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Switzerland, Caribbean Resort Openings, and the Adirondacks in August ActiveTravels Newsletter

In this month’s newsletter, we discuss our family trip to Switzerland in July, list a round-up of new and intriguing Caribbean resorts set to open this winter, introduce you to a fantastic way to create lasting souvenirs on your next trip with Flytographer, and happily write about one of our favorite places on the planet, the Adirondacks. We’re actually headed to Lake George next week after first visiting Ithaca and the Berkshires. I’ll be back on August 28th with new content. Thanks as always for checking in and keep active! 

 

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February Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

Not surprisingly, we booked quite a few trips to Tuscany last summer. The hotels that received rave reviews from our clients are featured in this month’s newsletter, “Eat, Play, Live!” You’ll also find a detailed description of Israel from our own family trip, a highly reputable outfitter from Croatia that we recommend, and why we believe Global Entry is better than TSA Precheck. 

 
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 members can have this library of information at their fingertips. We’re almost there. We’ve been working with web designers and we hope to be finished with this task by the end of the month. Simply type in your password and you’ll find close to 20 Quick Escapes to tempt you, or peruse our main feature, “News from the Road,” which tackles one region at a time, like Kenya, Turkey, or the Canadian Rockies.
 
I’m off to Jamaica for a much needed vacation, back on February 24th. Happy travels! 
 
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The Return of the High-Speed CAT Between Portland and Nova Scotia

Last June, I was fortunate to spend six days in Nova Scotia with my sister, Fawn. We took the Nova Star Ferry from Portland, Maine for the 11-hour crossing. The Nova Star ended its service last October and it was just announced last week that the much faster twin-hulled CAT would return, cutting time in half. The service will begin on June 15 and will depart Portland daily at 2:30 pm, arriving in Yarmouth at 9 pm. The ferry will depart from Yarmouth the next morning at 8 am, arriving back in Portland at 1:30 pm. The CAT will be able to carry some 700 passengers and 280 cars. I’ve been to Nova Scotia 3 times in the past 5 years, traveling from Yarmouth in the south all the way to Cape Breton in the north. It’s one of my favorite places to be in Canada, combining stunning scenery with incredibly fresh seafood and live foot-stomping music. I’m happy to design an itinerary of my favorite lodgings, restaurants, and activities for anyone who wants to take advantage of the current rate of exchange, US$1 to CAN$1.30. 

 
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Affordable European Flights Out Of Boston’s Logan Airport

This might be the summer to return to Europe, especially with the announcement last week that a number of low-cost airlines will soon start to offer flights from Boston’s Logan Airport. Thomas Cook Airlines will fly to Manchester, England, for as low as $312 one-way. AirBerlin will also begin offering flights to Dusseldorf, Germany. They join no-frills carriers like Norwegian Air and WOW, which started offering cheaper flights to Europe last summer. Adding to the fun is news that WestJet, the low-cost Canadian airline will soon offer flights to Halifax and Toronto. Time to take advantage of that favorable Canadian exchange rate?

 
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Blown Away in Chicago

The largest annual skydiving contest in the US, the USPA National Skydiving Championships, will return to Chicago from September 10 to 24. Located southwest of the city along the banks of the Fox River, Skydive Chicago will feature the world’s greatest skydivers competing for gold, silver, and bronze in five disciplines. They include formation diving, where teams of 4, 8, 10, and 16 skydivers create formations in the sky before opening their parachutes, and the freestyle artist event, where a jumper performs a graceful dance in freefall. All the championships are free and open to the public.
 

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Ice climb, Then Find Comfort at the Omni Mount Washington Resort

There’s a reason inn-to-inn bike and hike trips are growing in popularity. People love to have a day of adventure and then reward themselves with a night of fine food and pampering. That’s the premise behind Mount Washington Resort’s customized backcountry adventures. Steve Nichipor has been leading the intrepid on winter explorations of the Whites for two decades. Now he’s offering more adventurous guests the chance to partake in an introductory ice climb on the Bretton Woods property or tackle the legendary Frankenstein Cliff. Located in Crawford Notch State Park, Frankenstein Cliff attracts all levels of ice climbers, from beginners just learning to use their ice ax and crampons to experts who can climb up an iced-over waterfall like Spiderman. Then it’s back to the historic Mount Washington to rave about your experience over a four-course meal in the formal dining room, while listening to the pianist play Count Basie tunes. Cost of a semi-private tour with Nichipor is $185 per person, private tour at $275 per person. Rates at the resort start at $170 a night per room in winter.

 
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Older Women Who Lift Weights See Cognitive Benefits

There’s an interesting story in the latest Archives of Internal Medicine, which I read religiously (just kidding), that talks about a recent Canadian study involving older women. Over the course of a year, The University of British Colombia divided 155 women in the 65 to 75-year old range into three groups—resistance training (lifting weights, using weight machines, or doing squats and lunges) once a week, resistance training twice a week, and a Tai-Chi based balance and tone training twice a week. The results: cognitive scores for the women who went to resistance training twice weekly were up 12.6 percent, once weekly up 10.9 percent, while those who only did Tai Chi fell 0.5 percent. So start pumping the iron!
 

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