Leaping across crowded platforms as subway doors close. Navigating annual uptown-downtown migration patterns. Learning how to dodge apex predators like giant pizza-consuming rats.
Coming of age in New York’s concrete jungles is nothing short of the survival of the fittest. This is perhaps why most teenagers in the city are seen-it-all know-it-alls, adaptations formed by growing up fast in a wild enviornment.
As the parent of a son and daughter who are both teenage New Yorkers, I would know. Travel, I’ve always thought, is a way to recapture childlike wonder about life beyond the five boroughs. (Though, there is something slightly ironic about the fact that us grown-ups are eager to rekindle a bygone spirit while teenagers, on the other hand, try oh-so hard to leave such wide-eyed thinking in the dust.)
So when I brought my teen brood out of their native stomping grounds and on safari in East Africa, I didn’t know what to expect. If the beast-like behavior on display on New York’s sidewalks barely causes them to raise an eyebrow, how much of an impression could actual beasts have on their jaded young minds?
Nevertheless, off we went to the grasslands of the Serengeti followed by the Seychelles, the 115-island archipelago off the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. After four flights and two days in transit, the glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro's unimaginably imposing silhouette from the airplane window felt like a good omen. Whatever compressed images of the continent my kids had come across on Instagram were about to be blown away by the real-life scale of Africa’s endless horizons and ecosystems.
On the tarmac, we were greeted by Loving, our safari guide. From the airport, we decided to cut to the chase and head directly for a three-hour crawl through the Serengeti. Before long, we were slowing down for zebra crossings and tall brush half a mile away used by lions as camouflage. Loving was, well, lovely, treating species he had seen thousands of times before as if it were his first spotting, too.
Ordinarily, my kids and I would be drained after all the traveling and driving. But over dinner at Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti, our first stay of the trip, I watched the sun descend behind the prairies as my normally taciturn teens couldn’t stop recounting all that the wildlife they had seen during our first afternoon in the savannah.
Before long, game drives gave way to more elevated terrain. One morning (if you can call a 3:45 a.m. departure “the morning”), we lifted off on a hot air balloon, buoyed by the early fog evaporating off the grass. It was quite the sight; one as awe-inspiring as seeing my “screen”-agers stare at herds of wildebeests, giraffes, elephants and gazelles instead of their phones. In truth, I was also slack-jawed taking in so much wildlife in such a short period of time at such heights.
