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October Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

Having just returned from a glorious trip to the Lake Geneva region of Switzerland, it was an easy call to make that our feature story in the October newsletter. Brazil and Argentina are two of the most popular destinations for our clientele this winter, so it was a good time to talk about the excellent ground operator we work with in Brazil, AuroraEco. We also divulge four of our favorite resorts in the Caribbean, including Caneel Bay on St. John and the Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios. All are blissful retreats from an often harsh winter. In the Tried and True Travel Tips, I talk about finding restaurants on the road, an abridged version of a recent column I wrote for Men’s Journal. Lastly, we describe a great fall escape, the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, where the fall foliage is at its peak time of year. 

 
I’m off to Toronto where I’ll be reporting live all next week. Please follow along both here and on Twitter @ActiveTravels. Thanks, as always, for checking in! 
 

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Winslow Homer’s Studio Will Open to the Public in September

Winslow Homer’s still-standing studio on Prouts Neck, Maine will finally open to the public next month. It has been closed for renovations since 2006, when the Portland Museum of Art acquired the studio where Homer lived and painted many of his masterpieces from 1883 until his death. Several years ago, I wrote an article for Yankee Magazine about Homer’s years in Prouts Neck. You can reserve tickets to the studio through the Portland Museum of Art. To further celebrate the opening, the Portland Museum of Art will display 35 major oils and watercolors painted during Homer’s time at Prouts Neck in a show titled Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine. The exhibition will run from September 22 to December 30, 2012. Stay at one of my favorite stopovers in southern Maine, the Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth, a 15-minute drive from both Portland and Prouts Neck. The Inn by the Sea is featuring a "Seascapes Package" to coincide with the exhibition and studio opening. For $632, you receive two nights in a one-bedroom suite, two rum cocktails named for the artist, two tickets to the Weatherbeaten exhibition, a catalogue from the show, and full breakfast for two each morning. They can also help to arrange tours of the studio, which cost an additional $55 per person. 
 
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Kids Fly Free to Fiji

If you ever wanted to snorkel or scuba with the kids on Fiji’s legendary rainbow colored reef, or feel like venturing on a sea kayaking jaunt through the islands, now would be a good time. Air Pacific has just announced a “Kids Fly Free” program for travel from September 1, 2010 to February 28, 2011, with blackout dates over Christmas. One child flies free for each adult. I’ve been working as a travel writer for more than two decades and I have to say that Fiji is definitely in my Top 5 list of countries. The terrain is spectacular, but it’s the incredibly friendly and genuine people who really make the place. I’ve written about the islands extensively. Try these for starters.
 

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Kudos to Bruce at Lake Temagami’s Ojibway Family Lodge

We met Bruce at our first family-style dinner at Ojibway and instantly took a liking to his many stories about the lodge and the region. He had been coming to this exact spot since 1951 when he was a 10-year-old overnight camper from outside Detroit. Now living in Virginia Beach, he spends a little over a month each summer in his cabin on an island across from Ojibway to listen to waves lapping ashore, smell the sweet pine, watch the night sky, and explore the lake via canoe or motorboat. While Tanya and Louise are the consummate hosts who run Ojibway, Bruce is the unofficial guide. He said he’d take us on his boat to see some of this immense lake that first night and we thought he was just being friendly. But then he did just that on our last day, as we went out with him to one of his favorite spots in the northern part of the lake. We brought lunch made by the kitchen, drinks, and headed off. 

Bruce couldn’t have picked a more picturesque spot, where large slabs of rock spill off an island into a small inlet that was ideal for swimming. But before we landed, Bruce stopped, turned off the motor, and said, “this is where we stop to breathe, not say a word, and relax for the next 10 minutes or so.” And that’s what we did, listened to the wind whistle through the tall trees, and meditated. Then we went and had lunch, swam in those refreshing waters, and enjoyed a lovely afternoon. I wish every property I visited had a Bruce, someone who knows the land like the back of his hand and is genuinely passionate about sharing his joy of being there. 
 
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Adventures in the Everglades

The best way to tackle the immensity of the 1,506,539-acre Everglades National Park is to take it in chunks.  At Shark Valley Visitor Center at the northern tip of the Everglades, rent bikes from the rangers and get ready for one of the most exhilarating 15-mile loops of your life. More than likely, it will take you an hour to bike that first mile. That’s because you’ll want to stop every 20 yards to get another photograph of an alligator sleeping in the tall grass, large turtles sunbathing on rocks, and the extraordinary amount of birdlife that call the canal next to the bike trail home. Anhingas dry their wings on the branches of the gumbo limbo tree, wood storks, white whooping cranes, and the long-legged great blue heron stand tall in the shallow water, while pink roseate spoonbills fly over the royal palms. Or canoe a stretch of the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway from Everglades City to Flamingo as you paddle though mangrove swamps and creeks to the deserted white beaches of anonymous cays. If the canoe starts to rock, slap your paddle firmly against the water. This usually scares off alligators and those doe-eyed West Indian manatees. 
 

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Check Out the April 2018 ActiveTravels Newsletter

Not surprisingly, Italy is once again the top summer destination for our members, with Spain, Greece, Portugal, Scotland, and Iceland not far behind. Bike or drive through the rolling foothills of Tuscany along the Arno River and you quickly understand why Italy continues to seduce. You’ll stop to taste wine from local vineyards, olive oil from orchards, and walk on the cobblestone streets of medieval villages like Cortona, where Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed. Add requisite stops in Venice, Florence, and Rome, the dreamy landscapes of the Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre, and Capri, and the growing popularity of Sicily and Puglia and you begin to realize why Italy keeps us busy year-round.
 
We work with a number of wonderful Italy-based tour operators who will custom-design your private trip based on your interests, be it food and wine, biking and hiking, arts and culture, history, or all of the above. They will take care of all the logistics including lodging, transfers, and activities. We also book a number of guided trips, when our clients love to leave all the worries to someone else so they can sit back, relax, take in the sights, and make new friends. In this month’s issue of the ActiveTravels newsletter, we select five group trips our clients have loved. We also talk about Medawisla, the newly revamped lodge run by the Appalachian Mountain Club in the remote Maine woods, and remind you of the benefits of booking with a travel agent. Please have a look! 
 
I’m off to Saratoga, Valley Forge, and Philadelphia next week to pen a story for Chevrolet’s New Roads Magazine on a driving trip to Revolutionary War sites. I’ll be back on May 7th. Have a great week and keep active! 
 
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REI Adventures Across the Globe

Most people know REI as a place to purchase all their outdoor garb and equipment. Few active travelers realize the Seattle-based company also has been offering human-powered outdoor adventures since 1987. Rated on a scale of one (relaxed) to five (strenuous), these guided trips are far more reasonably priced compared to their competition. They just came out with their list of 2011 trips, which include a 10-day jaunt biking around Portugal and Spain to hiking in Utah’s Arches & Canyonlands National Parks to four days of mountain biking in the Sonoran Desert (only $675 including camping equipment, bike rentals, and most meals).
 

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