In Search of the Perfect Investment

Nothing happened while I was in Africa. RadioShack went down some more. Apple went up some more. The European mess is still with us. CEOs are bemoaning their companies’ future — a sort of unsubtle hint for Congress to keep their taxes low. If Congress does nothing, taxes for basically everyone will rise come January.

The best family vacation is an African photo safari. You watch the animals together. You eat together. You talk together. You play together. (Michael beat me at chess.) You don’t do things that someone might not like — as in tennis, skiing. swimming, surfing, running, biking vacations.

Early to bed. Early to rise (5:30 AM). Two game drives a day. Do what the animals do. Check out the game in the morning and early evening. Siesta at lunchtime when it’s hot and when the animals are also sleeping.

We were in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. It’s remote, but easy to get to. There are no TV sets. There is no Internet. No landlines. No BlackBerries. No iPhones. Just perfect weather and a perfect family. Everyone is forced to relax. Stress disappears.

You get to see magical things. Here’s a pride of lions killing a buffalo.

This is what it looked like 30 seconds later:

We saw all Africa’s big mammals, including giraffes, cheetahs, leopards, elephants, rhinos, hippos and all the little ones, including the warthogs, impalas, mongooses and millions of wonderful birds. Here’s a cheetah. It’s smaller than a leopard, which we saw up a tree with its dinner.

It was unbelievable. None of us will ever forget this family vacation.

It’s easy to organize. I played travel agent. It worked out well. No glitches. If anyone is interested in going, email or call me. I’ll write you a list.

Latest Thoughts on Traveling (to Africa or anywhere else).

+ Be grateful. All airlines are bankrupt. Be grateful for getting you there safely. Anything in addition is a bonus. The best bargain is American Express Platinum two business class seats for the price of one. We had flat seats going and coming on Delta. Surprisingly good service. The 15 hour flight from Atlanta to Joberg is much better than the 6-hour ones going to Europe. You get to sleep to and from Africa. You don’t with Europe. They wake you in the middle of your night.

+ Always take plenty of batteries. Cameras, BlackBerries, laptops all use them. For a photo safari take at lest two batteries per camera.

+ Take a laptop and download your pictures every few hours. Claire’ SanDisk SD card blew up. It’s doing to cost up to $900 to recover her pictures. The best place is Kroll OnTrack Data Recovery.

+ Delta had no power outlets (even in first class) on a full flight from New York to Atlanta. The plane itself was older than I am. My Delta pilot told me “they had a lot of planes — more than a thousand, “It took a long time to upgrade them.” The long 15 hour Delta flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg was in a new 777. It had flat beds and intermittent laptop power. It worked for a while, then shut off. The head steward told me if too many passengers tried to use power, it shut off. The system is designed to work best when no one is using it. Take plenty of laptop batteries.

+ Always get on flights as fast as possible. Now that it costs money to check a bag, everyone is carrying megabags.There’s rarely any room left in the overhead compartments. I saw people rolling two roll-ons donw the aisle, stacked with sundry laptop and other backpacks.

+ WiFi is universal. Often slow and often pricey. There are two solutions: First, don’t rely on the local crap. Carry a Verizon MiFi unit. Second, plug in. A wired conntection to the Internet is always faster than WiFi.

+ Don’t forget to take your own food. Airline food is like military intelligence.

+ Everything in travel is bargainable — from airline seats to hotel rooms. When you’re through bargaining on room rates, remember other things you can bargain on –like transfers, WiFi, breakfasts and upgrades to suites. What you’re offered first time is the place to start (not end) bargaining.

+ You can actually do a complete month-long vacation and never check a bag. A backpack and duffel bag (without wheels) should work. Take fast-dry underwear from ex Officio and Magellan. Pack for layered warmth.

Tips on taking pictures.

+ There is no “universal” camera. The better, the pricier, the heavier. The lighter, the more pocketable, the cheaper. And there are the new “in-betweens.” Cameras improve every week.

+ Most guests carried Digital SLRs (single lens reflexes). These have three huge advantages: First, you look through the lens. It’s hard to see screens in bright sunlight. Second, they shoot fast. there’s no shutter lag. Third, they take better, longer, heaviest lenses. and, hence better photos.

+ My most useful camera was a Nikon D7000 with an 18-200 zoom. It worked perfectly for mammals and reptiles. For birds, I needed something much longer. Say 600 mm. One guest had a 600 mm Canon lens. It cost him around $12,000. He needed to carry a heavy tripod also. I think a monopod would have worked for me. The photos above were handheld. They’re good. My bird pictures aren’t brilliant. There are no birds as big as a lion.

+ Take a Kindle on your travels. Put it in a case with a light. That way the spouse won’t complain.

I landed yesterday lunchtime. All four of my Delta flights were early!

It’s taken me nearly ten hours to go through the mail and the inane requests from taxing authorities demanding megabucks for taxes I paid many years ago.

Tax tip: Keep copies of every cashed check you ever sent to any taxing authority. These days they’re randomly sending out bills, hoping you’re stupid enough to pay them.

Harry Newton who loves Botswana, the only remaining, loveable stable country in Africa.

The U.S. Tennis Open is on ESPN2 and The Tennis Channel. Some great matches.

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