September = Safari

The Fall season of HG Safari trips begin on Wednesday September 3 with ten weeks of trips, each one lasting two hours. The event starts at the Clubhouse on HG Safari grid at 12 noon SLT, which is 9pm in most of Europe, and you can find the events advertised on the OSW Events page, and in the Discord and Facebook groups for HG Safari. Inworld, there's a large HG Safari group in OSGrid where the event is announced about an hour before go time. We go to two different destinations each time, usually on two different grids, hence the emphasis on HG! 

The group meets just a few minutes before go time (12 noon SLT) at our Clubhouse. Yes, it's OK to come early there, then you can read the information about the trip and exchange some gossip with other Safari regulars. The Clubhouse is nothing more than a simple meeting place or waiting room, where you can click on the big prim to get the Notecard and LM pack for the week. Our permanent guest is the Drama Llama who absorbs all nonsense and turns it into alpaca beans.

If you've ever wondered why our events aren't announced weeks in advance, or why the event starts at the clubhouse and not directly at Destination one, here's the answer. 

Opensim is a very unstable environment; much less than it was when Safari began back in 2014, but still, grids and regions can have a last minute problem. Hosts occasionally back out with very little notice, either because of nerves, or some sort of RL emergency. That requires a change in our plans. By having everyone come to the Clubhouse first, you can be sure of having the most up-to-date info about what our plans are. 

Vic's Caves build on OSgrid will be one of our destinations this season.

Also, it's nice when people don't show up early at Destination 1 when our hosts are still setting up - have you ever invited people to a party or a meal at your house, and folks showed up way before the time when they were expected? Isn't it awful? We try to extend the same courtesy to the hosts in virtual worlds, and show up on time, and not too early.

What kind of places do we visit? We don't go to Malls. The reason is mostly linked to lag, - all those boxes and textures make life miserable for the group, even though we love freebies. Plus the point is to all be together in a conversation about the place we're visiting rather than camming off individually to get goodies - that's something you can do any time. 

Safari goers love weirdness and fantasy
Desolate Expanse by Cherry Manga

Apart from that, the group loves variety. We generally go to a place that has something to tell - it may be the story of overcoming technical difficulties in setting up a region, or a grid. It might be a place where some clever scripting is going on. Perhaps it's a roleplay or landscape sim, where we can learn about community events, or just enjoy walking through scenery while the builder explains what they have built and why. Sometimes it's an art installation, a Hunt game, or a racetrack; it might be historical or fantastical, some are extremely detailed with high quality mesh everywhere, others are far more simple, even primmy. Yet they're equally interesting because the tale they tell is of a person or group of friends, and their Opensim experience.  

YamatoCosplay, the 2025 Halloween build
by Ange Menges and Nani Ferguson

This season, Kitely, Kinky Haven, and Craft are among the places on the menu, and if you would like to be part of the Spring 2026 season, starting in January, it's not too soon to get in touch with Thirza Ember on OSW or FB or Discord to reserve your slot in the next season which runs from January to March 2026.

There are three seasons in the year. Typically we don't go to the same grid twice during each season, because there are just so many interesting grids out there. Since these trips began, we've been to over 100 different grids, large and small. The region owner, in some cases the grid owner, are present to show us around and tell us the story of the place, and some people make regions especially with a Safari visit in mind. 

People who have hosted a Safari in the past will often invite us back to see other sims, or improvements to a work in progress, but there's no 'elite' group of places we go to - anyone can invite us. To understand what's required to have a Safari visit, there's a page on the HG Safari Blog - take a look.. 

This emphasis on going to visit lots of different grids puts the larger grids at a disadvantage, and OSGrid is probably the grid that has suffered the most from this, if suffer is the right word. This season will be different. We have half a dozen visits to OSgrid planned, which will only scratch the surface of all the interesting places on 'the crossroads of opensim'.

Join us if you can, starting this coming Wednesday at 12 noon, on HG Safari grid, for another ten weeks of exploration, community, and hypergrid fun.

HG Address: grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HG Safari