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Make a List, Check it Twice: Set Your Travel Goals for 2014

December is the month most of us set aside time to create a list of goals for the following year. I would urge you to add the destinations you want to visit to that lengthy list. I know, it might seem silly to add something as frivolous as travel to your lofty aspirations, but give me a minute to explain. By creating a list of locales you want to definitely visit in the upcoming year, if not the next 1-3 years, you’ll be assured of finally going to those countries and cities on your wish list. No longer will they be dreams, but a reality. Perhaps even more important, by being organized about where and when you want to go, we can book flights and hotels months in advance, saving you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. For example, a client came to us in November to book flights over Christmas to Buenos Aires. Round-trip airfare was over $3,000! If they had given us six months lead time, the price of airfare would be cut in half. Yes, it’s exhilarating to be spontaneous when it comes to travel, but realize that you pay a hefty price. 
 
Hopefully, an Alaskan cruise is on your wish list for next summer. That’s our lead story in our December newsletter. Other topics include hotels we recommend in Madrid, a weekend escape to Woodstock, Vermont, an outfitter known for their walking vacations, and the numerous options available when traveling with your extended family or a large group of friends. 
 
Wishing You All a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2014! I’m taking a much-needed break from blogging and will be back on January 6 with my top travel days in 2013.
 
 
 

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What’s New in New England Skiing

Just in case you missed my blog for Liftopia last week, here’s the scoop on what’s new at New England ski areas. With an additional $43 million of improvements for the 2013/2014 ski season, Jay Peak once again leads the pack with regards to changes in the region. Over the past three years, the northern Vermont ski resort has spent more than $200 million to build the 176-room Hotel Jay, open the largest indoor waterpark in Vermont, and add an indoor skating rink for ice skating and hockey games. New this year is the Stateside Hotel and base lodge with restaurants and locker rooms, a rental center, 84 new mountain cottages, and a complete revamping of the resort’s entrance.
 
Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros, owners of Jay Peak, purchased nearby Burke Mountain in 2012. Expect to find a flurry of changes at Burke over the next two years. Phase I (a $98 million investment) will see construction of two hotels modeled after the lodgings at Jay Peak, including the 116-suite Hotel Burke.
 
Killington plans to unveil their $7 million Peak Lodge this December. Sitting atop the highest lift-served peak in Vermont, at 4,100 feet, Peak Lodge will feature exquisite views of the snow-capped Green Mountains. Killington has also teamed up with Okemo, Pico, and Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire to offer a new season pass, “4.0 The College Pass.” Available to all undergraduate and graduate students for $369 plus tax through December 15, 2013, The College Pass will offer unlimited skiing and boarding at all four resorts. If you plan on skiing Okemo, check out their new 2,200-feet long intermediate glade. 
 
The big news in New Hampshire skiing this year comes from Waterville Valley, which was just granted a long-term special use permit by U.S. Forest Service to undergo its first major expansion in more than three decades. Over the next few years the terrain will be developed on Green Peak, and will include construction of about 44 acres of ski trails, glades and a high-speed detachable quad chairlift. This summer in Henniker, Pats Peak installed a new triple chairlift as part of their Cascade Basin Expansion. The new area consists of 4 new ski trails as well as a new glade. Over at Bretton Woods, further expansion was completed at the recently opened Mount Stickney area. Nordic terrain was added offering cross-country skiers early and late season snow at higher elevations. 
 
See you on the slopes! 
 
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Don’t Miss the Women Modernists Show at Norton Museum of Art

On our last day in Florida, we made the wise move to drive the convertible to the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach. As luck would have it, a new exhibition had just opened, “Women Modernists in New York,” showcasing the works of four friends from the 1920s and 30s, Marguerite Zorach, Helen Torr, Florine Stettheimer, and the best known of the quartet, Georgia O’Keeffe. I’ve never been a big fan of Zorach’s work, a little too primitive and naïve for me. But the exhibition became intriguing in the next gallery focusing on the works of Helen Torr. Torr was Arthur Dove’s wife, and while the art world was reaping accolades on her adoring husband, they were ridiculing the work of Torr (and, for that matter, most work by women artists at the time). Her charcoals of still lifes are wonderful, but most striking were Torr’s two self-portraits where you can see in those sorrowful eyes the world beating down on her. The next room was a delight, a sampling of works by Florence Stettheimer. On one wall she painted herself and her two sisters wearing garb straight out of a Charleston dance, reclining as if they were sitting on chaise lounge chairs. It’s no wonder one of her works recently sold at auction for $4.5 million. Her joie de vivre and sheer ebullience radiates throughout the room. Thankfully her sister dismissed her request to destroy all her works of art upon her death. 
 
O’Keeffe, of course, is the star of the show. One glance at her vibrant palette in “Red Maple at Lake George” (1926) and I was immediately transported back to my boyhood stomping grounds. But the Norton Museum scored a real coup by getting the National Gallery of Art to part with their series of six Jack-in-the-Pulpit canvases, where O’Keeffe reduces the hyper-sensualized flower down to its abstract parts. I could have stared at this wall for hours, but had to catch a flight back to Boston. If you’re in South Florida at any point until May 15th, do yourself a favor and see this show. If you want to read a manuscript of the story I originally wrote for Art & Antiques Magazine on O’Keeffe’s years in Lake George with her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, please email me at Steve@ActiveTravels.com. 
 
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Austin Adventures Offers Mother/Daughter Hiking Trip to Zion and Bryce

Austin Adventures recently announced the wise decision of making Kasey Austin president of the company. I had the pleasure of traveling with Kasey and her dad, Dan, founder of Austin Adventures on a fantastic trip to the peaks surrounding Colorado Springs in 2015. I’m happy to announce that one of Kasey’s first moves as president is creating more multisport trips for women, including a 6-day mother/daughter group trip to Zion and Bryce August 23-28, 2020. Cost is $2898 per person, double occupancy. Other women-only trips include hiking in the Canadian Rockies September 6-11 and a multisport adventure to Peru and Machu Picchu September 12-20. ActiveTravels is happy to check availability and help with airfare and lodging/route before or after your adventure.

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Explora Opens Their First Resort in Peru

On the rugged mountain slopes northwest of Cusco, the Sacred Valley is a beautiful stretch of small villages and ancient ruins spread across a broad plain. The Incas built several of the empire’s greatest estates, temples, and royal palaces between Cusco and Machu Picchu, positioned like great bookends at the south and north ends of the valley. Along with Cusco and Machu Picchu, the Valle Sagrado is one of the highlights of Peru and is really beginning to take off as a destination on its own, rather than just an add-on to Cusco or Machu Picchu. Now it’s home to the latest Explora hotel. I know this resort brand well, having stayed at the first Explora hotel in Torres del Paine, Chile, on assignment for Town & Country magazine. I remember staring out my bathroom window onto the majestic “Horns,” twisted rock formations that rise dramatically from the Patagonian steppe. Daily outdoor excursions are included in the price of a room, so you always have a guide by your side. It’s a worthy addition to the Peruvian landscape, on par with the luxury Inkaterra properties. 

 
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Africa Week—CroisiEurope Cruise in Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe

Not surprisingly, Lisa met many travel advisors at the We Are Africa conference in Utah who specialize only in African travel. Several of those advisors mentioned to Lisa that the best trip they ever took in Africa was aboard a unique river cruise with the European river cruise company, CroisiEurope. You start in Jo’Burg before flying to Chobe National Park in Botswana, where you’ll board small boats to cruise the elephant-rich waters of the Chobe River. Then you’ll fly to Kariba in northern Zimbabwe and board the African Queen for a 3-day cruise across Lake Kariba to see the lions, giraffes, rhinos, and leopards of Matusadona National Park. The icing on the cake is one last flight to see Victoria Falls and cruise the Zambezi River to say hi to the hippos. Pricing of this 9-day itinerary starts at $6528 per person and includes all lodging, meals, and the Jo’Burg to Kasane, Botswana flight (gateway to Chobe National Park). Let ActiveTravels know your dates and we’ll check availability and pricing. We’ll also help with international flights and design an itinerary for Cape Town and Jo’Burg before or after your trip. 
 
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Lapa Rios Signs 900-Acre Conservation Easement

At the southernmost coast of that ecotourism hub, Costa Rica, a 1040-acre rainforest called the Lapa Rios preserve perches over the Pacific Ocean, offering the best of both worlds. You can spend the morning hiking along the Carbonera River to a pristine waterfall, accompanied by four types of monkeys, macaws, and those rainbow-colored toucans. In the afternoon, sea kayak in the ocean around Matapalo Point or surf the Golfo Dulce. The 16 open-air bungalows and main lodge of the Lapa Rios Ecolodge are no tent-in-the-woods accommodation. Hardwood floors, bamboo walls, and a vaulted thatched roof ceiling provide plenty of space and privacy. Other luxuries include soft mosquito netting over the queen-sized bed and a secluded garden shower.  
 
Former Peace Corp volunteers Karen and John Lewis built the retreat in 1990 as a way to save hundreds of acres of rainforest from farming. The owners have just signed a conservation easement that protects over 900 acres of land surrounding Lapa Rios in perpetuity. It prohibits all extractive activities, such as mining, forestry and hunting, as well as further building expansion, even putting a cap on trail construction. At the same time the easement encourages both scientific and educational activities on the reserve. All those monkeys and birds that wake you up in the morning are a tribute to their brilliant success. 
 

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