Last month, I was lucky enough to visit Shamwari Game Reserve in South Africa to write a blog for a client called Worldwide Experience. Worldwide Experience sell self-funded volunteer trips which allow volunteers to help out with life on a game reserve and partake in valuable conservation and community projects during their time spent away. The company had approached LeadGenerators to write a blog that could be added to their website, which would show their clientele what a Worldwide Experience break involved. Whilst it was so easy to merely write a blog in first-person about all the incredible experiences so-and-so got up to on their Worldwide Experience break, we were aware that we needed a special angle to make our blog stand out from the blogs that past-volunteers had posted on their personal websites. We decided that a unique idea would be to follow the stories of some of the animals as they encountered the Worldwide Experience volunteers on a day-to-day basis. With this concept in mind I headed to South Africa, where I spent four days at Shamwari Game Reserve shadowing the current recruit of conservation volunteers. Whilst here, I was lucky enough to take part in many conservation based activities. I helped dig trenches, which would prevent the vegetation from suffering flood damage. I cut down acacia bushes to protect the paint-work on the Shamwari jeeps and I also helped the volunteers carry out daily checks of the waterholes, to ensure that the animals had an ample amount of water to last them throughout the day. The final morning was spent helping out in the community at a local AIDS orphanage; this was an incredibly rewarding experience. The Worldwide Experience volunteers attend the orphanage every Friday morning to teach the children ball skills. However, the majority of the children are less interested in the footballs and happy just to spend a couple of hours clinging to your limbs and willing you to move away. I also spent an incredible afternoon out on a game-drive where I was lucky enough to spot rhinos, elephants, lions, hippos, monkeys and plenty of zebras. Whilst I had an incredible time on my Worldwide Experience break, it was quickly apparent that there were no animals on Shamwari that could be followed per se, but more at the rehabilitation centres, such as Moholoholo. So, on returning back to the dreary grey skies of England, it was back to the drawing board to come up with unique angles that the blog could adopt. Our two main concerns were that, whilst I could easily write about my own experiences on the trip, I wasn’t going to be at Shamwari Game Reserve all the time. Therefore, this angle would not only be untruthful, but also easily found out when the future intake of conservation volunteers appeared at Shamwari Game Reserve. It was also of our concern that if I ghost-wrote as a park ranger this would not prove interesting or unique enough for readers to follow. Eventually, we came up with a solution; why not write the blog from the eyes of a bird? This may sound like a strange concept but it would actually solve two problems, we could follow the conservation volunteers carrying out their day-to-day duties and not have to worry about any issues with regard to the authenticity of the blogger. Writing as a bird would give us the opportunity to mix both fact and fiction and to also give readers a bird’s eye view of day-to-day life on Shamwari Game Reserve. Our idea was an instant hit with the staff at Worldwide Experience and you can view the finished result online at www.worldwideexperience.com/blog