Safari School: Surviving My Gap Year in the Wild

by Matthew O'Brien

Safari School chronicles Matthew’s gap year as a student at a bush school in South Africa and Botswana.
After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BCom(Law) degree, Matthew figured that there had to be something more to life than sitting in air-conditioned offices arguing with disinterested people. After stumbling across a newspaper advert for a safari guiding-school in the Kruger National Park, Matthew enrolled and soon found himself trying to stay out of trouble and avoiding wild animals, lovesick peers and slightly unbalanced instructors. With characters seemingly incapable of staying out of trouble and animal encounters too close for comfort, Safari School will take you on a behind-the-scenes journey of what is required to become a field guide in one Africa’s premier game reserves.

231 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 1, 2019

About the author

Matthew O'Brien is an author and journalist who's lived in Las Vegas since 1997. His first book, Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, chronicles his adventures in the city's underground flood channels. His second book, My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas, is a creative-nonfiction collection set in off-the-beaten-path Vegas. He's the founder of Shine a Light, a community project that provides housing, drug counseling, and other services to the people living in the drains.