a hundred percent American. And so on the high end, you can go to a luxury safari lodge, and any amenity you can think of at any five-star resort in the world, you've got out in the middle of nowhere, right? And then you can take that down a notch and maybe not have the brass bathtubs and the chandeliers. And then you can even take it down a step further where things are pretty simplistic. But for me, we should never sacrifice the actual safari experience, right? People are going on safari to get interactions with wildlife in the natural habitat. And so yes, it's nice to have those comforts of a luxury lodge, but the safari is the most important. So when I'm building portfolios of properties that we like to offer in our itineraries, for me I analyze the guiding first. Your safari guide will make or break your whole itinerary. So that's my focus when I go and visit a new property. Then I look at the luxuries, the quality of the food, make sure the staff is fantastic, but we never sacrifice the actual safari experience. And then it's just a case of knowing how people like to travel. Are they a Ritz-Carlton type of person? So then we'll take our version of a safari lodge. We don't use a Ritz-Carlton, but there are plenty of conservation-focused safari camps and lodges that have those same luxuries of a Ritz-Carlton, right? Or if you want something a little bit more simplistic, we've got plenty of options there too. And I always say tent very lightly, because if it is a tented camp, it's more like glamping. So the tents have all the amenities you could possibly think of. Stephan Shipe And how long does that actually take? If you're at a resort or at a lodge and then you're going out on a safari, are these one-day adventures where you're going out and then coming back in, or are you leaving and then taking a couple days? Clint So there's different ways to build the itineraries, and we'll come back to your point of, you know, different families, multi-gen, et cetera. And multi-generational travel to Africa is becoming very popular. We do a lot of it. And obviously when there's kids involved, I've got two small girls myself, and we actually leave on Sunday for Africa and we'll spend some time on safari, and we'll choose the lodges accordingly because we're traveling with my girls, right? So they're four and one. So we'll go to lodges that have child-minding facilities, that can cater to kids, but there's plenty that don't. So depending on what you want. But I always say to people, if you want to travel with your kids, travel with them. A common question for me is, how old should your kids be before you take them on safari? And I'm like, however old you want them to be. That's a parent's decision. The next question is, they're never going to remember it at that age. Stephan Shipe They might not, but you as parents or grandparents will remember having those experiences with them at that age, right? Clint So it's very much a personal preference as to how old your kids should be to go on safari. We can accommodate all ages, though, in order to answer that question. So I mean, this is why the process needs to be consultative. There's just so many options out there, there's so many different ways to look at it. A place like Botswana or Zambia is much more off the beaten path than a South Africa, which has a lot better infrastructure and is easier to get around. But it always comes back to that point of making sure that we're customizing this itinerary specific to that traveler. We're choosing the lodging, we're making sure that the logistics work seamlessly for that particular traveler and how they like to travel. Stephan Shipe And what are we talking about cost-wise for these types of trips? What should somebody budget, if somebody's looking at this and they're building up their own kind of financial plan for the year, budgets at these different levels and different types of timelines. What are we thinking? Clint That is the most difficult question to answer, right? Because we operate across the extremes. So we operate, like I said, from a four-star, five-star ultra-lux. So at any one time I could have someone in South Africa traveling around the country using commercial flights, regular scheduled commercial flights, and staying at maybe four-star hotels and four-star safari lodges. But at the same time, I might have someone with their own private plane and private pilot traveling to remote camps in Botswana. Two very different price points, right? So a good entry-level budget to have, if you want to have this amazing experience, you don't need all the luxuries, so from an entry-level perspective, we normally suggest a thousand dollars per person per day. But that could be three, three and a half, four, depending on how people like to travel. Do they want their own private planes? Do they want their own private vehicles, private guides? Do they want to have a tour leader with them the whole time? So it's a very difficult question to answer in quite a broad range, but I think that's a good starting point, and gives you a high-end option there as well. Stephan Shipe So I'll ask it a different way, maybe it'll help kind of guide, because I imagine that, like you said, the range is going to be massive, especially when you start adding private flights and everything. If someone were to come to you and say, family of four, I want a thirty thousand dollar trip, what would be your ideal spot? And you can add whatever assumptions to that that you want. If somebody said thirty thousand dollars, Clint, build me a trip to Africa, what would you think would be a cool trip for that? Clint Seasonality is important, because in some countries the prices differ depending on season. For example, if you're in Kenya and Tanzania between the months of July and October during the great migration season, the price is double to what it would be in, let's say, April, right? South Africa always offers, in my opinion, the best bang for buck. The biggest reason for that is infrastructure, so we can get around very easily using regular commercial flights for the most part. And then we also have the benefit of the exchange rate in South Africa. So in South Africa, all the lodges still price in the South African rand. So we get a really good exchange there. Everywhere else that we operate in Africa offers everything in US dollars, so it's dollar for dollar at that point. But I would say family of four at $30,000, we're probably looking at a single-country itinerary, so maybe a South Africa or a Kenya. You might be able to combine a Kenya, Tanzania, or maybe a Zimbabwe and Zambia, something like that. It wouldn't be too much traveling around, but it would be quality safari experiences with seamless logistics. Stephan Shipe And what about, let's go fifty thousand dollars for two people? Clint Yeah, then we can start looking, you know, more off the beaten path, right? And so places like Botswana, into the heart of Zambia. We could look at high-end lodging in South Africa, if the primary focus would be the luxury aspects, then we could look at a South Africa where those luxuries are more affordable. But I always encourage people to really embrace Africa for its authenticity. And so wherever possible, let's get off the beaten path. Let's do something different. Let's not do what everybody else is doing. And as I travel around talking to travel advisors at different events, and you look at other destination management companies or tour operators and their general itineraries, they all do the same thing, right? And so Tanzania, they're going to go to Tarangire, they're going to go to the Ngorongoro Crater, they're going to go to the Serengeti. And so at certain times of the year, in those peak periods, those areas get really busy, right? And people don't go on safari to be with twenty, thirty, forty other vehicles on a sighting. They go on safari to be remote, to be intimate with the wildlife. So I encourage people to get off the beaten path. Tanzania, for example, has a whole southern sector that nobody goes to and it's absolutely beautiful. Or focus on private concessions when you're there. If you can afford to spend a little more, it's worth it to go to private concessions where they have more focus on limiting the amount of people on a sighting and more control over the ecology aspects of your safari. Stephan Shipe Where do you see people skimp out where they shouldn't? So when you're talking through things, you're given options and somebody says, we don't want to spend on that, and you look at it and say, like, that's not something you want to skip on. Clint So I'm going to change your question a little bit. I see people skimp on the actual safari or the actual itinerary, try and save some money here and there. And when they send me their flight details, they've gone and spent twelve thousand dollars on business class flights. I understand it's a long flight and people want to be comfortable, but if you could just maybe scale back and sit in comfort or comfort plus, right, and take that eight thousand dollars and put it towards your itinerary, we can enhance that itinerary so much more. It's fourteen hours versus two weeks. You know what I mean? And so while I understand the need to be comfortable on a long flight, I think that's something that people should think a little more closely about. If they are having to watch what they spend, then rather sacrifice on the price of your air ticket and put that towards your actual itinerary, than spending it all on your air ticket and then having to skimp on certain areas of your safari. Stephan Shipe And so it sounds like putting money into the actual safari experience is the area where you'd put, where you're going to get the most bang for your buck. But what makes them different, right? So is it just being more remote, being able to go more remote, or these different, more private places? Clint Yeah, so there's three aspects where price comes in and really influences the cost of your trip. It's going to be seasonality, so what time of the year are people traveling? It's going to be location, so how remote are we going? Do we have to take small aircraft flights into these destinations? And it's going to be the level of luxury. So how do people like to travel? Because you can go to exactly the same place, have exactly the same safari experience. One lodge could be really nice and comfortable, but not have all those luxury amenities, that might cost twelve hundred dollars a night in peak season. In exactly the same place, to have all these fancy amenities, might be three thousand dollars per person per night. So a huge swing from a price perspective based on level of luxury. Stephan Shipe I'm trying to think of a planning process, right? So if somebody comes in, they hear this and say, this sounds great. So you're working with travel advisors who are already working with a client, they come to you to kind of build that out. Do people come directly to you as well? Is that an option? Clint We do. We just, you know, we find our sweet spot is working with travel advisors, because they already have that client base. A lot of travel advisors would have been working with a particular client for years and years and years, and planned vacations all over the world. They know how they like to travel. Now if someone reaches out through our website or gets referred to us by somebody, absolutely we work directly with a client. We're just not marketing directly to consumers, if that makes sense. So we're essentially B2B, you know, is what you would call us. So I think that's our focus, but we would certainly work directly with the consumer, absolutely. But even from a travel advisor perspective, because a travel advisor has to know so much about the whole world, we can't expect them to know everything about Africa. Africa is a very complex destination. And so in areas around the world, a lot of travel advisors will rely on a destination management company. So we are essentially a DMC, a destination management company. And so travel advisors have these relationships with DMCs around the world, and lean on them to help them plan and, most importantly, execute the itinerary on the ground. Stephan Shipe And when you think about those different experiences that are out there, the one that you always kind of hear about is the great migration and everything. But you pay more for that. Is that worth it? Clint So it's an absolutely phenomenal experience, right? What we've seen in travel globally, in the last, since COVID really, is just an explosion in travel, right? And so you're seeing cities around the world really suffering from over-tourism, too many people in the peak seasons. The great migration is no different. So unfortunately, some countries, Kenya and Tanzania, have not done a great job of managing this mass tourism problem, right? And so during the months of the great migration, we're getting a lot of people in there, a lot of vehicles, right? The Serengeti and the Masai Mara are public national parks. So essentially, like a Yosemite or a Yellowstone, they can get quite busy. So while it is an absolutely amazing thing to witness, I'm actually encouraging people to plan their itineraries around the migration a little bit differently. Not spend too much time focused on the great migration. Ten years ago we were planning itineraries that were very migration-focused. Now we're planning itineraries where we will go to the right area to possibly witness that migration at the right time of the year, but not spend too much time there, two or three days, and then go to quieter, more intimate areas of that particular country or destination. Stephan Shipe And when we're talking about seeing the animals and everything else, is there a less-great migration that you would recommend, right? Is there something else that people haven't found yet as being super popular, that you would look at and say, from all your experience, like, this is just as good, or this is something completely different, instead of going through the touristy great migration? Clint Absolutely. And we always talk about the great migration, but that's very much isolated to Kenya and Tanzania, right? You've got countries like Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa that offer amazing safari experiences and something very, very different, right? My favorite time of the year to go on safari is the green season. So, just after the rains, everything's nice and green, you've still got your migratory birds, and so less tourists at that time of the year. When people do research and they'll look for the best time of the year to be on safari, it's always going to be the dry season. And essentially that's true, because the drier the area, it's easier to find wildlife because they normally congregate at water sources, the vegetation's less dense so you can see further. But that's very specific to certain areas, right? So yes, those months are always good, but they can be just as good in months that are not busy. So essentially your off-peak times, right? And what helps there is price. You can get a quality experience at a fraction of the price if you're willing to travel outside of the peak season, do your green season, I call them fringe seasons, either on the front end or the back end. Places like Botswana, I mean Botswana for me is the ultimate safari destination for a couple of reasons. First of all, their model as a country, and from a conservation perspective, they're very much low volume, low impact. So you're not going to see a lot of people there. They do charge, it is the most expensive destination, but from the experience that you'll have there, it's unbeatable. And in a place like the Okavango Delta of Botswana, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where you have this river that comes down from Angola and it disappears into the middle of the Kalahari Desert, and it's the largest inland freshwater delta in the world. So you can imagine wildlife in very dry times, not only from Botswana but from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia, all migrate to this area for water. It's one of the largest water sources at that time of the year. So all these things to consider when planning. People very often will jump on that initial call and say, the great migration, but then through conversation you realize the great migration is not the best fit for you. Maybe it's a Botswana or a Zambia or even a South Africa. So I think from a marketing perspective, what people have seen on Nat Geo or different wildlife shows is very often those scenes from the great migration. So that's what they have in mind. But through conversation, there's areas that might be better suited to them. Stephan Shipe Are you always going to see animals? Clint Absolutely. Yeah, you'll never be disappointed in the wildlife sightings. But I also always say to people, don't go to Africa to tick animals off a list. You can do that at the zoo or at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Go to Africa to really experience the authenticity of everything. The wildlife will be there, you'll see the wildlife, but take a moment to enjoy the smells, the sunset, have your gin and tonic or glass of wine at your sunset time and soak everything in. And people who've been to Africa will understand what I'm saying, because it will change you, right? People don't come back from Africa with the highlight being the wildlife they saw. They come back from Africa with the emotions that that experience evoked and the people they met along the way, and realizing that life isn't all about materialistic items. And yes, the wildlife's just a bonus. But to answer your question, absolutely, we'll see the wildlife. Stephan Shipe And how long are you typically recommending people go? So I know it ranges, right? But I imagine you can't go out there for three or four days. That's not going to be a case. Like, are we talking a few weeks? Clint Yeah, minimum seven days. So absolutely that's a minimum. But even that, it's too short. So our average length itinerary is twelve days on the ground. So when you consider flights to get there and back, you're looking at about fourteen days. That's our average length. But if people can have more time, to spend longer in each destination, because obviously we always try and cram so much in. And so the more time we have, the more we can spread that out a little bit. We have some trips that'll go three, four weeks, but normally it's no more than two weeks. Stephan Shipe What is the coolest trip that you built out? And not necessarily location, but you looked at it and said, like, this is the most fun trip to book. Clint Yeah, I've got some repeat travelers that have done a few different itineraries, and I think the best one I've done, one of their trips was a trip through Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. Three of our most remote destinations. The reason we chose those destinations is exactly the reason that, they wanted to see wildlife, of course, but it wasn't all about the wildlife. They just wanted to experience Africa in its raw, authentic sense. And so those countries are just like that. You can be on safari and not see another soul for days and days and days. And so we traveled through Zimbabwe, we stopped at the Victoria Falls, which was probably the most tourist-heavy part of that trip, but then crossed over into Zambia up to South Luangwa, the Lower Zambezi Valley, Kafue National Park, and then we flew down to Botswana and did the Okavango Delta area there and the Kalahari Desert. And then I think, if I remember correctly, they might have finished off in the Cape Winelands or something like that, just to have a little bit of leisure time and enjoy some good South African wine before they flew back to the US. Stephan Shipe How long did that take? Clint It was about a two-and-a-half-week trip. Stephan Shipe Okay. That's a lot to put in two and a half weeks. Clint And everybody's got conflicting theories on this, but in my experience, what I find is a sweet spot is you don't need more than three days at a particular safari camp. Because the way that a safari generally works is you'll go out in the early morning when wildlife is active, you'll be on the safari vehicle with your guide and you'll go out for about three or four hours. And then you'll come back to the lodge and you'll relax for the middle of the day period when it's hot. When it's hot, wildlife is in the shade, they're not very active and you don't see a whole lot. And then when it cools down in the afternoon again, you'll head out on your afternoon safari drives. So you can only traverse so far from your lodge in any given game drive. And a lot of your wildlife is territorial. So lion prides are territorial, you'll have territorial leopards, other wildlife has home ranges. And so in any given game drive, you can only see so much. And so if you're there for three days, you probably have seen maybe that territorial leopard two or three times. You'll start to see that same lion pride, maybe the same herd of elephants coming down to the river. So I always suggest three or four nights at one camp and then go to a different destination that's offering you a completely different landscape and scenery. Stephan Shipe That I guess I never considered that. You always see, like you're saying, the kind of the watering hole area where it's like you see everything. But with the different territories and everything, you have to pass through these different, like, neighborhoods, so to speak, to get to where you need to be. Clint Exactly. And so if we built out an itinerary and did three or four different safari stops, yes, they are seeing lions again or leopards again or giraffes again, but the landscape, the ecosystem influences that animal behavior differently. You have lion prides that influence a lot of the wildlife in the area. And so when things are changing with lion prides, it creates this interesting dynamic with all the wildlife of the area. If you have a pack of wild dogs moving through the area, it just creates a whole different dynamic of the whole experience. And so by moving throughout the itinerary, three or four days at each camp, you're able to really give people an overall experience of different destinations. Stephan Shipe And when you're bouncing from one safari camp to another, is that mostly driving, small planes? Clint It's mostly small planes for us. Because, you know, we're at that four-star, five-star level, and I think people understand that time is money at that point, and comfort, right? So anything more than a three-hour drive, we're normally just going to hop on a small plane and be there in twenty-five, thirty minutes. Stephan Shipe That makes perfect sense, especially when you're trying to compress everything into those things. And is that normally the, I guess, what's the distance between these different safari camps that give you that level of diversity? Clint Yeah, even if we're flying, we're probably not ever doing more than an hour-and-a-half flight on a small plane, and that'll be quite a big distance to cover. So in Kenya, for example, if you're flying from, let's say, the Laikipia region up north into the Masai Mara, which is a common flight circuit that we do, that's probably an hour-and-twenty-minute flight. That's one of the longer flights that we would do. Or from the Kasane region in northern Botswana down into the Okavango Delta, also about an hour-and-twenty-minute flight. Stephan Shipe And you mentioned at the beginning, you said something about how you grew up hunting and everything in Africa. Is that still common? Are you still booking trips for the typical safari, for the kind of big-five safaris that you hear about? Clint Yeah, when I say I grew up hunting, I'm talking about, as a kid on a farm, going around with a pellet gun, shooting birds and that kind of stuff. I didn't really embrace hunting past that. And we don't get involved in any hunting at all. We're all photographic and just people enjoying the wildlife and scenery. That's a whole different debate to have. It's a whole different market, and really you can't really do both. It'll be a very difficult proposition to offer both. I have a lot of good friends that I grew up with that are very much in the hunting industry, and they do it ethically, and so I've got no problem with that. So if I get people who are inquiring about a hunting safari, my job at that point is just for them to have an ethical experience. And so I would then just give them the contacts of people I know in Africa who do it right. Stephan Shipe Yeah, because it seems like that would be a completely different, like, where you're going, so far as camps that you're stopping at. Clint Exactly. You'd have hunting concessions that are completely away from your photographic concessions. And the guys that are doing it right, from a hunting perspective, are very much conservation-focused. Stephan Shipe How long does it take to build something like this out? So if somebody's listening to this and they say, this sounds great, I'm going to contact you, talk to their advisors that they have for travel. How far out are you planning this kind of stuff? Is this something where it's like two months you could be going, or is this something you need a year? Clint Yeah, I mean, ideally a year. And that's not to say we can't do it on short notice. In fact, we just finished one yesterday, gentleman's traveling in two weeks. So, but I like to have time, because we like to use small safari camps, six rooms, eight rooms, ten rooms, and so availability becomes a problem. I always say to people, I'd rather be able to select lodging based on your personality and travel style preference, as opposed to select lodging because of what's available. And for that reason I always suggest let's plan at least a year out. We're actively already booking twenty twenty-eight. And the time of year varies based on all the different things we're just talking about. It varies. But our peak season is generally from May through to October, for a couple of reasons. Obviously it's the summer holidays in the US, and it's a peak travel season for safaris in Africa. Stephan Shipe Is that when the great migration is? When does that happen? Clint Well, the great migration, in essence, happens all year round, right? So it's just kind of constantly moving. I call it a circuit rather than a migration. And people think of the river-crossing season as the great migration. Yeah, that's what you see, right? So those rivers, the Talek River, the Grumeti River, the Mara River, are actually in the central to northern Serengeti. And then the Serengeti crosses over into Kenya and becomes the Masai Mara. And so your river-crossing seasons are generally from July through to late September, October. And so that's what people perceive the great migration season to be. And that's when you get the most travelers there. But you also forget about the months where they're not crossing those rivers and they're coming down to the southern Serengeti. We call it the calving season in the southern Serengeti. Beautiful time to be there. Much less tourists, everything's green, a lot of predator action with the young calves around, the wildebeest calves and the zebra foals. So yeah, the migration's happening all year round, but those big herds are in different locations given the time of the year. Stephan Shipe Interesting. So basically what it is is just, you know, it's large herds of wildebeest, large herds of zebra, and other plains game and different antelope. Clint That are following the rains for that fresh grazing, right? And so as the rains move northward, so are those large herds following those rains. And then when the rain comes back to the south, so the herds come back south, and they're normally giving birth in about the months of, you know, February, March, April in the southern Serengeti, and then they'll start to move northwards as their foals and calves get some strength, they'll start to move northwards following the rains. Stephan Shipe Gotcha. And of those, I guess if you're thinking about the circuit, which I imagine you've seen all the different versions of the circuit, where's your favorite one? Clint My personal favorite is the calving season, right? So in the southern Serengeti, beautiful landscape at that time of the year when everything's so green and a lot less people. In saying that, I mean, to witness a river crossing is something special, right? And I've been fortunate enough to have done it before we had huge crowds like we get now. And I was fortunate enough to be there during COVID when there were no crowds at all, and you literally had it to yourself. But to witness a river crossing is something special, but, like I said earlier, I wouldn't base someone's whole itinerary around that. Stephan Shipe It makes perfect sense. Well, as we wrap up and everything today, anything that you would like to leave people with? Are there misconceptions about it, plans, what do you like to leave people with if they're thinking about doing this? Clint If you're thinking about doing it, don't wait, right? I always say to people, if it's on your bucket list, put it on your to-do list, because life doesn't stop, and there'll be a point in your life where you can no longer do a trip like this. So if it's on your list, do it. Plan it really, really well, because Africa is a very complex destination. And don't be scared of getting out there out of your comfort zone, to places that not everybody's going to. Because you speak to your friends and maybe they went to Kenya and Tanzania and South Africa, don't forget about these more remote destinations that offer a more raw, authentic experience. Stephan Shipe Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I've enjoyed it. Clint Thank you so much.