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April Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

Besides being on call when mishaps happen and earning the chance to win free hotel stays, another integral part of an ActiveTravels membership is our monthly newsletter. These stories are not the usual travel fluff you see in magazines. They’re first-hand insightful commentary curated from over 20 years of being a travel writer. Or a topical news peg like an intriguing new resort that comes across our desk. Since we started ActiveTravels, we have been churning out these monthly newsletters hoping to inspire your travels. One of our long-term goals was to categorize each of our headings, so you can have this library of information at your fingertips. We’re happy to report that it’s now available on our website. Simply type in your password and you’ll find more than 15 Quick Escapes, ideal for a weekend getaway. Or check out our main feature, “News from the Road,” which tackles one region at a time, like the Greek Isles, Kenya, French Polynesia, or the Canadian Rockies. 

 
Hopefully, we inspired you to travel this month with our feature story in the April issue on Bermuda, hotels we recommend in Prague, a Quick Escape to Portsmouth, and a new website that allows you to reserve flights for extended periods of time without full payment. 
 
Happy Travels!
 
Steve and Lisa 
 

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Providence Features Children’s Film Festival

No need to wait for the next WaterFire to return to Providence. Over February break (February 13-22), the city is hosting its fifth annual Children’s Film Festival. Close to 20 films will be shown at three different venues around town. The impressive line-up includes the French Academy Award nominee, “Ernest and Celestine,” Harold Lloyd’s classic silent film, “Safety Last,” and a movie Roger Ebert called one of the five best films ever made for children, the Japanese animated flick, “My Neighbor Totoro.” March 20 brings the return of Gallery Night. From 5 to 9 pm, buses and curators will bring you to the city’s 26 galleries to talk about the latest art. Tours leave every 20 minutes. While in town, check out North, which Boston Globe food critic, Devra First, called one of her favorite restaurants in 2013. The innovative Southeast Asian fare includes mussels, drunken and stirred, and flounder with golden oyster mushrooms. We recommend spending the night at our favorite property in town, Hotel Providence, an 80-room boutique hotel smack dab in the center of town. 

 
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Riu Palace Peninsula Week—The Dining

Each morning at the Riu Palace Peninsula, I strolled over to the large breakfast buffet at Las Olas restaurant, which included an omelet station, French toast, bacon, sausage, yogurt, cereals, and fresh fruit including small sweet bananas and papayas. Food in hand, I walked over to one of the outdoor tables to enjoy breakfast with a sea breeze and a pot of strong Mexican coffee. For lunch, I would head to the Italian restaurant, Venecia, just off the lobby. They offer a salad bar, pizza, grilled fish, and pasta choices. No reservations are necessary. I also enjoyed my mid-afternoon latte at the stylish coffee bar, Capuchino. 
 
Reserve in advance to dine at one of the four specialty restaurants. My favorite dishes included the tender Chilean sea bass at the fusion restaurant, Krystal; the large cut of rib eye at the steakhouse, Isla Mujeres; the wok pan-fried grouper with shitake mushrooms at Kabuki Japanese restaurant; and the tequila-flambéed prawns at Tamales, the Mexican restaurant. 
 
It’s been a fun week in Cancun, but it’s back to the frigid temperatures for me, with stops in Chicago, New York, and Presque Isle, Maine. I’ll return on January 7th with my Top 5 Travel Experiences of 2012. Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!
 
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Bald Eagles Return to Litchfield Hills, Connecticut

This is the time of year when bald eagles make their annual pilgrimage to the Shepaug Dam on the Housatonic River in Southbury, Connecticut. When their fishing grounds freeze over further north, these majestic birds head to the dam, where the turbulent waters prevent freezing and push fish to the surface for easy pickings. Everyone is invited to view these graceful creatures whose wingspans often reach 7 feet at the Eagle Observation Area near the Shepaug Housatonic Hydroelectric Station. An organized eagle watch takes place every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 9 am to 1 pm through March 12. Admission is free but space is limited and reservations are required. In addition to eagle viewing, Connecticut Audubon will host a birds of prey show on Saturdays throughout the viewing season. 

 
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Now’s the Time to Visit Zion National Park




With winter daytime temperatures in the mid-50s, Utah’s Zion National Park is a coveted off-season secret with hikers. The red and amber canyon walls that form a tower of massive rock is usually blanketed by snow at higher elevations (7,000 to 9,000 feet). Down at the 4,000-foot high Park Headquarters, however, all you’ll need is a decent pair of boots. Flurries rarely make it to these lower heights. A good warm-up near headquarters is the 2-mile round-trip Watchman Trail. Climbing to a plateau near the base of a twisted monolith, the trail offers views of lower Zion Canyon, the Towers of the Virgin, and West Temple formations. Far more impressive is a hike in the Narrows where you walk in the Virgin River through a 1,000-foot-deep-chasm that’s a mere 20 feet wide. You’ll need a wet suit and booties because of the cool water temperatures, but that’s a small price to pay to have this monster slot to yourself. If you have your heart set on cross-country skiing, head to the rarely visited Kolob section of Zion. Pinnacles project out of the high mesa floor that, at 7,000 feet, is covered with snow.  


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Oil Spill Hits the Great Barrier Reef

As if the Great Barrier Reef didn’t have enough problems! Dr. Charlie Veron, the former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, recently warned that the Great Barrier Reef will be “in tatters” by 2030, the result of global warming and rising sea temperatures. In fact, the Zoological Society of London feels the future of coral reefs is so bleak, they recently announced a plan to freeze samples in liquid nitrogen. Now comes news that a Chinese oil tanker slammed into the reef at top speed on April 3rd. The tanker has already leaked about two tons of oil, resulting in a three kilometer slick that could take years to clean up. Marine conservationists are particularly worried about turtles since it’s hatching season. What a way to be born into the world. Australian authorities have charged the captain for veering out of the shipping lane and running into the reef, but the damage is already done.
 

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Abercrombie & Kent Week—Our Wonderful Botswana Guide, Kebby Arabang

On safari, you have the choice of booking a lodge and going out on game drives with their respective guides or hiring a highly reputable tour operator like Abercrombie & Kent who will assign a private guide to your group for the duration of the trip. Obviously, there’s an extra cost involved, but if you’re splurging for this amazing opportunity, it’s important to do it right. Lodge guides I’ve had in the past have been hit or miss, depending on their knowledge of flora and fauna and communication skills in English. The guide A&K assigned to us on our travels to Botswana this past week was exceptional. 

Botswana-born Kebby Arabang met us at the airport in Maun, the gateway to the Okavango Delta, and escorted us the next 9 days through the northern tier of the country and onward to Zimbabwe and Zambia. His knowledge of the outdoor world was encyclopedic. Kebby knew every mammal, every bird, every tree, even the planets in the sky above. But it was his genuine passion of the subject, seamless communication skills, infectious smile and sense of humor that made him one of the best guides I’ve ever met. I loved mimicking his Botswana accent, especially when he emphasized the letter r when naming the next exquisite bird like the lilac-breasted roller or southern carmine bee-eater. He took it in stride and laughed along with me, even when the joke lasted far too long. He’s also a talented photographer recently asked by a publisher on vacation to create a book from his work. One of my favorite parts of Kebby’s background is that he spent a year working at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando. When people asked where the giraffes were, he would simply say “up the stairs and to the right.” Now Kebby’s the one reaching as high as those giraffes, climbing the ladder of success as he’s become one of the top guides in Botswana, arguably the best place on the planet for going on safari. I look forward to sending clients his way. 
 

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