This guest blog is very kindly written by Jared Crawford. Jared worked in environmental education with WWF, CARE, CITES, IUCN and AWF (amongst others) for decades before joining the safari world and so he speaks from both sides of the fence.

With the dramatic and well publicized increase in poaching I'm often asked if it is a wise or politically correct time to visit Africa on safari. This is a very good question and one that deserves to be addressed. Tourism has always been a mainstay for wildlife populations, local communities and conservation efforts throughout the continent. Many African range states are grappling with huge environmental choices as they hurtle towards modernization. There has simply never been a more important time for people to come on safari.

Traditionally Christmas is celebrated throughout the African continent by Christian communities large and small. There are approximately 350 million Christians in Africa. On Christmas day carols are sung from Ghana on down to South Africa. Meats are roasted, gifts are exchanged and family visits made.

Eastern Africa down to South Africa are celebrating their summer, so it is beautifully warm. The safari lodges and beach accommodation generally provides you with a traditionally international (British usually) Christmas, consisting of a roast turkey, Christmas decorations (generally tinsel and a Christmas tree), a gift, Christmas carols and Christmas drinks from Mulled / Gluhwein to Christmas cocktails.

Unless you're in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, there's little chance of anyone enjoying a white Christmas in Africa.

‘Kenya’, a word that conjures up ideas of adventure, great expanses of land speckled with spectacular and truly ‘wild’ wildlife. Most intrepid travellers get to witness this once in their life from a safari vehicle, better known as a photographic safari. There is nothing wrong with a ‘photographic’ safari, clambering into a 4x4 vehicle and driving through the unspoilt lands of Eastern Africa is as intrepid or adventurous as many people would like to get, but for the bold and the brave, we can offer a more extreme safari experience.

Whether from the back of a camel or a horse, the seat of a motorbike, a bicycle or a quad bike or from an old fashioned Arabic trading boat floating on the Indian Ocean, here are some ways in which to witness Kenya, whilst being ‘closer’ to nature.

Few animals have sparked the imagination of man as much as the Gorilla, the largest of the living primates. Most Gorillas live in inaccessible regions in various dense forests in tropical Africa, one subspecies, the Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) lives within only four national parks in the world, one inhabits the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda (2006 census recorded 30), the second is in a mountainous region referred to as the Virungas, which includes Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, Uganda, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda and Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo DRC (2010 census recorded 480).

Latest travel advisory from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for Rwanda.