We invite you to Discover with Nature
Travel is a powerful tool for understanding The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) vital work and deepening your relationship with nature. By supporting TNC, you contribute to a global conservation effort that transcends boundaries and fosters collaboration. It’s essential to share this global perspective with our diverse supporters, and travel experiences offer a unique and impactful way to connect with our mission worldwide.
The Discover with Nature program invites you to engage deeply with our conservation efforts. Through these immersive experiences, you’ll visit field sites, interact with dedicated staff and scientists and develop the cross-cultural competencies essential to our One Conservancy vision. Join us to explore the conservation landscape beyond your home and experience nature's profound beauty firsthand. Together, we will continue to conserve the diversity of life on Earth, ensuring a sustainable and thriving future for all.
2025 Travel Destinations
Travel
Scenic Journey through Pine Butte, Montana
July 15, 2025 - July 20, 2025
Discover the untamed beauty of Pine Butte, Montana, where grizzly bears roam and diverse habitats flourish. Immerse yourself in breathtaking landscapes while learning about local conservation programs and strategies.
Travel
Summer in Churchill Adventure
August 2, 2025 - August 8, 2025
Experience the summer magic of the Churchill River, as it comes to life with what feels like countless beluga whales. Explore the colorful tundra, and discover the globally significant conservation work in the boreal rainforest.
Travel
Exploring the Pristine Adirondacks
September 7, 2025 - September 11, 2025
From kayaking pristine waterways to hiking forested trails in the High Peaks, the Adirondack region is a host of adventures. Explore nature while learning about conservation efforts to preserve this unique landscape.
Travel Highlights
Behind the Scenes: Creating Conservation Adventures Through Scoping Trips
April 2025
Sunrise on the equator happens fast. Almost before you can get your boots on, the sky develops dramatic oranges and pinks before mellowing into a beautiful new day. That's why at 5 a.m., I'm fully dressed and geared up—I don't intend to miss a second of it. A family of mongooses scamper across my field of vision and disappear into the tall grasses of Kenya's Loisaba Conservancy as I finish my last swallow of coffee, hike my daypack onto my shoulder and head out for a busy day. This is day three of a scoping trip, and I have a feeling it's going to be a good one.
If you've never heard of a scoping trip, you're not alone. It's one of those behind-the-scenes pieces of travel planning that most people don't realize exists—but it's central to the work I do here at The Nature Conservancy. My job is to design meaningful, efficient and educational trips that connect our supporters with our staff, our mission and our work around the world. These aren't vacations, so they require a specialized touch; they're immersive, impact-focused experiences. To ensure our guests have a peak experience, a planner like me travels to the location in advance to listen and learn.
On scope, I affectionately think of myself as a curious guinea pig. My job is to walk through every step of a proposed itinerary to refine it, improve it and make sure it works—not just on paper, but on the ground. If something's confusing, uncomfortable, or magical, I'll find it, and I'll make sure our guests are set up to experience the best of it.
Yesterday, my travel partner and I visited the town of Nanyuki, where we met with local staff and a farmer who are working alongside our organization to implement sustainable agricultural practices. Walking the fields, seeing crops that were flourishing thanks to shared knowledge and resources and talking directly with both the farmer and the program staff gave me a deep sense of what guests will experience. It helped me understand the flow of the day from a traveler's perspective—what's engaging, what's moving and what might need a little tweaking to ensure the day feels balanced and meaningful.
Today, we're in Loisaba, and the focus is wildlife conservation and community engagement. First up: A visit with the local anti-poaching unit. These are the boots-on-the-ground protectors of Kenya's incredible wildlife, and the demonstration that anti-poaching dogs Mulder and Scully put on for us was both impressive and enlightening. We wanted to make sure the guest itinerary includes not just the demo, but also time to hear their personal stories from the rangers—the "why" behind their work.
Later, we heard from our education and community outreach partners, who are doing incredible work in local schools and villages. Their presentation was so rich and compelling that we realized we hadn't allotted nearly enough time for it in our draft itinerary. We paused right then and there to talk through how to restructure the day. Guests are going to have questions—important ones—and we want to ensure there's ample time and space for those conversations.
This is a big part of why scope trips matter. They give us a reality check. These trips always start as ideas on paper. Our local staff and planners do their best to put together a trip that we think will hit all the notes and really sing, and it's one thing to review those spreadsheets and best-laid plans, but it's another to stand on the ground, watch the interactions unfold and realize in real time what needs to change.
We also spend a lot of time clocking logistics. How long did it really take us to drive from Point A to Point B? Was the road condition better or worse than expected? Did we arrive flustered or relaxed? These details matter. I adjust the guest itinerary constantly, ensuring it reflects real travel times and leaves just the right amount of breathing room.
Safety, too, is always top of mind. At every stop, I check the guides' first aid kits, ask about communication systems and confirm that emergency protocols are in place and understood. Do the radios work? Is there someone back at base who knows where we are? If something happened right now, would we feel confident in the response? Today, I had a great conversation with the camp manager about how they handle medical emergencies. It's the kind of detail guests might never think about—but it's essential to their peace of mind and overall experience.
Of course, not everything can—or should—be planned. One of the best parts of scope travel is the serendipity. Over dinner tonight, we found ourselves chatting with a helicopter pilot from South Africa who was visiting the camp. We noticed him quietly stargazing, and soon enough, we were all looking up at the night sky together, trying to spot familiar constellations.
To our amazement, the camp manager knew the names of nearly every star pattern we could point out, and even more we didn't recognize. And just when we thought the evening couldn't get more magical, our new pilot friend pulled out a blacklight and began scanning the ground. Within seconds, we saw them—scorpions glowing bright green in the grass around our feet!
These were two completely unplanned moments, but they were unforgettable. I made a note in the itinerary: If the stars align (pun intended), maybe the guests could experience a stargazing session or even a guided "scorpion hunt." We would never have thought to include those things from afar—but that's the beauty of being on-site and the small touches that make a trip unforgettable.
Each day at my job is different, but it is never boring. On a day like today, filled with new faces, unexpected joys and moments that remind me why this work matters, I really have to thank my lucky stars (okay, that was the last pun, I promise!). Scope trips are essential to smooth out the bumps, elevate the special moments and help our travelers experience something deeply personal and profound. Ultimately, my goal is to become a temporary insider—so our guests can feel like insiders too. I learn the rhythms, meet the people and test every detail so that when our travelers arrive, they can focus on connection, learning and awe.
And after a day like today, filled with community voices, conservation heroes and glowing scorpions under a star-strewn African sky—I can't wait to share this journey with our travelers. I hope you'll join us on the next adventure in conservation!
- Victoria Wu, Donor Engagement Strategist
Discover with Nature: An Introduction to the People Behind the Program and Everything That Makes These Trips Unique
February 2025
Traveling with TNC is a unique experience unlike any other in the travel industry. Discover with Nature is an opportunity to engage in conservation travel alongside the experts who live this work every day. If you haven’t been on a Discover with Nature trip with TNC before, you might be wondering, “What is it?” or “How is it different from just going on a trip with a tour operator?”
For those whom I haven’t had the chance to chat or travel with, I’ve been planning trips at TNC for nearly two decades now. I started working on Legacy Club Journeys then expanded to help plan some one-off trips by request from our internal programs. The Discover with Nature program is my main focus now, and I really enjoy collaborating with so many people across the organization to bring you exciting trip options every year.
I select destinations and work with our conservation programs and tour operators to create the itineraries. If you’ve ever reached out to ask questions or sign up, it’s likely I’m the person you’ve emailed with! I stay involved with our groups up until departure, making sure folks have background on the project sites they’ll be visiting and have all of their questions answered.
Thinking back to the beginning of my career, I had never been on a group trip, nor did I understand why someone would join one. But then I had the opportunity to accompany one and I got it. I saw people birding together, sharing a scope. I heard the conversations between guests as they got to know each other. I listened as they shared a common love for being outdoors and talked about their favorite hiking spots. I watched TNC staff talk about our work and heard the questions that travelers posed. Over the years since then, I’ve seen people make new friends, see things they otherwise never would have and be changed by their experiences on TNC trips.
There are tour operators in the travel industry that run trips that could be considered similar to ours. The itineraries and activities may be very similar, and their trips might also be educational and focused on sustainability. But here’s what TNC trips uniquely offer: You will travel with TNC staff whose work is directly connected to the places you are visiting. You will learn from them about how our work and partnerships affect the landscape and the local communities. And travelers have one-on-one time with these staff members over meals, on hikes and during drives to ask questions. Guests often tell us that their time with staff are among the most meaningful parts of their experience.
In the cases where we are creating an itinerary from scratch based specifically on our work, we are often going to places that the public cannot access without TNC. Travelers are getting special access to preserves or other working locations and hearing stories that aren’t told in any other setting. These trips are specially curated for our supporters and created through collaboration between our staff and our tour operators. They truly are one-of-a-kind!
When you participate on a Discover with Nature trip, you’re not only getting special access to the places where we work, but also to the people who do the work. Each trip is accompanied by at least two staff members, including one who is intimately familiar with the work featured on the trip. They’re there to share their passion for conservation with you. We realize you could simply join a webinar or read about TNC's work, and some may prefer that if they can’t or don’t like to travel. Butseeing these places firsthand and having back-and-forth conversations with the folks who live and breathe these projects is transformative. It’s incredibly meaningful for our staff to spend time with you as well. They love answering questions and hearing about your special connections with nature. The feedback I hear most often from my colleagues after trips is how meaningful it was to meet supporters and feel energized by them. It really helps infuse meaning into those days spent in the office poring over data or writing proposals.
Something else that makes our trips stand out is our operators. Unlike other organizations, we work with tour operators to manage all of the logistics of our trips so that our staff can spend their time with you. We don’t want them to be so focused on driving or calling a vendor to reschedule a lunch pickup that they miss an opportunity to share a good story. Our operators work with us from square one to help us craft a full, balanced experience, and then concentrate on the logistics and finer details while on the ground.
Having an operator who provides guides on trips also means we can split groups up for activities when some folks want to hike a little further, or some folks prefer to skip a kayak adventure and check out a museum instead. They allow us some versatility a group might not otherwise have.
We also partner with operators who will plan trips with an eye toward sustainability and fostering local partnerships. A lot of our vendors have a strong practice of giving back to the communities we visit.
Now that you’ve learned a little bit about how our Discover with Nature program works behind the scenes, our next blog post will share what a day in the life of a TNC trip planner looks like as we build the exciting trips you can join!
Have questions? Let me know! Travel@tnc.org
- Christine Kessler, Donor Engagement Strategist
Discover with Nature: Charting the Path Ahead
June 2024
Last year while visiting the Appalachians on a Discover with Nature trip, I was moved and inspired to learn about the work of our Tennessee chapter at Doe Mountain from Gabby Lynch, Tennessee Director of Protection. Looking northward within the same system, nestled in the heart of New York, the Adirondacks emerge as a picturesque tapestry woven with verdant forests, pristine waters and a community deeply rooted in the land. But more than that, the Adirondacks stand not just as a scenic retreat but as a beacon of hope, a place where the future is shaped by those who value the past and work tirelessly to forge a sustainable path forward.
In my time in Tennessee, I was struck by how connected I felt—not only to our The Nature Conservancy (TNC) projects and work but to all of us. At TNC we have a host of voices, ideas, tools and people all working toward the same bright future for our earth and the global community. We are collectively charting a path to create a more sustainable future and conserve the earth and its resources for future generations. We built our next round of Discover with Nature trips in the spirit of that connectedness.
In 2025, you will have an opportunity to embark on an unforgettable journey to the Adirondacks, where the tranquility of Follensby Pond comes alive through TNC’s conservation efforts. Experience the harmony of nature and community as you explore these cherished landscapes, meticulously preserved for adventure and inspiration.
On the Gulf Coast trip, you’ll be enveloped by vibrant estuaries teeming with life, restored watersheds supporting local economies and a community passionately united in the stewardship of their natural heritage. It’s an immersive experience where the spirit of conservation touches every shore, inviting travelers to partake in the rejuvenation of this precious ecosystem.
Birders will particularly enjoy the trip to Ecuador, hosted by TNC staff who know how TNC started the first water fund in Latin America and about the incredible local bird species. Learn how water funds in Ecuador have leveraged private and public partnerships to promote conservation and restoration projects throughout the region and put some checkmarks on your birding life list.
For the first time in our series, we’re offering a trip to British Columbia, where you’ll learn how Nature United is working in partnership to support Indigenous-led conservation all while in the magical ecotone where the dense Pacific northwest conifers meet the briny ocean.
And lastly, a favorite destination from across the years: Pine Butte in Montana. One of the jewels in the Crown of the Continent, Pine Butte Swamp Preserve is an expanse of untamed wildness where bears roam free and its patchwork of habitats supports a remarkable level of biodiversity.
All of the upcoming trips were constructed to highlight our connectivity. Not just connectivity between biomes, organisms and conservation projects, but also the connections between people and communities. We are a collective of dedicated conservationists, exploring and preserving a brighter, more sustainable future for tomorrow. Jump right in on any of these trips and begin your own story with Discover with Nature!
- Christine Kessler, Donor Engagement Strategist
Discover with Nature: Season of Gratitude
November 2023
It’s the last month of the year and we’re entering that season of gratitude and reflection. I can’t write my end-of-year list without spending some time thinking about everything that travel has done for me this year. While I took a few trips that were vacations, I definitely have to include some work-related travel, notably my latest excursion.
While I was in the south to attend the Tennessee Discover with Nature trip in October and early November, I was able to build in a visit to see my parents. They’re on the opposite corner of the country from me, so it was important to spend time with them while proximity allowed. As a special bonus, I also had dinner with my cousin whom I rarely get to see anymore now that our grandparents have passed. Having lived in Tennessee for many years, he was excited to hear my stories from the trip and understood my awe at being in the Great Smoky Mountains for the first time. He appreciated learning about the various ecosystems at the different elevations of the mountains, as well as all of the firefly facts that I learned from TNC Trustee and firefly expert, Lynn Faust.
The part of the journey that was the most meaningful for me was our visit to the Doe Mountain Recreation Area, one of the largest remaining privately owned blocks of forest in the Southern Blue Ridge region of Tennessee. I hadn’t quite known what to expect before the trip and wasn’t sure how I felt about off-road vehicles, which are popular at this recreational destination. Off-roading felt like something out of my comfort zone at first, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
The biggest takeaway for me was learning the story of why TNC was involved with the Recreation Area in the first place. Isn’t it weird that we’re involved with a place where people bring 4-wheelers to drive around? It felt almost the opposite of how our project sites are supposed to feel, or so I thought. But when TNC was asked to get involved with buying and protecting this land, everyone stepped back and thought about the community surrounding the land. If TNC purchased it and turned it into a preserve with no public access, it would not benefit the folks who live there. And this is Appalachia. If you’ve read the latest Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead, then you know.
So, TNC decided their purpose for being involved with the land needed to be one that benefited the community. They formed the Recreation Area to bring tourism into the community to stimulate the economy. The Recreation Area would bring families in and create the need for campgrounds. And those families would then go out for dinners and stops at the ice cream shop. Providing for people is a huge part of our 2030 goals.
I’ve read this, and I’ve heard other stories about the impact of our work, but this was the first time I visited a project that directly affects the lives of the surrounding community. It was profoundly moving, evoking thoughts about how it could have easily been my grandparents at the base of the mountain.
We also visited a cranberry bog, a creek that is being restored for the protection of tens and twenties of species of fish within and, of course, Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
Earlier this year on other Discover with Nature trips, groups visited Mexico, Belize, Oregon and Michigan and heard stories from our staff and partners who are working to project the biodiversity and the human populations in the areas where they work, too.
I’m looking forward to the coming year when there will be similar stories to share. I’m especially keen to learn about the continuity of restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast in April. Besides enjoying amazing seafood, I want to learn about the challenges that fishermen and women, as well as everyone who makes their living from the sea, are facing along the coast. I aim to delve into how TNC and our partners are adapting to changes, mitigating problems and utilizing restorative aquaculture practices. If you’re curious about these things, too, please come join me on this journey along the Gulf Coast!
As we plan our travels for the coming year, let’s endeavor to connect with family and friends along the way. As I’ve found, you won’t regret it.
- Christine Kessler, Donor Engagement Strategist
Travel with Us
For booking information or for journey questions, please contact: travel@tnc.org.