Panama's most celebrated wildlife-watching bolt-hole, the Canopy Tower, is "a roof garden to beat all roof gardens", says Mike Unwin in The Daily Telegraph. Perched atop the forested Semaphore Hill in Soberana National Park, just outside Panama City, this "incongruous lighthouse-like structure" was once a US radar station.
Since then, local conservationist Ral Arias has converted it into an ingenious wildlife facility that also serves as a research station and tourist lodge. Its circular lounge looks out into the treetops and the outdoor observation deck offers a "360-degree vista of rainforest canopy". These "treetop vigils are addictive": it "would be easy to spend the whole week up top, moving no further than a sloth".
Price £3,195 per person for ten nights including flights see NatureTrek.co.uk
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Wildlife heaven in Madagascar
Most intrepid travellers skip the island of Nosy Be by Madagascar's north-western tip as it has a reputation for being one big beach resort, says Phoebe Smith in Wanderlust. They're missing something "magical": it's a "wildlife heaven".
Accompanied by a guide, Smith paddled in a dugout canoe from the island to Lokobe Nature Reserve, where you'll find diverse birdlife, giant day geckos and lemurs. Make time too for the Iharana Bush Camp just outside the Ankarana National Park. A highlight of the trip was descending via precarious rope bridges into caves, the roofs of which swarm with thousands of bats.
A 14-day tour costs £4,865 including flights see RainbowTours.co.uk
The Big Five on the Zambezi
"You realise just how close you are to nature at Anabezi the second you arrive at its luxury safari camp," says Lucy McGuire on Mail Online. After a transfer in a "toy-like safari plane" and an "A-list-worthy boat ride", you arrive on the banks of Zambia's Zambezi river. "Elephants are everywhere", so expert guides drive you the few hundred metres to the camp. Anabezi is located in the remote Lower Zambezi National Park and is the playground of the Big Five safari animals lions, elephants, buffaloes, leopards and rhinoceroses. One of the lodge's two infinity pools overlooks the watering hole on the Mushika flood plain and "it's impossible not to be mesmerised by the impala, elephants and baboons who come here to quench their thirst".
Price £3,648 per person for four nights including flights see TheLuxurySafariCompany.com
A tree safari in the outback
A 90-minute flight due north of Adelaide lands you in the Simpson Desert in the Australian outback, says Jonathan Bastable in The Daily Telegraph. An outback pub is a perfect place to hole up the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna, for example, which has "simple, comfortable rooms" and a restaurant renowned for its "feral antipasto", a platter consisting of kangaroo, emu pt and goat's cheese.
From there it is a short hop to Parachilna Gorge, populated with river red gums "shaggy white giants" of trees, which to walk through is the "dendrological equivalent of watching a troop of elephants muster on the Serengeti". Not that there is any shortage of exotic fauna. Every day, Bastable came across yellow-footed wallabies, their larger cousins the red kangaroos, and the "comical" emus, "tiptoeing daintily on their long legs like Edwardian ladies who have hitched up their skirts to negotiate a puddle".
Price £3,675 per person for four days including flights see TheTailor.com.au
A safari on an alien world
Disney has unveiled a new theme park a "stunning £400m land of glowingforests, floating mountains and aliencreatures" based on the science-fictionfilm Avatar, says Chris Pollard in TheSun. The 12-acre Pandora namedafter the planet where the hit film wasset has taken five years to build.Along with its man-made rainforestand rocky mountains, the land alsoboasts cutting-edge technology andspectacular rides, including Flight ofPassage, a 3D simulator that plungesriders into Avatar's cinematic worldon the back of a banshee, a wingeddinosaur-like predator. The park's"lush, layered blend of storytelling andtechnology", says Pollard, has "set anew standard" for theme parks.
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State pension errors: DWP urged to check for mistakes among divorced peopleFormer pensions minister Steve Webb says there are a high number of divorced women on low state pensions. Now MPs want the DWP to check if there were any errors in “potentially underpaying men and women who are divorced”.
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Buyers need to earn £20k above average UK salary to afford sold house prices, Go.Compare findsNews The average UK salary is £20k too low to afford the country's typical house price - we look at just how much you need to earn to step onto the property ladder in the UK
