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Camel Trekking Across the Moroccan Desert

In the 90s, active travel outfitters like Backroads gained popularity by offering inn-to-inn biking and hiking trips. Other sports like rafting and sea kayaking started to appear in itineraries in the first decade of the new millennium. The latest trend is family adventures, taking the whole clan down to say, Costa Rice for a week and trying as many sports as possible. Also growing in popularity are more historical adventures, like this trip I just received from Baobab Expeditions. From February 20-March 1, 2010, you can join the outfitter on a 50-mile camel trek across the Moroccan desert on an old caravanserai route. The trip begins and ends in Marrakech, before heading out with Berber Guides to the oases of Lawina and Saf’Sef. You’ll sleep under the palms while enjoying traditional Berber food and listening to the music, drums, tambourines and singing of the locals. Then it’s on to Erg Chebbi to see the sand dunes rising to over 500 feet. Pricing begins at $3533 and includes lodging, food, guides, and all the drinking water you can swallow.

 

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February Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

Heading out with your child this spring, summer, or fall to look at colleges? Well, we’re happy to report that ActiveTravels now designs itineraries for college tours in New England and New York, Mid-Atlantic states, the Midwest, and California. Tell us the colleges you want to tour, and we’ll package it together with hotels, restaurants, and sites along the way. That’s just one of the topics we cover in the February issue of our newsletter. Other stories include biking to Giverny on a day trip from Paris, three lodges we love in America’s National Parks, visiting Washington, DC, for the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and a tour operator we use for custom-made trips for families to Israel. As always, we’re here to talk about travel ideas for 2013. So if anything comes to mind, email me at steve@activetravels.com. 

 
I’m off to Aruba to kick back with 12 members of my family. I’ll be back Monday, February 25th, with my favorite new trips offered by outfitters. 
 
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The Passionate People of Lamèque and Miscou Islands

All it takes is a one-minute conversation with Dr. Mathieu Duguay to understand how he persuaded the finest harpsichordists and cellists in Amsterdam, New York, and Berlin to come perform Bach in a 300-seat seat church on the island of Lamèque. A genuine lover of music, Duguay knows the most talented period performers of the day and has flown them over to New Brunswick to play in a church, acclaimed for its exceptional acoustics and vibrantly painted interior. Today, the Baroque Music Festival, now in its 37th season, is the best of its kind in North America. 
 
If you make the wise decision to venture off the Acadian Route and travel on Route 113 to Lamèque and Miscou Islands on the Acadian Peninsula, you’ll quickly realize that Duguay is just one of many colorful characters that light up this sylvan setting. Sandra LeCouteur grew up in the circa-1856 lighthouse on the edge of Miscou Island. Her father, the lighthouse keeper, is known for catching the largest tuna in the world, a whopping 1243 pounds. On select nights in summer, LeCouteur sings on a small stage inside the lighthouse and her deep voice resonates within these historic walls. 
 
Just beyond the Miscou Island Bridge, La Terrasse à Steve is named for the owner, a seafood lover who uses lobster 14 different ways. Sit down at one of the picnic tables overlooking the harbor and dine on lobster casserole, lobster paste sushi, or simply a lobster just out of the pot. Ask if you can see his 13-pound lobster, which is for photographs only. Then write your name on one of the wooden poles, right next to the guy from Alaska. Finally, there’s the seafood pizza at Au P’tit Mousse, written up in Michelin of all places. One bite of Patrick Noel’s sublime combination of lobster, clam, shrimp, and scallop topping and you’ll forgive him for being a Montreal Canadians fan. 
 
Climbing the Miscou Island Lighthouse and looking out over the water, feeling like you’re on the edge of the great abyss, or lounging on the sublime white beaches are the main reasons folks visit the Acadian Peninsula. But spend more than an afternoon here and you’ll realize it’s the people that make this place special. 
 
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Arizona Week—Hiking Phoenix’s Piestewa Peak

I always bring hiking boots when traveling to Phoenix, because it’s arguably the best city in the country for day hikes. There are some 200 miles of trails in the Phoenix park system including short summits like Piestewa that are ideally suited for a 2-hour lunch break. We started our climb around 11 am and we were back at the trailhead at 12:45 pm. That’s not to say it wasn’t a thigh-burner, especially the last part of the trail which steeply ascends the craggy 2,608-foot peak (total elevation gain is 1190 feet). Even on a weekday, the trail was crowded as we made our way up the dirt and rock path past every type of cacti imaginable—tall saguaro, barrel, hedgehog, pincushion, jumping cholla, and prickly pear. Vistas of the Phoenix skyline opened up below us as we passed an ironwood tree. Soon we were up on the summit, eating lunch while enjoying the views of the surrounding ridges and the valley below. I once penned a series of stories for Health Magazine on Urban Adventures, the best workouts outside the gym in cities across America. Climbing Piestewa Peak would be a good option.

 
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Run the Alps All of August

With a fantastic network of trail and huts, and a long history and appreciation of running, Switzerland is a trail runner’s dream. Mountain runners have been weaving their way along alp paths for decades, and are practically exalted here. Few people know these trails better than Doug Mayer, founder of Run the Alps. Mayer wrote me last week, claiming he has designed his most epic trip yet, a month-long adventure in the Alps. The includes a guided run along Switzerland’s remarkable Hardergrat, a trail run along the route of the Tour du Mont-Blanc, and through the Swiss Berner Oberland. You’ll also go behind the scenes at two of the greatest trail races in the world, Sierre-Zinal and the UTMB, and, of course, spend necessary R&R time at classic mountain spas. No wonder Mayer is calling this the greatest trail running vacation ever. 

 
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Lausanne’s Bounty of Museums

For a city of only 140,000, Lausanne is blessed with 22 museums. Actually 23 museums if you count the archaeologist I met yesterday who opened a one-room museum devoted to the history of shoes, including her recreation of a Neolithic shoe. Home to the International Olympic Committee or IOC, Lausanne’s best known museum is the Olympic Museum, now double in size after a two-year renovation. The three-floor display first looks at the pageantry of the Olympic Games, displaying every torch used since 1896 and showcasing the elaborate structures cities created to constantly up the ante, like the Bird’s Nest Stadium built for the Beijing games. The second floor was my favorite, showing memorabilia from the games, like Jesse Owens running shoes from the ‘36 Games in Berlin, Michael Phelps swimsuit, Sergey Bubka’s pole vault, goalie Jim Craig’s jersey from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” game, Roger Federer’s racquet, Usain Bolt’s jersey, and Michael Johnson’s gold sneakers. The last floor, you can try your hand at shooting a gun in the biathlon, see the medals awarded at every Olympics (the Vancouver Winter Games medal were very stylish), and stand on the podium from the Sydney Games. 
 
There are two other museums in town that should not be missed. Collection de L’Art Brut is an art museum that rose to prominence from artist Jean Dubuffet’s wildly imaginative collection of art from outside the mainstream. Searching for purity in art, he collected naïve works, primitive works, and simply works by the insane or incarcerated. Many of the bios start the same way—said artist was abandoned by his father, raised in poverty by his mother, and ended up in a mental institution. The works are fascinating, like the whimsical paintings of the Lausanne-born artist, Aloïse, who imagined she was having an affair with an emperor. She would use rose petals, toothpaste, and crushed leaves to create her pairs of lovers. Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve would create masks entirely from shells. Other works are so detail oriented like the paintings of Augustin Lesage that it wasn’t much a stretch to think of the artist as mad. 
 
We were fortunate to be in Lausanne during their annual Night of Museums, when all the museums in town stay open until 1 am and folks crowd the streets strolling from museum to museum. We took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Fondation de l’Hermitage, a 19th-century estate on a hillside above town (not far from Coco Chanel’s and David Bowie’s former home) that specializes in 19th-century art. We toured the museum’s collection of European art, including works by Degas and Caillebotte, then entered a special exhibition on 19th-century American art, like the Hudson River School painters and the Luminists. Outside, the American theme continued as a DJ played old-school hip-hop like Grandmaster Flash and people danced. The museum was packed both inside and I was delighted to see numerous families checking out art until the wee hours of the morning. I would love my hometown of Boston to host a similar type of event! 
 
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A Soothing Day Surrounded by Lavender on the Outskirts of Toronto

Guest Post and Photo by Amy Perry Basseches 
 
I was intrigued when I read about a lavender farm right outside of Toronto, and, on a glorious summer afternoon, I visited Terre Bleu in Campbellville, Ontario. Talk about something lovely to look at…and it smells darn good too!! Owners Ian and Isabelle Baird moved from downtown Toronto with their young children when they were inspired to go back to their rural roots. They bought a hay and horse farm. Then, in 2011, they planted 10,000 lavender perennials. Today, the family runs the largest commercial lavender farm in Ontario, home to over 40,000 plants of eight varieties. Not only is there purple and green everywhere, but you wind through a short trail in a 200 year old cedar forest to see the back field. A musician was playing under a tent when I was there, and folks were lazing in Adirondack chairs listening, while sipping fresh lavender lemonade, or eating local lavender ice cream. Terre Bleu’s distillery for the production of premium essential oil uses traditional copper tools from Portugal and old European traditions. For sale at the farm are essential oils, lotions, soaps, dried bouquets, wreaths, shortbreads, cheese, macarons, and more. Naturally, I came away with some goodies. 
 
Peak time is from July to mid August. You can even take a yoga class right in the lavender field (10-11 am, most Saturdays and Sundays over the summer), which includes a “cooling face cloth scented with pure essential oil.” Isabelle Baird is a former Olympic Games competitor in the Triathlon. I wonder if she teaches the class? There’s also a “Zen Den” if you like to sit quietly in the woods with the scent of lavender in the air. Who wouldn’t?
 

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