Wheeler Expeditions

06/25/2024

Portugal May 2024

06/25/2024

Rafting in Albania 2024 April

06/25/2024

2024 Highlights

04/28/2023

Madeira is a paradisiacal island just short flight from Lisbon. It's green, lush, and inviting... with gardens, water, and flowers everywhere. We enjoy these scenic drives with the warm sun, light breezes, and colorful scenes. The next journey begins June 27 in Funchal, the capital.

04/25/2023

After our Portugal Expedition, May 12-21, 2023 we have Atlantic Paradises, June 25-July 5 to Madeira and the Azores Islands of Portugal. The nature we'll see on that journey...includes whale watching and swimming with dolphins...

07/13/2021

Here is a beautiful leopard sunning in a tree this morning in Zambia's game reserve in South Luangwa... a rare and special sight to see! Photo by Jack Wheeler, currently leading our Wheeler Expeditions safari. It is an amazing experience. Maybe you can join us in 2020.

06/14/2021

The team at Wheeler Expeditions announces that we are officially opening and able to offer you incredible expeditions again -- as of July 2021! We hope you can join us...

Wheeler Adventures, which later became Wheeler Expeditions, was founded in 1976 with the goal of leading anyone with an intrepid spirit and a positive attitude on thrilling journeys all around the world. Does this sound like you?

10/12/2020

THE MONEY THAT MADE US HUMAN. On display in the National Museum of Congo in Brazzaville: “Ancient Money.” I took the picture because this is the money that made us human 90,000 years ago. They are tiny Nassarius gibbosulus estuarine snail shells too small for food, perforated with small holes to string on a necklace, used as money “before the establishment of the CFA” as the sign says, the Central Africa Franc in 1945.

These are the species of shell that was the first jewelry in history unearthed at seashore sites in Morocco and hundreds of miles inland in Algeria some 90kya (thousand years ago) – meaning they were traded. For the first time in history, a species began to exchange things between unrelated unmarried individuals to share, swap, barter and trade, and over great distances.

Other animals do not barter. This, maintains science author Matt Ridley, is what made us distinctly human, enabling us to cooperate with other groups or tribes, to innovate, to evolve ever more complex cultures. This little shell, used as money, is the founding of human culture. And after 90,000 years, it was still in use in Africa until 75 years ago! (photo ©Jack Wheeler)

10/08/2020

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET TOO CLOSE TO A 6,000 POUND ELEPHANT SEAL. The Antarctic island of South Georgia is one of the most extraordinary places on earth. Square miles of king penguin rookeries, thousands of fur seals, hundreds of gigantic elephant seals amidst a backdrop of massive glaciers and snow-capped mountains.

All of the animals here have no fear of you whatever and ignore your presence – except if you make the mistake of getting too close to a bull elephant seal for his comfort. It’s a mistake I made as you can see. Luckily, with several tons of blubber to carry, this fellow can’t move as fast as me, so I hightailed it quickly. That satisfied him, and all was soon back to placidly normal again. (photo ©Jack Wheeler)

09/11/2020

DRACULA’S CASTLE. Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” described Count Dracula’s home as a castle located high above a gorge perched on a rock in Transylvania’s Carpathian Mountains. And here you are, Bran Castle, built in the late 1300s near the town of Brasov in Romania, and traditionally associated with Vlad Dracula (1428-1477).

His father, Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon), as the ruler of Wallachia (southern Romania), led Christian knights fighting Ottoman Turks called the Order of the Dragon, or “Dracul” in Romanian. His son succeeded him as Dracula – “son of the dragon” – waging war upon the Ottomans so brutally he became known as “Vlad the Impaler” for impaling his enemies. They began spreading rumors of his being literally bloodthirsty, drinking his enemies’ blood.

Over the centuries since, Vlad Dracula has been celebrated by Romanians as their national hero in his liberation struggle from the Ottomans. But was Bran Castle his home? He had many homes, and was here many times during his campaigns. Visiting Dracula’s Castle is always a highlight of our explorations of Eastern Europe. (photo ©Jack Wheeler)