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Summer Family Package at Amanyara

Singapore-based Amanresorts group has announced that their lone Caribbean property, 

Amanyara in the Turks and Caicos, will unveil a new family package this summer called 
“Season of Discovery.” Visit the property from June 1 to October 31 and book the 
Two-Bedroom Pool Pavilion Suite or Villa and you’ll be entitled to slew of family-friendly offerings:
 
• private family movie night in Amanyara’s screening room, complete with popcorn and canapés
• guided family snorkeling trip
• family eco-hike with a resident naturalist from Amanyara’s Nature Discovery Centre
• tailor-made, naturalist-led daily program for kids at the Nature Discovery Centre
• Special poolside ice cream social around guests’ private suite or villa pools. 
 
All rates include breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and families who book a 
stay of four nights in any pavilion, suite or villa category will receive a fifth night free.
 
 

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Top 5 Travel Experiences of 2012, An Architectural Tour of Buffalo

Friends laughed when I mentioned that I was headed to Buffalo last July, before dropping my son off at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. “Not exactly Paris, huh?” Little did they realize that the city was undergoing a cultural renaissance, rehabbing many of the architectural wonders that Buffalo is blessed with. In the early 1900s, the affluent community, rich with Erie Canal commerce, helped persuade Louis J. Sullivan, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Frank Lloyd Wright to come to town to create skyscrapers, parks, and estates. 

 
Wright’s Darwin Martin House (1905), rivaled only by Fallingwater in scope and mastery among his residences, just completed a 10-year, $50 million renovation. This includes the renovation of a conservatory and carriage house, linked to the main house via a 100-foot long pergola. This was my third tour of a Wright house, include Taliesen West, and was by far the most impressive. 
 
I also checked out the former Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, a castle-like assemblage of 14 buildings designed by H.H. Richardson in the late 1800s. The gothic-looking towers have been rebranded the Richardson Olmsted complex and will soon become a boutique hotel and center for architecture. Other noteworthy stops include Louis J. Sullivan’s 13-story 1895 Guaranty Building, the first skyscraper in America, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, considered one of the finest collections of modern art in the country.
 
To top it off, the food was exceptional. On the first night we had inspired Polish fare at Bistro Europa, including pierogies and golabki, stuffed cabbage that would make my grandmother proud. The second night, we dined at the spanking new Mike A’s Steakhouse in a downtown building that was dormant the past 40 years. Saved by Buffalo’s favorite son, developer Rocco Termini, the circa-1904 Lafayette Hotel has reclaimed its French Renaissance and Art Deco glamour and is now a boutique hotel with a vintage bar. 
 
From the Saturday morning farmers market to Shakespeare at Delaware Park, the city was energized and proud locals were having the last laugh. 
 
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New at ActiveTravels

Today marks my 400th blog entry. To all of my subscribers, I want to thank you for sticking with me. To everyone else, you can simply go through the list of categories on the home page to find biking, green travel, lodging, family adventure, and many more topics that interest you. In the upcoming month, I’ll be updating the Go Play section of the website to include much more content on the outdoors from previously published articles that will be useful as a reference for any upcoming trip. I’ve also started to add video to my YouTube page and I’m working on a Facebook fan page that will be updated often. You can also follow me on Twitter at @ActiveTravels and visit Everett Potter’s Travel Report, where I’m a weekly contributor. Thanks again for checking in!
 

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This Summer, Book a Maine Windjammer Sail

Last summer, I made the wise choice to sail on the Schooner Mary Day with my daughter, Melanie, before she left for her first year of college at Indiana University. We had a glorious trip dining on all the lobster we could stomach on a deserted island off the mid-Maine coast, spotting harbor porpoises, lonely lighthouses, and making new friends around the country as we hoisted sails and sucked in as much salty air as necessary. This comes on the heels of two memorable sails aboard the Grace Bailey with my dad and his wife Ginny. 

A question I’m always asked is where does a travel writer go for downtime? For me, I’ll jump on one of these historic schooners any chance I get. The Maine Windjammer Association is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Do yourself a favor and book a sail. It’s the best way to see the rugged shoreline and tall timbers of the Maine coast. New themed cruises include Sail Boston Tall Ship Festival (American Eagle & Angelique), Yoga and Wellness (Victory Chimes & Angelique), Beers of the Maine Coast (Mary Day), and Acadia National Park Cruises (Isaac H. Evans & Heritage). Back by popular demand: Beer and Bluegrass (Ladona), Foodie Cruises (Ladona & Stephen Taber), Kayaking Tours (Lewis R. French), Wine Tasting (Stephen Taber, Ladona, Angelique), and Knitting (Isaac H. Evans). 
 
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Biking Reykjavik

With its magical mix of volcanoes, glaciers, waterfalls, geysers, rugged coastline, green meadows, and geothermal spas like the acclaimed Blue Lagoon, it’s no wonder that Iceland has become a popular destination for our clientele. It’s also an easy 5-hour flight from the East Coast and a free stopover on Icelandair to other European destinations like Stockholm, Copenhagen, or Barcelona. So there’s no excuse not to check it out. I just spent a week in the country and had a great time. My first outing was a morning bike ride with Reykjavik Bike Tours to get an overview of the city where two-thirds of the Iceland’s population of 330,000 resides. 

 
We biked past one of Reykjavik’s signature buildings, the recently built Harpa Concert Hall, a gleaming glass building that reflects both sky and water. Then we cruised into the heart of the city on cobblestone streets to one of the most historic neighborhoods, simply called 101. At the Parliament Building, we learned about Iceland’s 2008 bankruptcy and their historic vote not to pay off their debt to the UK. “Instead of cash, we gave them ash,” said our guide, referring to the volcanic ash disruption of international flights in 2010. We stopped at one of the 120 outdoor pools in the city, open year-round and heated by the abundant thermal energy. We also biked past Bjork’s modest home and pedaled through the University of Iceland’s campus, home to 17,000 students, 70% of whom are women (note to son: this is the school where you want to spend your semester abroad). 
 
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ActiveTravels, Home to the New England Dream Day Itinerary

Travel and Leisure just came out with their 50 Best Places to Travel in 2020, and much to our delight, Boston popped up at Number 10 and Maine at Number 29. If you’re thinking of a Boston and New England trip in 2020, we’ll happily design a route and point you in the right direction. Since ActiveTravels made its debut in 2012, we have designed more than 100 itineraries for clients headed to New England from all over America and the world (including New Zealand, the UK, Switzerland, and Israel). We send clients all over the globe, but New England is our area of expertise. I wrote more than 400 travel stories on New England for The Boston Globe and Yankee Magazine, and authored Outside Magazine’s Adventure Guide to New England. Depending on your passions, we can customize our Dream Day Itineraries for wildlife lovers (moose, whales, seals, beavers, and loons), active travelers (biking past 5 lighthouses in Portland, hiking to waterfalls in the White Mountains, paddling the Allagash River), foodies (James Beard award winning restaurants and favorite lobster-in-the-rough joints in Boston, Portsmouth, Portland, and the Maine coast), or art lovers (MFA, the Clark, Mass MoCA, the Farnsworth). We’ll divulge all of our secrets, especially the most scenic off-the-beaten-path driving routes. 

 
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Rob Barbour Leads Trip to Ethiopia

In March 2015, I had the privilege of traveling with Rob Barbour around northern Tanzania, with stops in Arusha and Arusha National Park, the southern Amboseli plains, Mwiba Wildlife Reserve, Ngorongoro Crater, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Kusini Camp in the southern Serengeti, the Grumeti Wildlife Reserve, and the Lamai section of the northern Serengeti, where the legendary wildebeest migration takes place across the Mara River. Rob not only serves as director of African operations for the safari operator, Epic Private Journeys, but he’s a native Tanzanian who formerly owned his own lodges in Lamai and Ruaha National Park in southern Tanzania. It seems like every restaurant, hotel, and airport stop we made, he ran into an old friend. What was invaluable to me was the wealth of information he shared on taking a safari in Africa, knowledge accumulated over a lifetime. 

 
Now Rob is taking his expertise to Ethiopia, April 15-28, 2018. The 14-day adventure involves a range of accommodation styles and modes of transport, including trekking in the high plateaus of the Simien Mountains and the Bale Mountains. Ethiopia offers a diverse cultural experience from the Coptic Christians and medieval rock hewn churches in the north to the remote tribes of the Omo Valley. The country is also home to incredible wildlife including endangered Ethiopian wolves, Bale monkeys, Geladas and the Walia Ibex. Please contact ActiveTravels for pricing if interested. 
 

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