Celebrating 30 Years of Wildlife Worldwide
We are excited to celebrate Wildlife Worldwide's 30th anniversary this year! Founder Chris Breen's passion for wildlife sparked his drive to start his own travel company, and we are now one of the leading wildlife travel companies in the UK. Read more about our story and key moments over the years below.
Chris was working in the travel industry and had just spent time in Zambia's South Luangwa Valley when he had the desire to launch a specialist travel company, taking clients across the world - but with humble beginnings focusing on African safaris to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya & Tanzania.
Since then, the portfolio has expanded to include polar voyages, bear and whale watching tours and tiger safaris, and we now travel to over 500 locations, offering over 400 different wildlife watching holidays!
In the first year of operating, we organised holidays for 17 people, the following year this grew to 35 and doubled to over 70 in the third! This inspired Chris to leave his job at a travel agency and start working on Wildlife Worldwide full-time. Since then, we have sent thousands of wildlife enthusiasts on holiday - whether for their first wildlife watching holiday or for the seasoned safari-goer. Our team has also grown to double figures, and we are all just as passionate about wildlife and ensuring you experience the best wildlife encounters in the world.
If you are familiar with Wildlife Worldwide, you may know - and indeed may have travelled - on one of our Wildlife Festivals. This concept came to Chris while training for the London Marathon in 2001. He wanted to bring together a medium-sized group of people, take over a lodge in a wildlife-rich area and offer people the opportunity to enjoy photographic workshops and painting workshops, as well as have an auction that would put money back into the wildlife of the area. He wanted some key wildlife 'names' and asked David Shepherd, Jonathan Truss and Mark Carwardine. They all agreed to come along, although Mark had to cancel at the last minute, so Jonathan and Angela Scott joined instead, and it was a roaring success. It was our very first group tour and since then we have expanded the concept and have arranged Festivals all over the world. Our latest lineup of ‘Festivals’ include our brand-new Festival to the Falklands and South Georgia, Ndutu in Tanzania and closer to home our Festival of British Wildlife.
Many of you may now know us for our wide collection of small group tours, but initially, we were a tailor-made specialist, creating 'trip ideas' that clients could tailor by adding extra days in certain locations and making the holiday unique. Our expert team has years of experience creating wildlife holidays and is passionate about offering excellent service and valuable first-hand recommendations. Several team members now lead our small group trips and dedicated photography workshops and tours, which are hugely popular. The talented local naturalist guides and tour leaders we work with are instrumental in the success of every holiday we operate. Find out more about what makes our tour leaders so special here.
Our brochures have played a big part in providing holiday inspiration, and we continue to produce seasonal issues of our wildlife brochure, a photography tour & workshops brochure and a small group tours brochure, which are highly anticipated. Below you can see how they've changed over the years!
We have been passionate about wildlife conservation since the beginning. Every Wildlife Worldwide holiday booked includes a conservation donation, supporting conservation charities' vital work. Find out how one of our key partners Conservation South Luangwa will be allocating a recent donation in our blog.
This year, Chris returned to Zambia and was interviewed by author and journalist Simon Barnes to learn more about the early days, how it began and why wildlife holds a special place in his heart. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram to see the video series.
The support of our clients over the 30 years has been exceptional. We have many clients who have travelled with us numerous time – some even clocking up a remarkable 35 trips!
We want to thank all our clients, team members, tour leaders and suppliers for getting us to where we are today and allowing us to provide wildlife enthusiasts with everlasting memories. Here's to the next 30 years!
View all our wildlife holidays using our holiday search, or contact our team to discuss your plans.
