Top 5 Travel Experiences of 2012, Hiking the Skyline Trail, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
The landscape of Cape Breton is a mesmerizing mix of rolling summits, precipitous cliffs, high headlands, sweeping white sand beaches, and glacially carved lakes, all bordered by the ocean. The Cabot Trail is a road that hugs the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the rugged northwestern edge of Nova Scotia, where around every bend you want to pull over, spew expletives of joy at the stupendous vista, and take another snapshot. Indeed, it’s as close to Big Sur as the East Coast gets. Add bald eagles, moose, coyotes, and pilot whales fluking in the nearby waters and you want to leave the car behind and soak it all up on two legs.
In early October, I visited Cape Breton and sampled one of the most popular trails, Skyline, a 5.7-mile loop atop the ridge of a coastal headland. I took deep breaths of the sweet pines as I meandered over the roots and rocks on the grassy path. Eventually, the trail snakes to the left offering expansive views of the sea. At the halfway point, a boardwalk leads down the headland and wow, what a majestic stroll it is. To the left is a backbone of peaks, to the right is all ocean as far as the eye can see. I sat down on a bench and bit into my honeycrisp apple, watching a whale spout. It was hard to leave, but after having my fill, I made my way back on the loop. Within minutes, I was staring at a mother moose and her calf. No surprise that the Skyine made my top 5 list in 2012!
If you’ve been following this blog over the years, you know I cherish the rare wilderness experience found in Maine’s northern woods. To get lost in this vast land of tall pines, 4,000-foot peaks, and far too many waterways to count, where moose tend to outnumber humans, is an unparalleled experience in the northeast. As part of the Maine Woods Initiative, which I first wrote about for 
Already on a high from meeting 85-year-old Jimmy Russell, the master distiller at Wild Turkey the past 65 years, I took to the backcountry roads and was soon smitten by the scenery. My trusty Waze led me through fields of Kentucky bluegrass shimmering under the midday Autumn sun, graceful and strong thoroughbred horses roaming the hillside, and a maze of white picket fences that seem to meander haphazardly toward the horizon. I pull over under the shade of a maple and its last tinges of colorful foliage and take it all in, gulping deep breaths of serenity, before continuing on to my next distillery stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. 
If you missed 
I started writing this blog a little over a year ago, with readership and interest steadily growing. I know you have lots of options to read travel content on the web, so I want to personally pat you on the back and say thank you! My goal the next several months is to expand ActiveTravels to include much more of my travel content in the Go Play section, to be used as a reference. But that will have to wait until early August. I’m on assignment the next 22 of 31 days, traveling to Cape Cod, Maine, New Brunswick, Paris, and the UK. I’m gone so much that I’ve decided to give myself time off next week. So enjoy the 4th of July holiday and come back the week of July 12th when I’ll be divulging my Top 5 Wallet-Friendly Ways to Get Wet and Wild. 
For those of you in the region, I’ll be leading a panel at the 
Once home to the villa where author Ian Fleming wrote all 14 of his James Bond novels,
I also hiked the Skyline in early June of 2012, and had the experience of seeing a moose and calf as well. They were behind us, and we would have missed them if not for the sound of a snapping twig. One of my favourite moments of that trip was the Skyline Trail (and the moose). 🙂
Thanks for sharing, Danielle! Great to see that someone agrees with me.