'Tis (almost) the Season!

 Two weeks until Safari returns!
The third and final season of Safari trips for 2022 begins on September 14 and ends on November 16.

Safari trips are on Wednesdays  at 12 noon Pacific time, that's 3 pm for those on Eastern Time, and 9pm for most Europeans. That's our departure time, the time at which we are expected at the first stop on the trip, so if you can, do show up at the clubhouse a bit before. This way, you can get the latest news of what's going on, and you can friend other safari goers. This is more than a polite gesture - if you friend us, we may be able to tp you if you get lost (or even better, you can tp us if we get lost!) 

Each expedition involves two destinations, each for about an hour - some of you may remember our three hour Safaris, with anything up to five destinations, back in the day when long crashes and highly unstable grids (and, if we're being honest, quite a few highly unreliable hosts) made it sensible to have plenty of time and plenty of options. 

These days there are a lot fewer last minute cancellations, and that is thanks to the hard work of the Opensim Devs, and some really magnificent grid owners who go the extra mile in making our visits possible and delightful. The quality of builds in opensim continues to amaze us all, and the enthusiasm of our hosts is heartwarming - thank you all so much!

The HG Safari region on OSGrid is kindly donated by Ange Menges, and that's our main clubhouse, but this being opensim, it's always wise to have more than one base and more than one avatar as you know very well. The Safari's 'just in case' place is courtesy of Avacon Grid. The region is also home to the Inworld Review studio of Mal Burns. If you have a story to tell about opensim and would like to be on Mal's show, don't hesitate to speak to him about an interview. The region is at grid.avacon.org:8002:Safari  and it will be the venue of our very first Safari of the season, when we have as our guest Maria Korolov, to talk about opensim in general and her series of Krim novels, too. The second half of the Safari will be a fabulous visit to Creanovale grid, to sample the summer build on one of its final days of availability - unmissable!

Opensim is all about the voodoo of the moment, so the upcoming events are usually only announced about a week in advance, to avoid change-of-plan confusion. We try never to go to the same grid twice in a row, and to sample a wide range of cultures and ideas, with the aim of fostering new creative connections, friendships, and a better understanding of our virtual neighbors. Also dancing and silly jokes.

This season, (crosses fingers) we have visits to Asgard, and Kinky Haven; to NUNA, and Replicant City; to see a build about Wales, and one about Japan. We have a special Lord of The Rings event, marking the anniversary of the publication of the third book in the trilogy; and a special Frank Lloyd Wright event at the gorgeous Fallingwater. 

Add a bit of Star Wars, and bit of mesh-making and shopping, a bit of Big Art, and that's our lineup. Hopefully something for everyone who likes the cheerful and friendly side of opensim, and high quality in terms of imagination and talent. All that, and a Special Halloween Safari, courtesy of Ange Menges and Nani Ferguson.

If you use social media for your virtual life, you can see announcements for upcoming trips on the HG Safari pages on Facebook, MeWe, Discord and OpenSimWorld. You can follow 'Thirza Ember' on Twitter too, if that's your thing.

If you're not into social media, then a couple of days before the trip, you can drop in on the clubhouse sim, hg.osgrid.org:80:HG Safari, and pick up the LMs and the notecard explaining the trip - that's usually available a day or two before we go. 

About an hour before our trip, there will be a Notice on the HG Safari group on OSGrid, reminding you that it's almost time, and giving you the same LMs and note, so you are ready for the trip. 

Some people like to go to the destinations in advance so that their viewer can load the sim in a bid to have less lag - that's the theory, although on empirical evidence, the jury's still out on that one, but please don't tell the geeks, they cannot bear to hear it. 

If you do plan to pre-load, bear this in mind: most regions expecting a Safari visit are open 24/7, but if you can't get there in the hours before our trip, don't panic! They may be restarting, tweaking, moving the region to a different server.

 Or having a hissy fit. 

Best advice, if you cannot get to the destination ahead of our scheduled appointment, be zen and show up at the clubhouse a few minutes before Go time, and all will become clear.

The Safari visit is really only a taster of what the destinations have to offer. 

Lag and the confusion of the group and the time restraints of the Safari make it impossible to take it all in, even with the guiding hand of the region owner. Blur is all part of the game!
You will never see everything the region has to offer, so please plan to return, maybe bringing a friend with you. Then you will get the full picture of what the region or grid is all about. It will definitely be worth your while.

Opensim is a seething mass of creativity and opinions, so please come along with as much tolerance as you can muster. On the flip side, since we're going to visit the homes of strangers, it shows good taste if you avoid wearing an avatar that will make for drama - the blatantly SL-ripoff is probably not a great idea, and child avies get people's goat, it seems. If you're in need of an avie nobody can possibly object to for your HG expeditions, consider using one of the free, full perm Fest'Avi avatars, you can grab them on the region hg.osgrid.org:80:Cherry Freebies. 

Looking forward to seeing you on September 14 when the fun begins!