car safari gone wrong

Watch out for that elephant! Photo: canva

WATCH: Motorist gets safari surprise as elephant rampages vehicle

A safari went very wrong recently, when a motorist at Kruger National Park was treated to an unwelcome interaction with an elephant. Watch…

A safari went very wrong recently, when a man inside his vehicle at Kruger National Park was treated to an unwelcome interaction with an elephant. Watch…

Safari gone wild

Safaris, while most of the time are incredible, awe-inspiring experiences, can sometimes be jaw-dropping for all the wrong reasons.

This was made evident recently when a motorist at Kruger National Park met with an elephant that wasn’t very pleased to see him and his vehicle there.

ALSO READ: Lion’s Head named best free tourist attraction in Africa

As reported by IOL , the video went viral on TikTok after it showed the elephant smashing into a car’s windscreen at South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

ALSO READ: WATCH: Cheetah struts into safari lodge near Kruger National Park

According to the video’s caption, posted by TikTok user @sahiofficial, “an elephant pressed on a car, shattering the windshield, but the occupants were unharmed, highlighting the elephant’s strength and the car’s durability”.

ALSO READ: UPDATE: What happened to the cheetah that strolled into safari lodge?

“I only watch wildlife from the safety of my sofa”

The incredible video has since received over 1.2 million views, 31 000 likes and over 2 000 comments.

Comments on the video range from sympathetic to hilarious.

User @thato_m___ said: “What do you say to insurance? 😭”.

While @sweery222 added: “Hope you’re okay. I would’ve panicked and reversed which is probably not ideal. 😭”.

@Rochelle Arendse210 joked: “I only watch wildlife from the safety of my sofa 🤣”.

And @Margaret Nyange advised: “you are supposed to be super quiet when you come close to wild elephants…am a Kenyan I know this by experience”.

Check out the video below:

@sahihoffical An elephant pressed on a car, shattering the windshield, but the occupants were unharmed, highlighting the elephant’s strength and the car’s durability. #fy #fyp #fypシ #elephant #press #car #viral #foryou #sahihoffical ♬ Originalton – Sahih 🫵🏽 ✪

According to details on IOL , Kruger National Park spokesperson Isaac Phaahla, commented on the unfortunate event, saying that they had not had a report of the incident, but did advise on the dos and don’ts on watching elephants on safari at the park or any other park.

ALSO READ: South African lodge features on World’s 50 Best Hotels list

Phaahla said that visitors should keep a safe distance, respect the animal’s right of way and to be vigilant around a breeding herd.

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WATCH: Safari drive goes wrong as elephant smashes car windscreen

What was supposed to be a fun day out in the South African bush quickly turned hairy for a motorist.

A video of an elephant smashing into a car has made its way on TikTok .

In the video, “an elephant pressed on a car, shattering the windshield, but the occupants were unharmed, highlighting the elephant’s strength and the car’s durability”.

The video was post by a sahihoffical and has since received over 654K views and over 15K likes since being uploaded on the app.

In the video, the unidentified man in the driver’s seat can be heard saying “wait yesses! f$#@...He is going to f$#@ me up“ as the elephant approaches the vehicle.

The elephant proceeds to stand next to the car on the driver’s side and the driver whispers: “What the f$#@ must I do?”

The elephant then sat on the windscreen of the car.

TikTok users, of course, weighed in on the incident.

One user, Thato M, questioned: “What do you say to insurance? 😭”

Another user, Rochelle Arendse210, commented: “I only watch wildlife from the safety of my sofa 🤣.”

Commenting on this incident, Kruger National Park spokesperson Isaac Phaahla, said they had not had a report of the incident, however, he did provide the dos and don’ts on watching elephants at the park or any other park.

He advised visitors to keep a safe distance, respect the animal’s right of way and to be vigilant around a breeding herd.

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The Cheetahs Made a Kill. Then the Safari Trucks Swarmed In.

A video showing dozens of vehicles moving in on a pair of big cats in a Kenyan game reserve highlights how “aggressive tourism” can put endangered animals at even greater risk.

By Maria Cramer and Costas Christ

The video surfaced online around October. Filmed from a distance, it shows an antelope grazing on the African plain. Suddenly, two cheetahs race toward it and the antelope takes off, running toward the camera. But the cats are too fast. They converge on it and bring it down. They begin to feed.

Almost at that exact moment, a second drama unfolds: The safari vehicles that have been parked in the background begin to move. One dark-colored 4x4 hits the gas and begins driving closer to the animals. Then vehicle after vehicle is on the move — green, brown, white, in various states of repair. You can hear the voices of the guides within yelling at one another. Some start to honk their horns. The vehicles form a circle, jockeying for position as their passengers hold up cellphones to record the cheetahs and their meal.

A woman’s voice can be heard in the background. “Are they stupid?” she asks.

The video was filmed in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, home to many of the Big Five animals ( lions , leopards, elephants , buffalo and rhinoceroses ) that safari participants tick off their lists. The identity of the video’s creator remains unknown, as does the date it was shot.

It was originally shared by a Twitter account using the name @DrumChronicles and has been viewed more than 175,000 times since it appeared. Guides and conservationists who have seen it said the video underscored a problem many of them have observed since the Kenyan government began lifting most pandemic-related travel restrictions : safari vehicles packed with cellphone-wielding tourists led by guides who are willing to get too close to the animals.

Overcrowding at popular safari spots was a serious issue before the pandemic, but as tourists have returned to Kenya, the problem has come back with alarming speed and “appears to be heightened by pent-up travel demand,” said Judy Kepher-Gona , director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Agenda , an organization based in Kenya that has called for stricter monitoring in the reserve.

“Sadly, what is seen in this video is the rule and not the exception in Masai Mara reserve,” she said.

In February, a Toyota Land Cruiser carrying tourists got so close to a family of cheetahs, the vehicle nearly ran over one of the cubs.

In August, Simon Espley, the chief executive of Africa Geographic , a travel and conservation company, watched in horror as 60 vehicles idled on both sides of the Mara River, which runs through the reserve, mere feet from where hundreds of wildebeests and zebras were slowly amassing at a crossing point during their migration in the Masai Mara.

When the hooves hit the water, there was a “crazy, chaotic rush as hundreds of tons of steel lunged forward with screaming engines” from the 4x4s that maneuvered to get closer to the herds, Mr. Espley said.

“It was surreal and sickening as we all converged on what is only a few hundred meters of riverbank, jostled for position and somehow avoided collisions,” he said.

Mr. Espley, whose company had organized the safari trip for a group of photographers, said he felt “regret and unease” about being part of that crowd. “Everyone in our safari vehicle did,” he said. The travelers asked their guide, a local Masai, to drive them away immediately.

“He was happy to oblige,” Mr. Espley said.

The problem, which conservationists describe as “aggressive tourism,” preceded the pandemic, but it appears to have gotten worse, with guests hungry for Instagram moments and tour companies trying to make up for the losses they suffered when the world shut down.

“Personally I won’t go into the Mara Reserve ever again in season because of this,” said Michael Lorentz, a safari guide based in Cape Town who leads tours in Kenya. “It actually upsets me so much, and it upsets my guests to see how badly animals are being treated.”

An urge to get too close

The human desire to get close to animals, however dangerous, is innate, said Prof. Philip Tedeschi, the founder of the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at the University of Denver, who frequently visits Kenya with his students.

“It’s part of our DNA to pay special attention to living systems,” he said.

Last summer, a small boat in Plymouth, Mass., came so close to a humpback that it almost capsized when the whale leapt out of the water and landed on its bow.

In May, a 25-year-old woman who approached a bison in Yellowstone National Park was gored and tossed 10 feet into the air. She survived, park officials said in a statement that warned visitors to stay at least 25 yards from the animals.

The behavior may be misguided and dangerous, Mr. Tedeschi said, but it is also an attempt to have a “peak experience,” a term coined by the psychologist Abraham Maslow that describes a euphoric state of mind that comes from witnessing or participating in a moment so intense it changes the neurochemistry of the brain.

And it can lead us to put a premium on being far too close to animals — “literally being able to look over the shoulder of the animal as it kills its prey” — while forgetting that animals are sentient beings whose behavior is altered by our presence, he said.

The consequences for animals can be devastating, Mr. Tedeschi said.

In Kenya, cheetahs — the fastest of the big cats, but also among the most timid — can easily be scared off a hard-won kill even if they have gone days without eating. Vehicles that get too close can reveal a cheetah’s position to prey or other predators, adding another challenge for animals that are already struggling to find food because of drought and habitat loss.

Large numbers of vehicles and tourists in the roughly 580-square-mile Masai Mara are also threatening the annual journey of mammals known as the Great Migration, when more than one million wildebeests, along with zebras and gazelles, move through the reserve in July and August, the peak travel months for Kenya.

The Great Migration was already being threatened by other types of human behavior, including urban development, new settlements and fencing for farms.

Tourists clamoring for front-row seats are adding pressure on the animals, who could respond by traveling in smaller numbers or deviating from their established routes to avoid the crush of vehicles and tourists, said Benson Gitau, a Kenyan guide.

Searching for a better way

Tourism is critical to many African economies. By 2030, travel to the continent is projected to generate more than $260 billion annually. In Kenya, before the pandemic, tourism accounted for nearly 10 percent of the gross domestic product, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife.

In 2019, more than two million people visited Kenya, a number that was expected to grow by more than 7 percent in 2020, the tourism ministry said. But then the pandemic hit, forcing hotels and restaurants to close and more than 80 percent of companies in the country’s tourism sector to lay off workers . And those who did not lose their jobs often had to cope with pay cuts of up to 70 percent, the ministry said.

During the height of the pandemic, many guides lost their jobs and had to use their vehicles as taxis or to deliver groceries, said Mr. Gitau, the Kenyan guide, who works in the Loisaba Conservancy , a 57,000-acre wildlife reserve north of Nairobi.

Visitors have returned steadily, though in smaller numbers. By the spring of 2022, international tourist arrivals in Africa had more than doubled compared with 2021. In October, Najib Balala, then Kenya’s tourism secretary, projected 1.4 million to 1.5 million visitors to the country by the end of 2022, compared with 870,000 in 2021.

But as the country welcomed back visitors, leaders began rethinking how to manage tourism in its reserves and parks.

In May, Mr. Balala’s office released a 130-page report that called for a “new tourism strategy.” Among its proposals: increasing prices for the Masai Mara in July and August ( it currently costs up to $80 for nonresident adults to visit the park ) and restricting development of new lodging in the country’s national parks to 30 beds.

There are dozens of camps and lodges in the reserve and the protected areas that neighbor it, according to Masai Mara Travel, a tour company in Kenya. Some camps and lodges in the reserve have up to 200 beds, Mr. Gitau said.

But conservationists and guides on the ground say few, if any, of the measures proposed by the ministry have been enacted.

The Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, which came under new leadership in October, did not respond to repeated messages for comment. The Kenya Wildlife Service , a state corporation charged with managing and conserving the country’s wildlife, declined to comment.

Zebra Plains, one of the tour operators whose vehicles can be seen in the video, did not respond to requests for comment. The video was posted in November on Zebra Plains’ Facebook page by a user complaining about the drivers’ conduct.

“Whilst our photographic guests usually have off road permits that does not excuse driving between other vehicles and the sighting,” the company responded in the comments. “This will be taken up with the guides concerned.”

With the Masai Mara increasingly under pressure from tourists, conservationists have been pushing for the “conservancy” model, in which private parcels of land owned by local communities, such as the Masai, are leased to tour companies. They agree to hire community members as guides, camp managers, kitchen staff and housekeepers and to follow rules that include caps on the number of lodges and camps and limits on the number of tourist vehicles. The largest camp in Loisaba Conservancy, for example, fits 20 to 30 tourists, Mr. Gitau said.

Since 2013, when the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association was established, about 350,000 acres of wilderness bordering the Masai Mara reserve have come under this type of private-public partnership.

Research shows wildlife fares better where tourism is more controlled. For example, female cheetahs in the Masai Mara reserve raised far fewer cubs than cheetahs in the conservancies, according to a 2018 report in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution.

Staying in the conservancies instead of the Masai Mara is more expensive — at least $1,200 a night versus a few hundred, said Ashish Sanghrajka, president of Big Five Tours & Expeditions, a Florida-based tour company that organizes trips in the conservancies.

The answer to limiting the number of tourists in the Masai Mara may lie in raising park prices, he said.

“It should be expensive,” said Mr. Sanghrajka, who was born in Kenya. “It’s supposed to be a privilege. It’s not supposed to be a right.”

At the same time, a healthy tourism industry is critical to conservation efforts in a region of the world with some of the most endangered species, including black rhinos. Tourism offers local communities an incentive to protect wildlife, and with few other industries offering well-paying jobs, many Kenyans depend on tourism as a lifeline out of poverty.

The goal should be to improve enforcement and monitoring in the Masai Mara reserve, not to discourage travel, Ms. Kepher-Gona said.

To that end, visitors have tremendous power, she said. They can make sure tour companies have guides licensed by the Kenya Professional Safari Guide Association and ask tour companies for their codes of ethics and if the guides keep their distance from animals to avoid disturbing them.

Mr. Gitau said that as a rule, a trained guide will come no closer than 20 to 30 meters to a hunt. “When you arrive there, you have to switch off your engine, keep quiet and enjoy the scene,” he said.

Tourists can also act more responsibly by tempering their expectations, Mr. Gitau said. When he picks up guests, he said, he always asks them what they want to see. Often they say they want to see “a kill.”

Mr. Gitau said he tells them he will do his best to give them a memorable experience. But he always adds this reminder: “Nature is full of surprises. Whatever happens, just know that it was meant to happen.”

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

An earlier version of this article misstated the distance that Yellowstone National Park officials, in a statement, warned visitors to keep between themselves and large animals like bison. It is 25 yards, not 25 feet.

How we handle corrections

Maria Cramer is a reporter on the Travel desk. Please send her tips, questions and complaints about traveling, especially on cruises. More about Maria Cramer

10 safari horror stories that will chill you to the bone

Going on safari can be a thrilling and remarkable experience. But in the midst of all the excitement, guides are quick to point out that safaris are not vacations in which you can safely sit idly by.

The purpose of many wildlife preserves and safaris is to raise awareness for the receding natural habitat of some of the world’s most beautiful and fascinating plants and animals. But sometimes, as we encroach too much on these natural predators' homes, the results can quickly turn tragic.

Read on for 10 safari horror stories.

In 2018, a 22-year-old woman was mauled to death by a lion.

While on vacation in a game reserve outside Pretoria in South Africa , a 22-year-old woman was attacked and killed by a lion as she took photos outside the fenced area of a camp. A lioness was charging after an Impala (an antelope), but encountered the young woman instead.

The victim was not staying at the camp, and instead was a guest of a friend and was intending to interview the camp’s manager before tragedy struck.

A gorilla pushed a woman to the ground as it charged past in Rwanda.

In video footage captured in March 2016, a new husband happened to film his wife as a gorilla ran past her, pushing her to the ground.

Gemma Cosgriff was on her honeymoon in Rwanda when the incident took place, and together with her husband, had been observing animals at Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, according to The Mirror. And although the fall seemed to be quite terrifying, Cosgriff was not seriously injured.

A former "Game of Thrones" editor was mauled to death by a lion in South Africa.

In 2015, 29-year-old Katherine Chappell was being driven through a lion park in South Africa when a lioness took hold of the graphic effects creator. Witnesses noted that Chappell had her windows down and was taking photographs of her surroundings just moments before the lioness attacked, according to Express.

Chappell was not in Johannesburg simply to see the sights — rather, the film editor was on a volunteer mission with the aim of protecting wildlife throughout the country.

An elephant charged at a billionaire tourist and his guide in Tanzania.

Nearly 10 years ago, billionaire Tom Siebel, the founder and CEO of C3 IoT , was on a walking tour with a guide in Tanzania.

Near a watering hole, Siebel and his guide spotted a 6-ton elephant, which proceeded to charge the group. The animal attacked Siebel, shattering his leg and causing the iPhone in his pocket to explode into 200 pieces, according to Forbes. Siebel has since undergone 16 surgeries to save his leg, but he’s one of the lucky few who have survived such a massive attack.

A leopard attacked a safari guide by jumping into the open-top jeep in South Africa.

In 2015, safari guide Curtis Plumb was leading a tour in an open-top 4x4 jeep when a leopard jumped into the vehicle. Plumb was on a routine safari route in South Africa's Kruger National Park when he spotted the animal, and stopped the car so that tourists could get a closer look, according to Mirror. At this point, the big cat suddenly attacked.

Tourists in Plumb’s jeep attempted to help the guide fight off the predator, but were unsuccessful in their efforts. Ultimately, it was Plumb himself who managed to pry himself loose. Luckily, he lived to tell the tale, despite serious injuries. The animal was put down following the incident.

Two tourists were trampled to death by elephants after getting too close in Zambia.

Last year, a 57-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man were trampled to death by elephants at the Maramba River Lodge in Livingstone, Zambia. Zambian Police Service spokesperson Danny Mwale told Express that the Belgium and Netherlands nationals were killed after coming too close to the wildlife in attempts to take photos.

The woman, identified later as Sabine Goossens, had been living in Africa for 10 years, and had invited her friend Wim Van Griensven to visit. Reports suggested that Griensven died when he attempted to rescue Goossens from the charging elephant.

A 75-year-old grandmother was killed by a hippo while on safari in Tanzania.

Last August, a 75-year-old businesswoman named Carol Sue Kirken was killed by a hippopotamus while on a family vacation in Tanzania, according to The Daily Mail. Described as an avid world traveler and local philanthropist, Kirken was on safari with her son Robert, and the duo were observing hippos when the attack took place.

Details around her death were unclear , but hippos are largely considered some of the most dangerous animals in the world, responsible for around 500 human deaths every year. They’re capable of outrunning a human, and have extremely sharp teeth.

A family was attacked by lions while in a UK safari park but lived to tell the tale.

A few years ago, writer Glenys Newton shared a terrifying experience from her childhood with the Guardian . Then 5, Newton went on vacation with her family to Longleat, a safari park in the UK. The group found themselves immediately next to a lion, but unfortunately, the young Newton thought it would be advisable to roll down her window and pat the lion on its head.

Needless to say, the lion did not take kindly to the gesture, roaring as the family frantically rolled up the window. This set the other lions in motion, and soon, they were climbing all over the car, leaving paw-prints as proof, according to Newton. While the car was battered and bruised (and ended up with a flat tire), the occupants of the vehicle were physically unharmed.

A tiger killed a woman on safari after she got out of her car in Beijing.

Video footage provided by NBC News captured the moment a tourist was attacked by a tiger in Badaling Wildlife Park in Beijing. While visitors are told explicitly to remain in their vehicles, the victim can be seen exiting the vehicle and walking around to the driver’s side door just before a tiger attacked her, dragging her away.

A second woman attempted to rescue her, but was killed by another tiger. The first woman sustained critical injuries, while the driver of the car and a child were unharmed.

A buffalo stampede crashed right into a car in South Africa.

Here to prove that it’s not just big cats, elephants, or hippos that are dangerous when it comes to safari, footage filmed in May 2016 and provided by MSN showed a herd of buffalo stampeding and ultimately crashing directly into a passenger car in South Africa's Kruger National Park.

The herd of cape buffalo were moving toward a waterhole when they spotted lions near their water source. This likely caused the animals to panic, and the herd suddenly ran in the opposite direction, barging into a white sedan. The car was nearly tipped over, but amazingly, no one was hurt.

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10 Safaris Gone Horribly Wrong [VIDEOS]

Safaris can be a lot of fun when everything goes according to plan. But if there's one thing that we know about wild animals, it's that at times, they can be hilariously unpredictable. That is why we've compiled this video list of our favorite safaris gone wrong. (Note: Some videos feature NSFW language and racy animal antics.)

Llama Spits Up All Over Tourists [NSFW]

While attempting to feed a llama at a drive-through safari in Virginia, the ungrateful animal shows its appreciation by doing a spit take all over the inside of the car. Maybe next time these tourists will spring for some name-brand Llama chow.

Hungry Zebra Thinks Girl Is A Snack

This video is a clear example of why there are signs at parks that warn about feeding the animals. While sharing some chips with this hungry zebra, Meagan makes the mistake of turning her back for a second and ends up becoming the animals main course. She's just lucky that she learned her lesson before getting to the lion exhibit.

Monkeys Swarm Car

Okay, so the people in this video actually staged this one to see how the monkeys would react to their parked car. Turns out, monkeys love going through luggage. Who knew?

Ostrich Vs. iPhone

We don't know if this ostrich doesn't like being videotaped or simply hates Apple products. Either way, he's mad about something. Just when this family thinks that they are about to get a little face time with an ostrich, the real-life angry bird snaps at the camera with its menacing beak.

Monkeys Getting Busy On Hood Of A Car [NSFW]

Monkeys aren't always poo-slinging, food-stealing little hell-raisers. Sometimes they just want to make sweet monkey love on the hood of your car. During this drive-through safari excursion the tourists got WAY more than they bargained for and managed to film the funniest safari video ever!

Baboon Commandeers a Tourist's Vehicle

Sometimes when you're at a drive-through safari, rolling up your windows just isn't enough to protect yourself and your belongings. Baboons definitely seem to cause the most trouble at these safari parks and this unruly primate helps perpetuate that stereotype. The baboon in this video opens a car door, kicks all of the passengers out and then ravages all of their belongings. Not cool!

Elephant Headbutts A Car

While filming a couple of elephants in India, the situation escalates when the massive beasts charge the car. The bigger elephant headbutts the car, and does some serious damage to the drivers side. Imagine having to explain this to your insurance provider!

Rhino Chases Jeep

While shooting a nature documentary this reporter gets a little too close to a mother rhino's calf, causing her to chase after their jeep. Luckily, the crew managed to escape before the rhino was able to attack the vehicle, but if they were driving any slower things could have gone a lot worse.

Hungry African Dogs Try To Eat A Jeep

Many drive-through safaris will offer to let you rent a vehicle rather than making you use your own for a wild adventure. The driver of this vehicle is probably wishing they'd taken them up on that offer. When a pack of wild dogs approached this jeep, no one expected them to start tearing it apart, but that is exactly what happened. Luckily someone was around to videotape the event. (NSFW due to language).

Zebra Shows His Teeth

The prequel to our previous zebra video. You mess with the zebra, you get the teeth.

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Watch: safari drive goes wrong as elephant smashes car windscreen.

What was supposed to be a fun day out in the South African bush quickly turned hairy for a motorist.

A video of an elephant smashing into a car has made its way on TikTok.

In the video, “an elephant pressed on a car, shattering the windshield, but the occupants were unharmed, highlighting the elephant’s strength and the car’s durability”.

The video was post by a sahihoffical and has since received over 654K views and over 15K likes since being uploaded on the app.

In the video, the unidentified man in the driver’s seat can be heard saying “wait yesses! f$#@...He is going to f$#@ me up“ as the elephant approaches the vehicle.

The elephant proceeds to stand next to the car on the driver’s side and the driver whispers: “What the f$#@ must I do?”

The elephant then sat on the windscreen of the car.

TikTok users, of course, weighed in on the incident.

One user, Thato M, questioned: “What do you say to insurance? 😭”

Another user, Rochelle Arendse210, commented: “I only watch wildlife from the safety of my sofa 🤣.”

Commenting on this incident, Kruger National Park spokesperson Isaac Phaahla, said they had not had a report of the incident, however, he did provide the dos and don’ts on watching elephants at the park or any other park.

He advised visitors to keep a safe distance, respect the animal’s right of way and to be vigilant around a breeding herd.

National Geographic content straight to your inbox—sign up for our popular newsletters here

Think you have a bad travel story? These 13 tales are worse.

These novels follow nightmare trips, from an African safari with a high body count to a Caribbean holiday wrecked by an earthquake.

Sky-high gas prices, traffic jams at national parks, rail strikes, canceled flights, and lost luggage —can this summer’s travel get any worse?  

Yes, it can. At least in fiction. As long as writers have been spinning out prose, they’ve reveled in sending their heroes to postcard-worthy places that aren’t as dreamy as they seem.  

“There’s something darkly fascinating about bad vacations—all the effort that goes into planning, the idea of getting away from your stresses and being able to relax, only to have everything go horribly wrong in a place where you may not speak the language, are unfamiliar with the laws, and have no way of getting help,” says novelist Greg Herren, executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America . ”There’s escape in these books.”

Think Homer’s Odyssey , where the Greek isles morph into a monster-filled maze for a returning Trojan War hero, or Agatha Christie’s 1920s Egyptian cruise whodunit, Death on the Nile . More recently, novelist Lucy Foley ( The Paris Apartment , The Hunting Lodge ) takes her attractive young characters somewhere equally attractive and lets the bodies pile up.  

This summer, as you’re wondering if your misdirected bags are having way more fun than you are, turn to these novels to help you get through it.

Hellish journeys

Great Circle , by Maggie Shipstead, 2021 Amelia Earhart -esque aviator Marian Graves sets off to circumnavigate the globe via the North and South Poles. But storms, dwindling fuel—and doubt—plague her daring journey. Woven through this quest is an epic family drama that jets from the wilds of Montana to gritty World War II-era London , buoyant with ambition, resilience, and a decades-spanning romance.

Portrait of a Thief , by Grace D. Li, 2022 A quintet of Chinese-American college students turn museum visits in Amsterdam and Paris into art heists in Li’s anti-colonialism caper. Attempting to return antiquities to China from countries which previously looted them, the unlikely criminals run afoul of Interpol and, sometimes, each other. The nail biter also dives into what it means to exist between two cultures.

The Anomaly , by Hervé Le Tellier, 2021 You won’t complain about the turbulence and the cramped middle seat on your next transatlantic flight when you read about what happens to the passengers on Air France 006 from Paris to New York , in this mind-bendy novel. Let’s just say none of their lives are the same again. The consequences of that fateful flight range from murder and divorce to fame and career-defining success.

The Forgiven , by Lawrence Osborne, 2012 After a boozy lunch in Tangier, British couple Jo and David Henninger drive into the Moroccan desert to a decadent party at a friend’s weekend compound. On a dark, dusty road, they accidentally hit and kill a local Berber youth, setting in motion a chilling tale of haves and have nots, of guilt and redemption. Osborne summons the Sahara’s ominous simplicity and a rich cast of characters from the boy’s bereaved father to the drug-addled party host. (A movie version starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain was just released.)

The Lioness , by Chris Bohjalian, 2022 Lion attacks. Millions of stinging ants. Kidnappers with elephant guns. The wide-open spaces of the Serengeti are fraught with peril and beauty in this bloody tale of a 1960s Tanzanian safari gone wildly wrong. Centered around an Elizabeth Taylor-like starlet and her entourage, the travelogue starts out with glamour (there’s a generator-powered ice maker and many chic outfits) and quickly slips into a man-versus-beast horror story.

( Learn why bad trips make for great memories .)

Two Nights in Lisbon , by Chris Pavone, 2022 An American woman on a quick weekend trip to Lisbon with her new, much younger husband, wakes up in her plush hotel to find him missing. The ensuing mash-up of spy thriller and travelogue takes place in the gritty, pretty streets of Portugal ’s seaside capital, replete with the scent of cinnamon-y pastel de nata tarts and the click-clack of its vintage cable cars.  

Beach vacations gone bad

Saint X , by Alexis Schaitkin, 2020   Schaitkin uses multiple narrators to tell the story of a wealthy family whose teenage daughter disappears and dies during a vacation on an unnamed Caribbean island. The event reverberates for years with both the girl’s younger sister and the resort worker accused of murder. In the end, this dazzling debut novel is less a missing person mystery and more of a musing on how luxury tourism obscures a place’s true culture.

The Garden of Broken Things , by Francesca Momplaisir, 2022 Distressed over her young son’s behavior at school, a Haitian -American mother takes him back to her Caribbean island birthplace to emphasize how privileged he is. A devastating earthquake follows, throwing the family heritage trip into a nightmare of destruction and death in a country “that had come to expect disasters descending from the sky.” Momplaisir’s prose is as sharp as her insights, and while this is no feel-good tale, it’s a moving examination of family ties and poverty.

The Disaster Tourist , by Yun Ko-eun, 2013 In this satirical eco-thriller, Yona Kim works for a dark tourism company which takes visitors to zones ravaged by hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters. When a predatory colleague threatens her job, she flees on a business trip to review the company’s least popular tour package—a yawn-inducing desert island in Vietnam . But what initially seems like a chance to boost her career quickly turns into a moral crisis, entangling Yona in a plot to orchestrate a headline-grabbing global catastrophe risking hundreds of lives—including her own.

( Here are 13 thrilling real-life stories of journeys gone wrong . )

The Ruins   by Scott Smith, 2006 In this horror/sci-fi parable, hiking to an undiscovered Mayan temple in Mexico ’s Yucatán jungle sounds like a bucket-list dream for four American tourists. But deadly run-ins with arrow-wielding locals and sinister vines plague them in a tense read that suggests wandering off the beaten path—or touching sacred antiquities—isn’t worth the Instagram pic.

Rotten road and rail trips

Nevada ,   by Imogen Binnie, 2013 Dumped by her girlfriend and adrift in a boozy haze, trans woman Maria Griffiths steals her ex’s car and wheels it from New York to Nevada . Along the way, she becomes an unlikely mentor to another trans woman and discovers both the brighter and seamier sides of downtown Reno and early 2000s Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Boys,   by Katie Hafner, 2022 Anyone who has ever felt ill at ease on a group tour will relate to Ethan Fawcett, a young father ferrying his twin sons on a guided bicycle trip through Italy’ s Piedmont. His oddball children—and awkward attempt to retrace his honeymoon route (sans estranged wife)—make him unpopular with his fellow travelers. But there’s humor and hope in these misadventures amid plush hotels, libidinous guides, and ancient churches.

This Train , by James Grady, 2022 On a passenger train hurtling between Seattle and Chicago , Grady riffs on Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express with a slew of characters (a coder gone wrong, a corrupt billionaire, a wannabe widow) and crimes (a heist, a killing) in tight confines. Though set in the present day, the thriller’s descriptions of rundown Amtrak stations, shady criminals, and lonely Western landscapes smack of classic noir.

Related Topics

• ROAD BIKING
• TRAIN TRIPS
• NATURAL DISASTERS

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New movie 'Endangered Species' offers thrills, chills in story of safari vacation gone wrong

HOLLYWOOD -- The new movie "Endangered Species" starts out as a thrilling travel adventure for a family. But the thrills quickly become chills when their vacation takes a left turn into the wild.

Philip Winchester's character doesn't want to pay for a safari guide; it's not a good decision. The inspiration for one key scene came from an incident in the director M.J. Bassett's own life.

"The rhino kind of lowered her head and then started rumbling toward the vehicle and we're, like, 'Back up! Back up! Back up! Back up! Back up!" said Bassett.

Winchester loves working with Bassett. And that includes when many countries were shutting down film productions due to the pandemic. Turns out, Kenya was open.

"I mean, they pulled this film together in a month and then we shot it in 18 days," said Winchester.

"We talked to a local Kenyan production company and we sent them the script and said, 'Like, it's like five people in a van traveling in the wilderness so we're away from everybody. We can isolate from COVID as a crew. I'll do a very small crew of 20, 25 people. Can we do it?' And they said yes," said Bassett.

"The people who came along to this were all very like-minded. The people who would get on two 12-hour flights to get to Kenya and travel halfway around the world during the middle of the pandemic were pretty similar people," said Winchester.

The film is in select theatres and on streaming services May 28. It'll be out on Blu-ray and DVD June 1.

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