Recently in Active Travel Category

Friend of IT (and author of delightful Cold Beer and Crocodiles: A Bicycle Journey into Australia) Roff Smith is just back from biking the Welsh national cycling route, and shares with us some tips on traveling in the area.

So how do you keep them down on the farm after they've seen Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch? You got me. It's not easy.  Since I've returned from cycling the Lôn Las Cymru--the Welsh national cycle route--I've thought of little else but going back and doing it all again. Stretching more than 250 picturesque miles from the ancient castle town of Chepstow in the south, to windswept Holyhead in the north, (home to the Holyhead Harpies Quiddich Team, if you happen to be a Harry Potter fan), this is said to be the most beautiful of  Britain's long-distance cycling trails and having cycled a good many of them myself, I'd be hard put to disagree.

Those five days I spent travelling its length were like a step out of time, a harkening back to a slower, gentler oil-painted world of leafy country lanes, old market towns, World Heritage castles and the romantic 11th-century ruins of Llanthony Priory--and yes, there's plenty of utterly unpronounceable Welsh names along the way, not least of which is the aforementioned town on the isle of Anglesey, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the U.K.'s longest place name. Locals shorthand it to Llanfair P.G.

The route itself is cobbled together of quiet lanes, cycle paths, even a stretch of ancient coaching road. It is superbly signposted and so easy to follow that you don't really need any maps, although the excellent ones published by Sustrans are well worth having since they can help you plan your day, and offer up interesting alternatives--you can, for example, start off from Cardiff if you wish. There are plenty of B&Bs and pretty little inns along the route, so you needn't rough it or carry a lot of gear--a point worth considering since the Lôn Las Cymru meanders through the Brecon Beacons, the Cambrian Mountains and Snowdonia National Park, making it one of Britain's more challenging rides as well.
 
Of course, you don't have to cycle the whole thing in one go.  Good rail connections and bicycle-hire shops mean that the Lôn Las Cymru is very do-able in weekend-sized bites, say, between Chepstow and Hay-on-Wye, sixty miles of the very same countryside for which William Gilpin, the 18th century traveler and essayist coined the word "picturesque".  There are still the hills of course, but then, isn't that what those hearty B&B breakfasts are for?

Photo: George Borrow Photography

Roff Smith's October article for National Geographic magazine, about the shipwreck of a 16th c. Portuguese ship carrying more than 100 million carats of diamonds, can be found here.

Contributing writer Jim Conaway sends a dispatch from Scottsdale, Arizona where he spent this past weekend at the Travels Classics writers' conference.

Okay, so you don't do spiked saddle oxfords and are dismayed at the sight of kelly-green links spouting water in the Sonoran desert. I won't say get over it but I will urge scrambling over some rocks anyway, for a broader view of one of the most spectacular, physically challenging landscapes in America and a better understanding of the bounty of, and challenges to, the aridly sublime. And if you can afford a traveler's respite in considerable style, well, there's no better place than The Boulders, a saguaro, palo verde and ocotillo-strewn former bit of nowhere in the scantier reaches of Scottsdale, Arizona.
   
Golf widowers and the aroma therapy-averse can easily put together a day of hiking, swimming, rock climbing, and biking (mountain and road), with a reflexology foot massage tossed in after to aid your weary bones. Your iron man of a guide is Rico Riley, all 165 pounds of him in rip-stop trail shirt and yellow cap bearing the logo of Sawyer Adventures, commissioned by the resort to take you on gentle and not-so-gentle perambulations. The easiest, through what was once known as the Carefree Rockpile, has been known to feature coyotes, javalina, and even bobcat, as well as tactile evidence of earlier civilizations, like depressions in the granite where Indians ground corn for subsistence survival in the third century.

National Geographic Expeditions Marketing Manager Sarah Muenzenmayer shares tips on planning a Hawaii trip that's budget-friendly and full of local color.

As avid travelers in our early 30s, my husband and I like to plan trips that will challenge us--language barriers and exploring foreign cultures are the aspects of travel we find both adventurous and memorable. But with the hubby currently in grad school, we wanted a trip that was slightly easier to plan, not to mention easy on the wallet. Drawn to Hawaii's natural beauty, we decided to skip the resorts and instead to camp along the spectacular coastline. Here are a few tips on how we kept our trip to the Big Island and Kauai challenging, and kept the total cost pretty darn low.

We recently received a letter from a reader asking for help finding a cruise across the southern Mediterranean along the coast of North Africa. She hopes to visit cities founded during the Roman Empire rich with remnants of the past. Here are three travel companies with excellent cruising options for exploring the region. All trips are education-oriented and feature prominent speakers and guest lecturers on relevant topics from archaeology to classical culture and language. One of the highlights of all of the tours is the magnificent Leptis Magna Theater on the coast of Libya, pictured here, and featured as one of our "50 Places of a Lifetime" in our current issue.

Andrew Evans confronts his acrophobia on Canada's newest vertical challenge: the Via Ferrata.

I didn't die--that's the short version. The End. Now you can click back to whatever you were reading before.

Not that I wouldn't mind dying in the Canadian Rockies. It's a pretty spectacular place inhabited by friendly locals and mild-mannered grizzly bears. The extreme drop-offs are tremendously beautiful, I concur. I also find them hugely terrifying.  

As a self-diagnosed acrophobic, I try to avoid rock ledges, steep mountain chasms and thousand-foot-high cliffs.  Smart people have often explained that I am not really afraid of heights--I'm only afraid of falling. Reading up on vertigo, I have learned that mine is not an irrational fear. I merely have "vestibular issues" that affect my balance and which are most likely evolutionary. Apparently, my ancient ancestors also suffered from falling dreams.

In Canada, I got to face my fears head on. Travel helps us do that by dropping us into unusual or difficult circumstances and then forcing us to do things we don't normally choose to do. For me, that meant getting dropped off by helicopter onto a mountain ridge some 7,000 feet above sea level.  

Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) are better known for inventing heli-skiing, where hardcore skiers can access some of the greatest and highest virgin powder on Earth by helicopter. The same idea works for eager hikers in summertime: the 3-minute helicopter ride lets you skip the ten-hour base climb and get right to the good stuff. Or in my case, the super scary stuff.

JT Blatty, a former Traveler photo intern, has been spending the last month traveling through Sweden, and sends us a dispatch from their swath of national parks.

During an impulsive, two-week road trip through the less populated landscapes of Sweden, it only took a few nights for my friend and I to realize that our spontaneous agenda was becoming quite predictable - but in a good way. A few hours before dusk, a quick look at the map would indicate a picture-perfect location to camp for the night and explore the next morning, whether forest, lake, beach, or mountain peak. In other words, there was no way of avoiding the 7,000 square kilometers of Sweden's 28 national parks.

At the time I didn't realize that 2009 is "Nature's Year" in Sweden, a 100-year milestone celebrating Swedish national parks and the successful measures taken to preserve their diverse ecological landscapes. 

I've already discussed how Maurice Sendak's classic children's story, Where the Wild Things Are, inspired me to travel as a kid, so I openly admit to counting down the days until the upcoming film comes out. But in the meantime, I've been entertaining myself by looking at the images submitted to director Spike Jonze's website, in a contest called "Where the Wild Things Ought to Be." Artists have placed the Wild Things in classic paintings, movie stills, Where's Waldo? drawings, and even on Fox News. One of my favorites is Max on the The Great Wave, by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. He really looks like he's a natural fit in the wilds of the ocean. You can see more of the submissions here.

[via Neatorama]

Cycle Parade in Copenhagen from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

Copenhagen ranks as one of the world's friendliest cities for cyclists, with 37 percent of residents in Greater Copenhagen using a bike daily. To encourage more residents to bike to work and school, the city plans to expand bike lanes farther into the suburbs. The city hopes to entice the 85,000 suburbanites who currently commute via car, bus, and train to switch to cycling.

Fifteen thousand people already bike into Greater Copenhagen from the suburbs, so these "bicycle superhighways" will enhance their commute and also make cycling more appealing for those who do not. Some perks of the new routes include fewer detours, service stations along the routes with air and tools, and priority crossing for cyclists at busy intersections. Additionally, cyclists who maintain a pace greater than 12 miles per hour will benefit from the Green Wave, affording them green lights all the way through sections of the city with frequent stoplights.

In the big picture, more cyclists mean fewer cars on the road and less air pollution. The European Cyclists' Federation is pushing for greater funding for bike-friendly initiatives in urban settings. The ECF estimates that increasing cycling levels from 5 to 15 percent in Europe could reduce carbon dioxide emission by 50 million tons and plans to do so by 2020.  

To do its part in saving the environment and bringing European bike-lovers together, Copenhagen hosted a cycling parade as part of CO2penhagen, the "world's first carbon-neutral festival."

While you're visiting, you can take part in "Bycyklen Kobenhavn," the city's bike culture, by snagging one of the 1,300 free bike rentals offered to visitors between May and December.

Watch out Washington: Now that the weather's beginning to cool down and we can once again spend time outside without succumbing to heat stroke, cycling is one of the best ways to enjoy the changing seasons. There is always the option of taking your bike down one of the many area trails, such as the C&O Canal path along the Potomac or through Rock Creek Park. But if you need some encouragement, there are several area events that may motivate you to pull your bike out of the garage, strap on your helmet, and hit the road.

Tomorrow, September 22, is International Car Free Day, an event that encourages commuters to leave their cars at home and consider all forms of alternative transportation: bus, metro, and especially bicycle. Here in D.C., 1,000 residents went car free in 2007, and that number increased to 5,445 in 2008. But the District still has a ways to go to catch up to Portland, Oregon, where 8% of the population bikes to work every day. (To learn more about biker-friendly Portland, look out for our November issue.)

For those of you who aren't sold on biking to work, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association is holding its 50 States and 13 Colonies ride this weekend, Saturday, September 26. The 50 States Ride, which is over 60 miles long, takes participants through all of D.C.'s eight wards and covers all 50 state streets. The 13 Colonies Ride is a less challenging path that covers the streets named for the 13 original colonies in under 15 miles. Event organizers offer lunch in the middle of the ride and discounted food and drinks at the end. It may not be around the world in 80 days, but I'd say around the United States in one day is pretty impressive.

--Traveler Intern Meg Beasley

Many of you have written us wanting to know how to replicate writer Stanley Stewart's motorcycle drive through Sardinia's North Coast. So we asked him to dish the details. Stewart's article, "Sardinia's Carefree Coast," just appeared in our September issue, but you can find the full story here, as well as a photo gallery online.

To book a motorcycle, contact Central Italy Motorcycle Tours (+39 339 1556988) who have a range of bikes including the the Ducati ST3, a good touring bike, from $916 for five days. A slightly cheaper option would be a Suzuki DL650 at $715 for five days. Bikes can be collected in Rome, Milan or Pisa, allowing you to cross by ferry from Civitavecchia, Livorno, Piombino or Genoa. Owned and run by Francesco Venzi, who speaks excellent English, CIMT also offer a range of group or private tours in Sardinia and elsewhere in Italy that include guides, support vehicles, and accommodation.
 
"Sardinia is a biker's dream," Stewart tells us. "The roads are excellent but curvy enough to make the whole thing good fun, and the Mediterranean on your shoulder is a great companion. Inland you can get some wonderful straight runs though it is difficult to keep your eyes on the road as the mountains begin to loom.
 
"What Francesco doesn't know about touring Sardinia, isn't worth knowing," he continued. "He is not only biker, he is a traveler and an excellent guide and has seen parts of the island only the shepherds know. He supplies bikes but he also points you in the right direction, and his group tours, with support vehicles, are one of the most congenial and sociable ways to tour the island."

[Central Italy Motorcycle Tours]

Photo: Stewart rides a Ducati along the coastline, shot by Dave Yoder for the September 2009 issue of National Geographic Traveler

If you think riding the stationary bike at the gym is exhausting, imagine riding your bike 28,000 miles through 37 countries in eight years. Tired yet?

Keiichi "Kei" Iwasaki , 36, of Japan began such an adventure when he grew tired of working at his father's air-conditioning company. ''I thought to myself that 'My life will soon be over before I do what I want to do!' so I decided to start this trip," Iwasaki told the London Telegraph.

Iwasaki left his home in Maebashi, Japan in April 2001 with just 160 yen, around $2, in his pocket with the intention of biking through Japan. He enjoyed the trip so much that he caught a ferry to South Korea. He has since been robbed by pirates and arrested in India, nearly died after being attacked by a rabid dog in Tibet, and narrowly escaped marriage in Nepal.

Senior Researcher Marilyn Terrell is in the Yukon Territory for this week, and she's blogging, and of course, tweeting, whenever she can. She sent along this dispatch:

I spent ten hours yesterday walking the streets and trails of Whitehorse, (pop. 24,000) the capital of the Yukon Territory (pop. 40,000 people, plus 30,000 bears). Ate breakfast at Baked aka Bakerei Kaffeehaus (+1 867 633 6291) where the blueberry scones are wholegrain, the latte foam artfully swirled, and toddlers saute plastic vegetables in tiny pans in the wooden play kitchen.

Down by the Yukon River waterfront at Rotary Peace Park, '60s classics blared and crowds cheered the anchor-leg runners of the 110-mile Klondike International Road Relay as they approached the finish line. The race began at midnight in Skagway, Alaska, and runners carried flashlights over the Coast Mountains through White Pass along the Chilkoot Trail, which originally brought the goldminers in the stampede of 1898. The race officials announced the names of the runners and their teams: the Skinny Ravens from Anchorage, Sole Train from Juneau, CrowsFeet, an all-female masters team from Anchorage, the Chocolate Claim Runners from Whitehorse, the Smokin' Old Geezers, Team Run Amok, Blood Sweat & Beers, Twisted Blistered Sisters, the Molten Lava Tigers of Doom, The Fast and the Delirious. There were 1,200 runners, 700 women, and many junior teams.

The National Geographic Channel's executive vice president for content, Sydney Suissa, has been paddling Canada's Quetico Park over the past three decades. Here's a report from his latest trip; click through for his photo essay.

A four-hour flight delay, a lost bag and a sky of flat gray soup; not an auspicious start to our canoe trip. But wilderness trips are all about improvising and we'll have to make do. There are four of us on this trip -- my longtime friend and fellow canoeist Steven from Montreal, his 24-year-old son Ben, my 20-year-old son Aaron and myself. As we load up our rental car, we know it's going to be one of those trips where we'll use a lot more bug juice than sunscreen.

The wilderness area we're going to is an immense swath of the Canadian Shield carpeted with century pines, spruces, and stands of birch. Dark lakes pure enough to drink from, bogs tucked behind long sheltered bays where moose feed, orchid-lined creeks and small rivers that ebb and flow with the seasons all weave together into ever-changing networks that make this wilderness a haven for canoeists. In Minnesota, this protected area is called the Boundary Waters, and where it extends into Ontario, Canadians know it as Quetico Park.

We drive west from Thunder Bay, cross the Atlantic Watershed demarcation into the Arctic Watershed, and in about two hours arrive in Atikokan, population 700 and falling. It's the kind of town that Neil Young had in mind in his song "Helpless" ("There is a town in North Ontario/All my memories are there...") We go through our equipment and maps with our outfitter and spend the night in the bunkhouse. We rise early and after our ritual breakfast at the Outdoorsman, we load up our canoes and head out to the access point on Beaverhouse Lake. We push off into a stiff westerly wind wet with rain.

Traveling with teens to London? Senior editor Norie Quintos shares some hard-earned lessons from a recent visit with her 13- and 15-year-olds. Check past blogs on traveling with teens to New York City and Kenya.

Give them a preview: Provide some context before your trip, not necessarily with history books but with novels (Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist, Harry Potter), music (Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks), and movies (Shakespeare in Love, The Queen, Bridget Jones' Diary, and of course, the James Bond flicks).

Make yourself at home: Consider booking an apartment with kitchenette rather than a hotel. No need to pay restaurant rates for ravenous teen appetites. Agencies such as Central London Apartments cater to travelers. Some hotels, such as the Athenaeum in Mayfair, also have townhouse apartments that combine hotel service with apartment convenience.

Get active: Teens typically like to go fast and court danger. We got a little of both on a Central London bike tour (there are several companies, including the one we went with, the London Bicycle Tour Company). Weaving in and out of traffic, crossing bridges, and avoiding double-decker buses driving on the "wrong" side of the road made for ecstatic teens and a nervous mom.  Another bonus: We saw the obligatory sights, including Trafalgar Square, Buckingham palace, and Westminster Abbey, in under three hours.

 

Go easy on the museums: My younger son recoils at anything with the word "museum" at the end of its name, so I chose places that were more experiential, such as the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. A walk through the concrete-fortified underground warren of bunkers used by the British during World War II put us right in wartime London under threat of a blitzkreig. If only all history lessons could be as compelling. I didn't have enough time to take the kids to another of my favorite non-museumlike museums--Shakespeare's recreated Globe Theatre.

Turn it into a game: Really. Teens are not too old for a scavenger hunt (though you may need to provide an incentive). It's a stealthy way to turn them into cultured people. On the list: Quote a line of Shakespeare, Find an Elgin Marble, Read the Rosetta Stone. Cross the Thames. Have a spot of tea. Stand on the Prime Meridian line. Ride the London Eye. Try to make a Palace Guard smile.

 

Senior editor Norie Quintos has been blogging about her recent trip to Kenya with her teen sons. Click here to see her previous posting.

Back in my college days, when I was young and idealistic, I spent two months with an NGO helping to build a school in Kilifi, on the Kenyan coast. We mixed cement by hand, laid bricks, and lived alongside Kenyan students. Twenty-some years later, I came back, this time with my children. Surprisingly, the structure I helped build still exists, as does my youthful scrawl in the cement on the side of the building. Unfortunately, the students still lack books and furniture and access to educational tools such as computers. I made a monetary donation and left, wishing I could do more. Back in the van, the kids and I talked about the disparities of education and opportunity.

On our first day in Nairobi, we visited the community center and school supported by our tour operator, Micato Safaris. The fancy Range Rover pitched and rolled over rutted dirt lanes lined with a random assortment of gummed-together wood, thatch, corrugated metal and cement dwellings that make up Mukuru, an unregulated district of 600,000 squatters about six miles outside the city. (For a bigger discussion on slum tours, check out a piece we ran on the subject.) My sons' eyes grew wide in the face of real poverty, so different was it from the kind they consider themselves victims of whenever I deny them a new pair of Nikes. On the other side of the car window, children's smiles--incomprehensively bright--greeted us. There was no denying the discomfort my sons and I felt. But perhaps comfort wasn't the point. The point was to feel, to question, to think, and then perhaps to act. At the Harambee House, visitors saw what previous safari clients have been moved to accomplish. Here, slum dwellers' children were offered food and education and training, young adults taught skills--a way out and up.

Parents think they should have the answer to everything, but I disagree. Sometimes it's enough to ask the questions.

What are your thoughts?

Photos by Norie Quintos

Former Traveler Photo Intern Jenn Blatty files this report for IT from northern Sweden:

The Swedes are ahead of the game when it comes to exploring the outdoors and taking advantage of their natural surroundings. In the northern city of Sundsvall where I've been staying the past few weeks, I have yet to meet locals who don't know how to pick their own berries and mushrooms from the surrounding forests to prepare into jams, wines, or butters in their own homes. And when I say everyone, I mean even the city-dwellers (although the younger generation may not admit it).

But it makes sense: In Sweden, all are encouraged to maximize usage of the outdoors under a common law privilege called the "right of public access," or as the Swedes call it, "Allemansrätten." You won't find a "No Trespassing" sign anywhere around here: Even as a tourist I can wander from the main trail onto someone else's property to pick blueberries, or if I'm driving the country roads I can pull over wherever I see fit to pitch a tent for the night, so long as I follow the few simple guidelines. For example, I can only use branches lying on the ground for a fire and cannot break a live limb, and I should maintain a distance of 70 meters from any house in view--it's really just common sense stuff.

For many people, Southeast Asia conjures up images of ancient stone temples, vibrant colors, spicy cuisine and warm, musky rains breathing life into lotus ponds.

But imagine instead hiking for miles shin-deep in mud, fending off bloodsucking leeches and existing on a diet of tarantulas and cockroaches, while risking infection, heatstroke and malaria. Not exactly your typical camping trip. For most people, such an excursion would sound treacherous and even insane, but for young herpetologist Perry Wood Jr.  it's simply a passionate pursuit of knowledge in the name of science.

When Perry (aka JR) Wood began studying Southeast Asian amphibians and reptiles more than eight years ago, he never imagined the rough trails and beautiful landscapes his fieldwork would lead him to. As a graduate biology student specializing in taxonomy and molecular systematics, Wood regularly makes trips to Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia in an effort to identify new species in what he explains is an understudied region for herpetological diversity.

Senior editor Norie Quintos has been blogging about her recent family trip to Kenya. Her previous posts in this series include on traveling with teens, taking care of paperwork, staying healthy, and packing.

From Laikipia, we flew by prop plane (via Nairobi) to the Masai Mara, the fecund savanna immortalized by many a nature documentary. The area supports some of the greatest concentrations of wildlife, including the so-called Big Five (elephant, rhino, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard). Visitors can't help but have high expectations. Lodges are numerous and run the gamut from basic to luxe. We stayed at the recently overhauled tent suites at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club: lavishly adorned in Africana and boasting typical four-star-hotel accoutrements as bathrobe, slippers, hair dryer, sewing kit, etc. With several wheelchair-accessible rooms, a host of modern conveniences, a highly trained staff, and a prime location overlooking a hippo-filled river, it is one of a few lodges on the Mara suitable for families with very young children and guests with mobility issues. 

One problem with the celeb-status of the Mara is that it is in danger of being loved to extinction. The masses of grass-feeding animals attract predators that feed on them, which in turn lures hordes of tourists, many desirous of the type of close encounters seen on Animal Planet and BBC wildlife programs. Drivers and guides feel the pressure to deliver on unrealistic expectations, putting unsustainable forces on the fragile ecosystem. While off-road driving is not permitted within the Masai Mara reserve, many areas just outside are deeply rutted and pocked. In some cases, the old tracks have become impassable and parallel ones begun.

Former National Geographic Books editorial assistant Hunter Braithwaite spent his vacation helping former laboratory research animals in a Wyoming sanctuary.

We wake at dawn to black coffee. A murderous sun will soon beat down. Vultures, wafting in the carrion breeze, cast the only shadows. In the distance is a persistant howling. But all is well on the Kindness Ranch: it's pool day for the pigs.

My girlfriend and I spent July volunteering on this 1,000-acre Wyoming sanctuary for research animals. At the moment, this unique institution is home to 55 animals. These dogs, cats, sheep, pigs, and horses have spent much of their lives in laboratories. Almost all of them are up for adoption. The ranch is obviously pro-animal, but the animal testing debate is tiptoed around. Since the primary goal is to better the life of an animal, criticizing laboratories doesn't lead to cooperation.

The Kindness Ranch is located off State Highway 270, about eight miles from the nearest town, Hartville (pop. 76).  All in all, it's a pretty straight shot from the East Coast. Just stay on Route 80 for the entirety of the Brothers Karamazov on tape.  

On the property are an arena, a barn, two yurts for the cats and dogs, six guest yurts, and a yurt castle belonging to the founder. My girlfriend and I came with the understanding that we'd be staying in the cat yurt, but somehow we were blessed with a vacant guest yurt. They normally go for $100 per night, a steal, but the price drops precipitously for those willing to clean up after the horses.