Alright, big word there in the title, and for those outside the field, it might not be super clear what I mean by this one. Herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians. There’s a massive yet niche community of people around the world who go absolutely batshit for scaly and slimy critters, and I’m one of them. Fanatics range from researchers and writers to obsessive experts who have rooms full of dangerous snakes and speak mostly in Latin when referring to their pets.
As a self-proclaimed “critter kid”, I had no choice in the matter, really. I was always destined to want to get my grubby hands on exotic animals. As part of that twine of fate, I joined the International Herpetological Society a few years ago, where I met a spread of equally minded oddballs who all had a strong interest in the natural world.
Within this community, many of the hardcore herpers often take grandiose trips around the world, taking expeditions to remote destinations to explore the wildlife and see colourful, dangerous sparks of life around them. It’s impossible to spend an evening at the IHS without being invited to Madagascar, Costa Rica, or some other beautiful, dangerous place with the promise of seeing something up close that could kill you.
I want to zoom in and focus on one particular gentleman who’s very well known in these circles, Stuart Priest, who, after reading about ✓ Project Bucket List, invited me for coffee with the promise of an interesting chat. Stu had, for many years, led guided tours through rainforest and desert climates. He’d now set up his own company, World Life Global Safaris, and had come to me for help marketing it.
Fast forward to August 6th, 2025, and I land in Tucson, Arizona, after a long and stressful flight filled with delays (Fuck you, Norse Atlantic Airways). Being August and all, it’s swelteringly hot when I leave the airport at 9 pm. During the day, funnily enough, it doesn’t get much cooler. It reaches 118 Fahrenheit on the worst day (47 °C in English money), so most of the time spent searching for animals is spent at night or early in the morning.
Late nights are spent cruising through the desert landscape, where Stu turns off into a dusty desert trail and everybody leans out of the car holding torches, keeping beady eyes ready for any sign of life. Occasionally, somebody shouts “snake!” or “spider!” – brake lights flare and everybody jumps into action, lugging camera gear and snake hooks out into the night.
The main star of this trip? Rattlesnakes. Here’s the fun little feature of travelling with a bunch of snake people. They don’t say “Oh look, there’s a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, from the hit 2011 Johnny Depp movie titled Rango”. Instead, they’ll shout Atrox, or Molossus, or Cerberus – shorthand versions of the full Latin name for the animal. Thankfully, they’re a good bunch, so my insistent questions of “what’s that?” are answered with enthusiasm.
All through the night, we jump out to look at snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, and toads, all of which are met with marvel and appreciation from the group. Seasoned herpers are skilled in managing wildlife. One of my favourite techniques is the ole’ hat trick. Stick a hat on the ground near a snake, and coerce it a little until it slithers underneath, and you’ll find that the snake curls up and calms down, perfect for taking close-up photos.
Along the way, we met a bunch of other herpers. The group of Brits (myself, Stuart, Matt, Tom, and Kymberley) soon expanded to include Wayne and Pete, a fantastic pair of retirees with as many stories as days under their belts, Hector and Jay, two explorers from Tom’s network who were in the midst of a multi-country expedition, and Chastity and Gonzalo, an Arizona based couple. Soon, our large 3-car convoy was trekking across the desert, trekking up mountains, and looking for lizards, snakes, and no good.
Our time with Chastity and Gonzalo was especially exciting, as Gonzalo had built his very own Sand Rail, an off-road dune buggy built out of a car engine and a pile of metal. We each took turns bombing around the sandy landscape, Gonzalo at the wheel as he shouted through the wind about his AC/DC cover band.
After a late night out in the wild, we’d soon be tucked up in bed with an alarm set to “crack of dawn“, ready to jump out and head back out looking for those critters that dared risk the early heat of the sun. Highlights ranged from beautiful thin garter snakes to a slow but hardy desert tortoise.
We’d spend time around washes, where flash floods would bombard the ground in any usual monsoon season. This year was unexpectedly dry, meaning the ground beneath us was sandy and safe, and a welcome home for predators like the snakes we sought.
The technique on foot was to fan out and cover as much ground as possible. We’d spread out, scanning our eyes a few feet in front of us watching for a sign of movement, or the coiled body of a snake. Then, once the heat started to increase and things got too hot for both us and the animals, we’d retreat back to base for breakfast.
During the day, we’d pick something interesting to do. Tombstone was a highlight of the trip, a town known for one of the most notorious gunfights in all of cowboy history. We took many a trip there, where the guys enjoyed Big Nose Kate’s, the saloon of choice, and I enjoyed feeling like I was in an actual real-life cowboy movie.
Then, we went to a shooting range, where Matt remortgaged his house to buy enough bullets and rental guns to make Rambo look under-armed, and Kymberley left every single man in the room slack-jawed as she unloaded an entire Uzi clip right into a set of 25 headshots.
And of course, we took trips up mountains, where I found wakeup call after wakeup call as I stumbled and gasped behind the rest of the crew, who were in far better shape than I am. The trip was full of amazing little anecdotes, like the day we went into Tombstone and got conned out of $20 by a cowboy who ran a shop with no floor and 2 dogs, who sat there engraving a smashed dollar while he played a poker game on his iPad.
I’ve not even got into detail about the fantastic wildlife we got to experience! I’ve mentioned the rattlesnakes and the tortoise, but the magnificent flashes of purple that zoomed around us on Mount Wrightson as hummingbirds fed on nectar, and the constant sightings of vultures, eagles and hawks overhead show just how varied the wildlife actually was.
We saw acid-laced toads, the kind where you touch them and get to meet the shadowpeople. Later, we saw fantastic beetles buzzing around a goat ranch that I might never see in the UK, and darkling beetles at night, joined by millipedes, scorpions, and glow worms. Lizards of varying degrees of rarity scarpered around in front of us, and western banded geckos sauntered merrily along the sand, ducking in and out of holes made by kangaroo rats and burrowing owls.
The lead up to the end of the herping part of the trip, however, had something much more exciting in store for us.
On one of the final nights, a group of 11 of us made the hike up to Sabino Canyon. There was a thunderstorm brewing in the distance, and an electric energy of anticipation in the air. After a long trek into the dark of night, a few of us split off to take a slower walk back to the car. We’d found a few cool critters, some toads, a few interesting snakes that we hadn’t met before. Kymberley and I walked back to meet with Pete, who had dropped back earlier in the night.
As we walked through the night, we heard something move through the bushes behind us. Unbeknownst to Kymberley, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and javelinas lurked in these mountains, so I kept turning back to shine the torch at our would-be predators, skulking on the edge of my imagination.
As we got closer and closer to the car park, more signs of civilisation sparked into existence, and the steady glow of Tucson rose behind the cactuses. A little further down the road, we saw a figure hunched over in the dark, looking at something. There, straight ahead of us, was Pete, looking down at an incredibly exciting find – a Gila Monster.
For those who don’t know, the Gila Monster is a beautiful, prehistoric-looking lizard that spends most of its life underground. It’s something that’s truly amazing to see in the wild. This is one of only two venomous lizards in the entire world, and is incredibly well protected under Arizona law, meaning we couldn’t touch or interfere with it in any way. They take this shit very seriously. The downside of this was that we couldn’t do anything apart from telephone call the rest of the group and tell them to run and to run fast.
Fuck knows how they did it, but they got there, the lizard still moseying ungracefully around the road. People coo’d and gasped at the sight of it, and photos were taken. Tom did a Irwen-esque to camera piece for Exotics Keeper Magazine where he stood a clear 12 feet away, making clear that we’d left the thing damn alone.
And if you think that was the end of a fantastic trip, you sit your butt back down and get comfy, because the very next day, we bee-lined for Phoenix, because we had someone very special to see.
Jerry Fife breeds and keeps Galapagos Tortoises, one of very few people in the world who do, and he’s incredibly good at it. He lives in a beautiful spot hidden away from the rest of the world, where the tortoises roam around his garden, an oasis from the harsh desert around them.
That’s a picture of Tom, by the way, not Jerry. There’s a joke there, but I’m too jetlagged to make it.
We’re invited into this garden, where we’re met with 20-odd tortoises, who all act like the slowest moving dogs on the planet. They like scritches, and they’re curious beasts that wander around looking for something to eat, or someone to investigate. They’re fantastic to see up close, and a real testament to Stu’s network that he was able to facilitate the visit.
Feeding Galapagos tortoises carrots in Jerry’s desert garden felt like stepping out of the chaos and into something timeless. After days of rattlesnakes, dune buggies, and cowboys, slowing down with those gentle giants was the perfect end to the wildest trip of my life. Arizona really is the land of ‘yes, that actually happened’.
But, the trip wasn’t over just yet.
Next stop? Monument Valley.
You can read about the other adventures that took place during our time in Arizona at any of the links below. Get ready for cowboys, Navajo, tarantulas, horse riding, and secret paintings in the Grand Canyon!
- Hold a tarantula ✓ – I’d avoided spiders my whole life, until the Arizona desert and a wise old traveller talked me into letting a tarantula crawl across my hand.
- See Monument Valley ✓ – Cowboy hats, lassos, rattlesnakes, and Monument Valley sunrises… Arizona gave me the Wild West I’d always pictured, and then some.
- Ride a Horse ✓ – First time on a horse, and I picked Monument Valley at sunrise. Epic mesas, wild dogs, and a guide who hunts drones for fun. The Wild Wild West!
- See a Cave Painting ✓ – The Grand Canyon? Try the “Holy Fuck Canyon”. A brutal hike, six ancient reindeer, and an encounter with art that left me floored.
World Life Global Safaris run more trips like this – Morocco, Uganda, Madagascar, and Costa Rica on the horizon. If you want more than a poolside holiday, check them out.