Um, yeah, let’s put this in the “it seemed like a good idea at the time” category. Combine a little liquid courage and male bravado (and nothing bad has EVER come of that!) with an 2000 pound beast standing around minding his own business and you’ll laugh and cringe simultaneously as our hero in this video, a rather tipsy Brian Masters (later identified as a safari field guide at Kruger National Park in South Africa), runs, trips and then scares away a confused looking elephant.

We shouldn’t be too quick to jump on this guy, as he paid the price (he got fired when the video went viral), and he did man up and take responsibility for it on Facebook once he sobered up. We’ve all done a few stupid things after a beer or two – yes? – and the elephant, though it ran away, hopefully survived the ordeal with little more than a chuckle at how unintelligent those human things can be.

Just, er, maybe opt for a guide that hasn’t quaffed a few beers next time you’re on safari.

We’ve heard so much talk about global warming melting the ice caps, meaning those polar bears have to swim farther to find food…well, here’s the antithesis of the archetypical polar bear being in dire straits. I gotta say, this is truly the laziest polar bear in history. He’s awesome!

Where do I start with this one?

Monkeys steal cocktails of passed out beach-goers in the West Indies. Monkeys go back for more. Get inebriated but, unlike humans, “monkeys become better leaders when they’re intoxicated” according to this BBC video. I’ll let you be the judge of that, but I gotta tell ya, you’re gonna bust a gut laughing as you watch this video. The best part though has to be the narrator, who sounds so serious as these monkeys steal drinks from hapless tourists and get completely wasted.

And if you’re ever in the general vicinity of a beach in the West Indies, you might wanna, like, not take your pina colada to the beach unless you wanna share it with a buncha drunken monkeys…

Where to travel to meet the friendliest people? I’d say Turkey or Thailand. But if you’re a dolphin you might head to Maui, as this video, shot in 2009, captures just how friendly the locals in Hawaii can be…the whales I mean. Watch as our hero, one bottle nosed dolphin, hitches a ride on the back of a friendly and decidedly co-operative humpback whale. This does beg the question, however, do dolphins, like, have thumbs, to indicate they’re in the mood for some marine highway companionship or is there some other form of etiquette to hitch a ride off the waters of Maui? I have no clue, but the video’s awesome.

Politeness counts, even among bears. And with over four million hits, this video, of a polite Kodiak bear at Olympic Game Park in Washington state is all the rage online. I have nothing to add, other than, wow, this bear is really polite.

He’s Russian and he’s in a mid-air dogfight resulting in an unplanned eject. We’ve seen that one before. But in the history of aerial dogfights, this one’s a first. And the video has gone viral.

The gist of it: Russian paraglider cruises over the Himalayas. All’s groovy, the video’s awesome. Then it happens – the guy gets unsanctimoniously rammed mid-air by a vulture who’s not too keen on sharing air space. Russian paraglider ejects, but the pissed off raptor gets stuck in the parachute. Fortunately, they’re both OK. But their egos? That’s another story. If only the vulture knew his territorial spat is making the rounds online…man…he’d blush.

Enjoy the video!

Pacific Rim National Park isn’t the most forgiving of places along the coast of Vancouver Island, and this week a Canadian family learned that the hard way, in the form of a cougar attack on their 18 month old boy.

The good news is that the little guy is OK. Authorities have been tracking the cougar in the days since the incident and have closed off that section of the park, at Kennedy Lake, near Ucluelet.

Hopefully this won’t dissuade hikers from what’s arguably one of the top five trekking destinations on Earth. As harrowing as this incident was, remember that cougar attacks are extremely rare, and as harrowing as it was, any time you enter nature, you enter the natural habitat of the extraordinary creatures that call it home.

Wait for the collective “awwwww”. This is one of most heartwarming travel tales you’ve heard for a while. Simply put, a man and his girlfriend, Guillaume and Laetita, decided to walk from North America to Argentina. Along the way they encountered Kitty, a friendly cat in the streets of Louisiana. Kitty took a shying to the couple and joined them on their epic, 9,000 mile, three year walk from North to South America. Now they’re inseparable – though I think Kitty’s more of a hitcher than a walker. Too cute. The website is www.turnoftheworld.com. Watch the video!

Kitty takes a snooze. Photo is copyrighted by turnoftheworld.com. I'm just usin' it cause it's too cool to pass up.

Dog Power!!! Base Jumping is an art form and, done correctly, is one of the greatest thrills of life…so why should humans get all the fun? A couple of Norwegian girls and their pooch Aro a spunky terrier, had nothing better to do one day, and Aro seems to show an affinity for parachutes and video. That’s a recipe for an awesome Base jump if there ever was one.

Something tells me this wouldn’t have worked if Aro was a basset hound. Watch his tail wagging before he jumps, and those crazy Norwegian girls cheering when he lands, also with a tail wag. Too cool.

What do you get when a professional skier happens upon a polar bear on a ski jump?  A video that’s garnered over a million hits.  Bear with the amateurish video, cause the brief encounter is so worth it.  The skier looks petrified, but the bear’s more like WTF?