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Outside Magazine, March 2006

The New Trips of a Lifetime - 40 Perfect Journeys Now: Best Trips 2006 - The Wanderlist

All it takes is one trip to change your life - and we've got 40 of 'em. Dreaming of close encounters with cheetahs or penguins? Want to climb a mountain in Peru? Experience an epic trek in China? One trip, one world - that's all it takes.

NAMIBIA
Cheetah Conservation
Price: $4,400
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Though Africa's largest population of endangered cheetahs--about 3,000--lives in Namibia, their propensity to snack on livestock keeps them in jeopardy. You'll try to change that during this two-week safari, five days of which are spent working at the Cheetah Conservation Fund training Anatolian shepherd dogs, building fences, counting wildlife, and staying in a nearby farmhouse. On your first night in Namibia, take in the view from the 1914 castle of Count von Schwerin, where the wine collection is stored in a cellar carved out of a stone hillside. Later, you'll check out the black rhinos of Etosha National Park, the shipwreck-littered Skeleton Coast, and finally the Namib Desert. After a day of sand-surfing the 1,000-foot-high dunes, refuge is in a kulala, an open-air bungalow with rooftop stargazing.

Outfitter: Mango African Safaris, 888-698-9220, www.mangosafari.com
When to Go: July-August