10 Best Family Ski Resorts

One of the most exciting whitewater rafting runs in North America is a weeklong jaunt down the Chilko River in southwestern British Columbia. Take an hour seaplane flight from Vancouver to 4,000-foot high Chilko Lake. Then let the rollercoaster ride begin. You’ll cruise 130 miles, dropping 3,000 feet through a tumultuous blur of lava gorges and narrow chutes. Looming overhead are sloping carpets of forest and jagged peaks. And, on those rare moments when you slow down, you might find yourself staring at an eagle or grizzly. BC also stands for serious Bear Country, home to 12,000-plus grizzlies.
Guest Post by Lisa Leavitt
Kudos to the Mile High City for implementing the first bike-sharing program in the United States. Comparable to Paris, Amsterdam, and Montreal, you can pick up a shiny new red 3-speed Trek bike at any of the 40 stations around town and drop them off at another station. A 24-hour membership is $5 while a yearly membership will set you back $65. Simply pick up the bike at say the Colorado Convention Center and drop it off near the Denver Art Museum. From the Denver Art Museum, grab another bike and cruise to your hotel. Starting in June, the bikes will be equipped with RFID chips and computers to track mileage, calories burned, and carbon offsets. So you can monitor your fi
Head to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite National Park in summer and “forever wild” might feel more like “forever congested.” Come winter, these same parks are virtually uninhabited, almost returning to their original state. Cold weather can add a sense of wild enchantment—a layer of frost on the Canyon’s North Rim, icicles hang from Yosemite’s granite grandeur, the mixture of fresh snow and the briny Atlantic at Acadia. So grab your hiking boots, snowshoes, or cross-country skies and check out the country’s most scenic spots the way Muir and Abbey did, alone in their own private playground.
Best known for the Cape Cod National Seashore, Cape Cod is also riddled with more than 300 ponds. These freshwater swimming holes are hidden in the landscape, far from the crowds at the beach, and a joy to swim in on a hot afternoon. However, they are tricky to find. Unlike bay and ocean beaches, where signs point you in the right direction, towns on the Cape like to keep these warm freshwater locales a secret. Many of these ponds have limited resident-only (with requisite sticker) parking. Fortunately, they are near town centers, so you can grab a bike and go have a dip. For my top 10 favorite swimming holes on the Cape, replete with necessary directions, have a look at this story I penned for the Boston Globe.