Around the Global Campfire: Season’s Greetings from BookYourHunt.com

From frosty duck blinds in the Midwest to the thornbush of Southern Africa, from New Zealand’s scree slopes to misty Irish hillsides, hunters all over the world are doing the same thing right now: looking back at the year that’s passing, and quietly dreaming about the hunts to come.

At BookYourHunt.com, we’ve spent a decade sitting in the middle of that dream stream. No joke: our online marketplace for hunts has been connecting hunters and outfitters since 2015. When we think about the past year, and the years before it, what we see isn’t charts or dashboards. We see a circle of faces lit by firelight, swapping stories from every corner of the hunting world.

This holiday season, we’d like to invite you to our global campfire and share a few of those stories with you.

One marketplace, many stories

If you scroll through our reviews or blog, you’ll notice that every good hunt starts in a slightly different way. For some, it’s a lifelong dream finally coming together. For others, it’s a first step into something new. For many, it’s a quick search in a quiet moment that suddenly turns into a booked adventure.

Take Bob, for example.

“I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to book and pay for a hunt… This was my first exposure to this company and I will definitely return for future hunts.”

He found an African hunt on BookYourHunt.com, booked and paid for it without any drama, and landed at a lodge where the rooms were spotless, meals were excellent, and the PH and staff were as professional as they were welcoming. The review he left reads like what we always hoped the marketplace would be: effortless, secure, and backed by outfitters we’re proud to recommend.

The technology behind that experience—search filters, payment options, messaging, time zones and all the rest—is important. But what really matters is that Bob stepped off that plane in Africa, met good people, saw new ground, and came home with a head full of memories. That’s the part we never get tired of.

Bucket lists and long roads north

Then there’s Ken, who grew up in the heartland of the Midwest. His story is as classic as they come: beagles and rat terriers, a single-shot .410, graduating to a 20 gauge, then a 12 gauge, and eventually a Winchester Model 94 in .30-30 that he still treasures. By ten he was deer hunting. By sixteen he was well on his way to being the kind of hunter who thinks deeply about what he wants from the outdoors.

For Ken, the top of the bucket list was clear: a true wilderness moose and wolf hunt in remote British Columbia.

“My research led me to BookYourHunt.com… I’ve been using this website for several years and find the site easy to filter and navigate. The ability to search by area or by species is very helpful… most [hunts] have a lot of details for comparison which helps narrow down which one to choose.”

He did his homework, used the filters, compared options, and picked the outfitter that felt right. The result? A classic northern adventure and a successful moose and black bear hunt, far from the cornfields where his story started.

For us, that’s what the marketplace is all about: taking decades of hunting dreams and helping turn them into a real date on a calendar in a place you’ve always wanted to see.

First big-game, first chapter

Not every story at the campfire belongs to a grizzled veteran. One of our favorites from recent years is Max, an exchange student from Michigan who went to Africa with something very specific in mind.

He didn’t  want just any hunt. He wanted a challenge. What thrilled him was the Macnab challenge, African-style: an antelope, a bird, and a fish—all in one day. His big-game target would be a blesbok, and it would be his first big-game animal ever.

Picture him in the fading light, with wildebeest and reedbuck kicking up dust, waterbuck and giraffe on the horizon, and a herd of blesbok moving across an open plain. The guide and PH working through the herd, quietly picking out a suitable ram. Max settling behind the rifle as the buck turns broadside between two bushes.

“I said: ‘I have a clear shot, I am going to take the shot.’ Hearing no objections… I fired.”

He ended the day with an antelope, a guineafowl and a bass to his name—and a story he’ll be telling for the rest of his life.

Max is not the first hunter to take their first animal on a hunt booked through BookYourHunt.com, and we’re sure he won’t be the last. Yes, we love connecting demanding hunters with XXL-difficulty level adventures like bongo in Cameroon or ibex in the Himalayas. But helping someone cross that invisible line from “I’d like to hunt one day” to “I’m a hunter” will always be one of the most important things we do.

That’s why you’ll always find beginner-friendly, affordable options alongside the hardcore stuff on our marketplace. The campfire is big enough for everyone.

“We came back better hunters”

Another voice in the circle belongs to Ryan, who normally hunts whitetails from treestands in Minnesota. He and his father decided to do something very different: a mountain hunt in New Zealand for fallow deer, chamois and Himalayan tahr.

They’re good hunters. They know their home woods and fields. But New Zealand’s spot-and-stalk style, and the animals themselves, were new territory.

“Ewie could teach my dad and me a lot about spot and stalk hunting, the game animals we were in pursuit of, and just all-around knowledge of the outdoors.”

They came home not just with trophies and photos, but with new skills they could bring back to Minnesota: reading signs differently, tracking better, understanding how terrain and cover work when you’re on foot instead of up a tree.

That’s another reason we believe so strongly in guided hunts in new places. You don’t just leave with meat and memories—you come back a better hunter.

Across the fire: the outfitter’s side of the story

If you look across the flames from the hunters’ side of the circle, you’ll see the guides and outfitters who make these stories possible.

Some of them are like Chad from South Dakota Access, who sums up his experience with BookYourHunt.com in a few simple lines:

“I love BYH! I’ve been in the outfitting game a long time and I have had a wonderful experience working with BookYourHunt.com! Their process is simple and straightforward. We’ve taken in some wonderful clients who have become friends, bolstered our business and killed some pretty darn nice critters. Everybody wins!”

Others peel the curtain back on what the job really involves. Ray, who runs Wolverine Range Outfitters in British Columbia, is very clear that being an outfitter is a lifestyle and a grind, not a postcard.

“You have to be passionate about it, and if you are, you can make it work, it’s a lifestyle as much as a livelihood.”

This includes being passionate enough to do the hard things no one sees: paperwork, marketing, endless maintenance, building and repairing cabins, setting spike camps, knowing a bit of mechanics and a bit of carpentry and a lot of troubleshooting.

It’s not all romantic sunrises and hero shots. It’s long days and longer seasons, because you’re responsible for someone else’s safety, success and dream.

Then there’s David in Ireland, where maybe you don’t expect big-game hunting stories until you hear them. Fox control with an electric call and an owl that won’t leave him alone. A deer that seemed stone dead until it suddenly drove its head into his chest and knocked him flat.

“Talk about close calls – you can have them even in Ireland!”

And Jake in Alberta, who calls himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” for a whole string of reasons: growing up in the North where wild places were never far away, falling into guiding when the economy dipped, watching his kids become hunters themselves, and doing things like an all-expenses-paid polar bear hunt he never saw coming.

If you’ve hunted with good outfitters, you know exactly what we mean when we say that we started BookYourHunt.com out of deep respect for them. We know how much work it takes to create a “seamless trip” from a hunter’s perspective, and how many things have to go right for you to come back saying “we will definitely return.”

Our job is to make sure that all that unseen work gets seen, by connecting outfitters to the right hunters, giving them a simple way to present what they do online, and letting real reviews and photos tell the rest of the story.

What we’re really building: a global campfire

When you zoom out from individual stories—from Bob’s first African lodge, Ken’s BC moose, Max’s African Macnab, Ryan’s New Zealand classroom, Chad’s returning clients, Ray’s long days, David’s Irish close calls and Jake’s good fortune—you start to see what BookYourHunt.com really is.

It’s not just a website where you filter by species and click “Book now,” even if that part matters and we work on it constantly.

It’s a meeting place.

It’s where a kid who grew up with a .410 and rabbit hunts can finally chase moose under northern lights.
Where a student can become a hunter for life in one intense, dusty day in Africa. Where a father and son from Minnesota can learn spot-and-stalk from a New Zealand guide and bring that knowledge home. Where outfitters from Ireland to South Dakota to British Columbia can find the clients who “get” what they do, come as customers, and often leave as friends.

Every time you book a hunt, leave a review, upload a photo, or just spend an evening browsing possibilities, you’re throwing another log on that global campfire.

For that, we’re deeply grateful.

Looking ahead: your place at the fire in 2026

As 2025 comes to a close, we’re not going to pretend we know exactly what the new year will bring. The world will keep changing in ways nobody quite predicts. But one thing we’re sure of: hunters will keep hunting, and outfitters will keep building the experiences that make our lives richer.

Behind the scenes, we’ll keep doing what we’ve always done:

• Making it as easy as possible to search by species, country, weapon, budget and dates, so you can find the hunt that really fits you.
• Improving the way you communicate with outfitters, compare options, and pay securely.
• Carefully vetting new outfitters and listening to your feedback, so that the trust you place in the platform is always earned, never taken for granted.
• Sharing more stories and interviews on our blog and social media, so you can “meet your guide” before you ever step into camp.

And we’d like to invite you to make 2026 your year around the campfire:

• If you’ve always wanted to hunt somewhere new, use the hunt finder below to explore BC moose and bear, New Zealand tahr and chamois, African plains game, Irish deer, South Dakota birds and more.
• If you’re a new or aspiring hunter, look for our beginner-friendly, high-success hunts—the kind of trips that helped Max and many others take their first big-game animals.
• If you’re an experienced hunter, maybe this is the year you bring a son, daughter, spouse or friend and watch them light up at their first dawn in camp.
• And if you’re an outfitter reading this, and you recognize yourself in Ray’s toolbox or Jake’s gratitude, we’d be honored to help you find more of “your people” through BookYourHunt.com.

Thank you, and good hunting

To every hunter who trusted us with their time, money and dreams this year: thank you.

To every outfitter who trusted us with their reputation and their livelihood: thank you.

To everyone who left a review, sent in photos, or shared a story that made someone else say “I want to do that one day”: thank you.

We are lucky to be hunters, and we are lucky to work with the people who make hunting possible. In survey after survey, people with a strong connection to the outdoors rank among the happiest—and looking at the stories we hear every day, we’re not surprised.

So wherever you are this holiday season—by a fireplace, in a duck blind, on a mountain ridge, or planning your next adventure on a phone or laptop—we wish you peace, safety, and moments in the wild that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and good hunting in 2026 from all of us at BookYourHunt.com.

When you’re ready to write your own story, start with the hunts below and let’s find your place around the campfire.