|

St. Lucia’s BodyHoliday Offers Three Yoga Retreats

St. Lucia wellness resort BodyHoliday, one of my favorite properties in the Caribbean, has unveiled the year’s lineup of Yoga Retreats. The weeklong programs, all led by the property’s wellness advisor Hollie Bailey, will include a range of yoga and meditation workshops, as well as spa treatments, and a hands-on cooking class. Participants will meet with Bailey at the beginning of their stay, or talk with a BodyHoliday specialist beforehand if they want to maximize their time at the resort, to plan the retreat and tailor it to the them. During the week, guests can attend a yoga workshop or nutrition talk every day, with classes covering areas like hatha yoga, anapana meditation, vinyasa and more. Outside of these central classes, the Yoga Retreats provide sunrise and sunset yoga sessions and a daily spa treatment (yes, one massage a day). After the program ends, the resort will also provide post-retreat support. Dates for the Yoga Retreats are October 5-12, October 12-19, and December 14-21. The all-inclusive cost is $4,830 per person. 

 

Similar Posts

|

The Taconic Introduces Adult Summer Camps

The latest addition to Kimpton Hotels in New England, the Taconic in Manchester, Vermont, has just announced an adults-only summer camp that takes full advantage of its locale. Offered during two sessions, June 23-26 and August 25-28, adults can participate in such activities as a guided hike in the Battenkill Valley, kayaking and tubing down the Battenkill River, a glassblowing class at Manchester Hot Glass, kite-making and flying at the Southern Vermont Arts Center, afternoon escapes to secret swimming holes in the area, a picnic lunch at Hildene, the Lincoln Family Home, and yoga on Taconic’s expansive lawn. Since this is an adults-oriented summer camp, also expect s’mores, scotch, and sing-alongs by the campfire. Your camp counselor will even deliver bugle wake-up calls and “lights out” warnings. The cost to attend Camp Taconic is $1,400 for one person or $2,100 per couple, which includes accommodations for 3 nights and all meals and activities.

 

Flights to Hawaii Now Offer Rapid Testing

Bike Maui at Sunrise In a move that will hopefully catch on with other airlines and destinations, United Airlines announced that they will offer rapid testing on flights from San Francisco to Hawaii. If the COVID test comes back negative, you are free to travel around Hawaii without a 14-day self-quarantine. Hawaiian Airlines quickly followed suit and is now offering the same rapid tests at San Francisco and Los Angeles airports. It would be wonderful if JetBlue and American start doing this for flights headed to the Caribbean and Central America, especially as we head into winter and demand for warm-weather destinations starts to increase. Bermuda, Turks & Caicos, and Belize are just a few of the destinations that requite a negative COVID test within 72 hours of arrival.

If interested in visiting Hawaii this winter and would like resorts and route recommendations, please let ActiveTravels know and we’ll give you the scoop.

|

Favorite Fall Foliage Walks In and Around Boston, Mt. Auburn Cemetery

It might sound macabre to hike through a cemetery, but Mt. Auburn is no ordinary burial ground. Opened in 1831, it is the first large-scale designed landscape in the country. Now a National Historic Landmark, the 174-acre arboretum is known for its peaceful strolls along ponds or in dense woodlands which boast more than 700 types of trees. Walk amidst the century-old sugar maples while you visit the graves of Winslow Homer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Isabella Stewart Gardner. The Friends of Mount Auburn offer guided walking tours during the fall. Visitors are welcome every day of the year from 8 am to 5 pm.

 
|

5 Favorite Travel Days in 2013, Wine Tasting at Cristom Vineyards, Dinner at Imperial, Oregon

I was recently snorkeling with a trucker in the Keys. When he heard I was a travel writer, he asked what my favorite state was. “Based on cruising?” I asked. He nodded. “Oregon,” I said. “Mine too,” he answered, and this is a guy who’s spent his entire life driving back and forth across the States. I’ve been fortunate to go on two phenomenal driving trips of Oregon with my brother, Jim. We first spent a week driving along the Oregon coast, dreaming of buying a second home in Yachats. This June, we returned to drive the interior. To be honest, every one of those days on that weeklong trip could easily make my Top 5 list of the year, from touring Hood River’s “Fruit Loop” with our friend Kirby Neumann-Rea to rafting the Imperial River to hiking along the rim of Crater Lake to biking around the campus of the University of Oregon. All was bliss. 

 
Yet, it’s hard to top drinking the latest batch of wine with one of your favorite winemakers, Steve Doerner at Cristom Vineyards, and then have dinner that evening in Portland at Vitaly Paley’s latest restaurant, Imperial. Jim and I both purchased a case of wine at Cristom, including sweet-talking Doerner to include six bottles of our beloved “Jessie Vineyard,” the last of which we just drank over New Year’s. Then we hightailed it from Salem to Portland for dinner at the James Beard-award winning chef’s new space on the ground floor of Hotel Lucia. We started with a simple plate of just-out-of-the-ocean Kumamoto and Tillamook Bay oysters, dipped in horseradish for spice. Perfection. Stan’s Charcuterie Plate, a sampling of pate, liver, and sausages, would make a Francophile weep with joy. In fact, Jim, just back from the Cannes Film Festival, said it was better than any of the pates he had in France. 
 
Oregon, we took far too long to return between trips. Jim and I won’t make that mistake again. 
 
|

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Dripping Sap

Maria von Trapp, the woman who inspired The Sound of Music, is no longer with us, but Trapp Family Lodge continues to flourish thanks to one of the finest cross-country networks in the northeast, comfy lodging perched on a hillside in Stowe, Vermont, the launch of their microbrewery, and a restaurant that serves a tasty wiener schnitzel. Mid to late March, during the heart of the maple sugaring season, is my favorite time of year to visit Trapps. When it comes to sugaring, the family does it the old fashion way, picking up the sap in buckets with a horse-drawn sleigh or via cross-country skis and delivering it to the sugarhouse to boil off the water and create Vermont’s “liquid gold.” The 1200 taps produce 300 gallons of syrup annually and the season lasts from mid-March until mid-April. Join in on the fun each Saturday, when you can cross-country ski, snowshoe, or grab that horse-drawn sleigh to the sugarhouse for a traditional Sugar-on-Snow party. The hot syrup is tossed on the white snow to create a chewy maple taffy, served with donuts and dill pickles. If you’re in the area tomorrow, March 13, Trapp Family Lodge will be offering a Maple Sugar Snowshoe Tour from 2 to 3:30 pm. Enjoy a 1.5-mile snowshoe through the woods, then learn about the process of making maple syrup at their sugarhouse. 

 
|

Nova Scotia Week, Finding the Heart of Cape Breton

Once on Cape Breton, most travelers make a beeline for the headlands of the National Park or the rugged coastline that drops precipitously into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But don’t make the mistake of missing the interior or what locals call the Highlands. Head to a sweet spot like Margaree River Valley and you’ll find a ring of rounded summits peering down on verdant pastures dotted with sheep, cattle, and sleek, dark French Canadian horses. You’ll also find the rolling waters of that legendary salmon fishing river, the Margaree, snaking though the spectacular scenery. This is the authentic Cape Breton, where you can spend a night at the classic Normaway Inn, have dinner from a chef who taught alongside Jacques Pepin at Manhattan’s French Culinary Institute, and then be treated to a foot-stomping fiddler concert every night from June through October. Last night in the Normaway’s library, I was fortunate enough to listen to a father and daughter play fiddle and guitar, while on piano, was the hotel’s housekeeper, who’s toured with Natalie MacMaster and Waylon Jennings. Here, in the heart of Ceilidh “kay-lee” country, it’s a good bet that your waiter or bellhop has played to a packed crowd and can dance the two-step, either in a nearby barn or in a packed concert hall. Seeing this threesome play last night in an intimate setting, stomping my foot and clapping my hands to the fast-moving fiddle, is one of those authentic travel experiences that I’ll remember years from now, when those rugged cliffs of Cape Breton have faded into the sea. 

 

Leave a Reply