THIS week we’ve got great TV and theatre, an inspiring exhibition and a treat from the National Trust
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Saturday, January 31, 2015
Tate Modern, Dinefwr Castle, The Casual Vacancy: The best things to do this week
THIS week we’ve got great TV and theatre, an inspiring exhibition and a treat from the National Trust
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Best of British: Top weekend getaways in the UK
TRY some home-grown hospitality for perfect weekend getaways
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Ebola outbreak: BA and Whitehall pushed to restart direct flights to virus-hit countries
The Government and British Airways are under pressure from politicians and charities to restart direct flights between the UK and Ebola-ravaged Sierra Leone and Liberia.
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Robin Leach's Most Expensive Vegas Attractions of 2015
Who better than Robin Leach to take you inside the exclusive world of the SUPER RICH? See how the "other half" lives in Las Vegas without spending a dime! #LuxeVegas takes you inside the glamorous and luxurious spending habits of the uber wealthy!
#LUXEVEGAS is produced by A. Christal Production. Want more #LUXEVEGAS? Check out #LUXEVEGAS on YouTube, part of The HooplaHa Network!
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Watch A Man In A Wingsuit Fly Over The Pyramids Of Giza
Ancient wonder, meet modern daredevil.
Cedric Dumont toured the Pyramids of Giza Thursday by air, flying in a wingsuit for a view that many tourists and history buffs would envy.
Dumont's stunt had to be cleared with Egypt's defense department, sponsor Red Bull noted, but it was well worth the effort.
"Flying over the pyramids has such a mystical and unmatched energy, one of the most incredible flights I have ever performed," Dumont told Red Bull.
The Belgian said on his website that adventure sport "takes me to amazing places."
We'll say.
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Cedric Dumont toured the Pyramids of Giza Thursday by air, flying in a wingsuit for a view that many tourists and history buffs would envy.
Dumont's stunt had to be cleared with Egypt's defense department, sponsor Red Bull noted, but it was well worth the effort.
"Flying over the pyramids has such a mystical and unmatched energy, one of the most incredible flights I have ever performed," Dumont told Red Bull.
The Belgian said on his website that adventure sport "takes me to amazing places."
We'll say.
from Travel - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1zlIMA8
7 Explorers Name The Most Beautiful Place They've Ever Seen
Looking for travel inspiration? We've been asking fascinating people -- Pulitzer Prize-winners, world champion athletes, entrepreneurs, artists, and more -- to share the greatest travel journeys of their lives.
New Guinea
Scientist and author Jared Diamond, who won the Pulitzer Prize for "Guns, Germs, and Steel," is emphatic: "The most beautiful, exciting place in the world is New Guinea, with no close seconds. This is not my opinion, this is objective fact."
Here's his case: "Within this island, you get the whole world, from the equator to the North Pole, squeezed in. It's on the equator, but its mountains are 16,500 feet high, so there are glaciers. That means that as you go up a New Guinea mountain, you're going from tropical rainforest, into oak forest, into beach forest, into sub-alpine forest, into tundra, and then finally up to the glaciers, all within a few miles. In fact, it is the only place in the world where you can stand on a coral reef and look up at a glacier. Also, there are hundreds of different tribes with hundreds of different languages, so from a human point of view, it is the most exciting place in the world." [Map]
Huli Wigmen crossing in the forests of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea. (Wade Davis via Getty Images)
Aerial view of the Bensbach River floodplains. (Col Roberts via Getty Images)
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Acclaimed Afghan-American memoirist Tamim Ansary moved from Kabul to the United States as a 16-year-old to attend high school. "Every year they would do a trip in spring, a camping trip someplace," he recalled. "One year they went to Canyonlands, which is in Red Rock Country in Utah. I remember then, I said, 'I'm coming back here before I die.' A couple of years ago, we did go back. I'm too old to make the hike anymore. I couldn't hike into all the places that I remember. But the Red Rock Country of Utah is just overwhelming. Don't let your life go by without having been there." [Map]
Mesa Arch sunrise landscape in Canyonlands National Park. (Dave Soldano Images via Getty Images)
(Alan Majchrowicz via Getty Images)
Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota
Tamim Ansary also raved about the Boundary Waters wilderness area. "If you look at the map of the United States and Canada, you'll find it along the border there. It's thousands of lakes. They only let three parties put in at any portage point in a day, and they don't let you come closer than a quarter mile. They have to carry your canoe and all your stuff down; then you get into whatever lake you've come to, and that connects to another lake, and that connects to another lake. And there's nobody there! We were there for a while and we saw one other party. We camped in a little island that had a campground and everything, but only one and there was nothing else there. I just loved that." [Map]
Birch Lake, Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area, Minnesota. (Christian Heeb via 500px)
Rishikesh, India
Britta Hölzel is a rare combination, a Ph.D. neuroscientist and a yoga and meditation practitioner. Her research at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere has focused on how meditation changes the brain.
"I've traveled to India again and again," she said. "A special place is a town in the north of India that's called Rishikesh. They call it the yoga capital of the world, a lot of yoga ashrams are there. It's right where the Ganges comes out from the Himalayas and goes into the open flatlands. While there, I had a moment of deep realization that this is how I want to spend my life. This is what I want to dedicate my life to, both the research and this kind of practice, because I think it just makes such a profound difference to one's life to have an orientation towards living a good and spiritual life and a meaningful life. To me, that makes the entire difference." [Map]
Suspension bridge to Swarg Niwas Temple, Rishikesh. (Exotica.im/UIG via Getty Images)
The Ganges River near Rishikesh. (Ivan604 via Getty Images)
High Sierra Trail, California
To win last year's World's Toughest Mudder contest, endurance athlete Ryan Atkins raced for 24 hours straight, covering 95 miles in the Nevada desert, all while wearing a wetsuit.
Endurance competitions have sent Atkins to some incredible locations. "One of my coolest traveling experiences was running the High Sierra Trail in California," he said. "That was awesome, probably the greatest trail I've ever experienced. It starts at Sequoia National Park and finishes on top of Mount Whitney in California, and it's just a totally gorgeous trail. That one stands out." [Map]
High Sierra Trail approaching Mt. Humphreys (Gettystock)
Killarney Provincial Park, Canada
We also asked Ryan Atkins about the most beautiful place he's ever visited. "Honestly, it’s probably a park not too far from where I live," he says. "Killarney Provincial Park, about five or six hours north of Toronto. It's beautiful Canadian forest, with crystal-clear lakes and white quartzite rock all over. There's hiking and canoeing. It's just a gorgeous place." [Map]
Island in Georgian Bay along the Chikanishing Trail, Killarney Provincial Park
Hanalei, Hawaii
"I would say the most beautiful place I've seen is Hanalei, which is on the northern side of the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands," says Tim Kochis, the itinerant former CEO and chairman of Aspiriant, a large independent wealth management firm.
"It is just beautiful, particularly in the sunshine, and then after a rain because there are these series of waterfalls that are falling from the north shore mountains into the ocean. If you see this from any distance, you wonder, how could any place on the planet be more beautiful than this?" [Map]
Stand-up paddle board in Hanalei Bay; Kauai, Hawaii.
A morning shot of Hanalei Valley. (Scott Ingram Photography via Flickr)
Tuscany and Positano, Italy
Lalita Tademy has written multiple bestselling historical epics. Asked about her favorite travel journey, she said, "My husband and I went to Italy for a month. For two weeks of that, we were stationary in Tuscany. We rented a farm house. I wrote every morning, very early. Then in the afternoons, we'd go and visit hill towns and just walk around. We had no real plan. We would just walk. We would stumble into markets that were vibrant and wonderful, or restaurants that we hadn't done any reading but they turned out to be just absolutely delightful." [Map]
Positano, she said, was the most beautiful place she's ever seen. "Absolutely blew me away. Up on the cliffs, perched up above everything, watching the ocean, the boats. It was just stunning. I spent so much time on the balcony, just staring. It was inspiring, and the colors were beautiful, everything in bloom. Gorgeous." [Map]
Sunrise over farm of olive groves and vineyards in Tuscany. (Gettystock)
Positano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast. (Gettystock)
Mongolia
Senior U.S. policy aide Jamie Metzl has traveled to virtually every corner of Asia. His favorite destination? "Oh, that's an easy one," he said. "I absolutely love Mongolia, it is such a magical place. The Gobi Desert is actually where most of the dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History come from."
He continued: "As opposed to China, Mongolia is this huge country with a very small number of people. Everyone has their little tent -- the Turkic word is yurt, but in Mongolia it's call a ger, and you're miles away from everybody else. So there's this expansive frontier culture, a culture of welcoming and of self-reliance and of not wanting to be part of some system that's going to oppress you. And the people, at least my Mongolian friends -- I certainly don't vouch for every Mongolian -- but they're just such a creative, fun-loving, big-hearted people. They're not the only people in the world that way, but it's certainly in a way that's touched me." [Map]
A row of Mongolian gers. (Gettystock)
Sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. (David Santiago Garcia via Getty Images)
+++
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New Guinea
Scientist and author Jared Diamond, who won the Pulitzer Prize for "Guns, Germs, and Steel," is emphatic: "The most beautiful, exciting place in the world is New Guinea, with no close seconds. This is not my opinion, this is objective fact."
Here's his case: "Within this island, you get the whole world, from the equator to the North Pole, squeezed in. It's on the equator, but its mountains are 16,500 feet high, so there are glaciers. That means that as you go up a New Guinea mountain, you're going from tropical rainforest, into oak forest, into beach forest, into sub-alpine forest, into tundra, and then finally up to the glaciers, all within a few miles. In fact, it is the only place in the world where you can stand on a coral reef and look up at a glacier. Also, there are hundreds of different tribes with hundreds of different languages, so from a human point of view, it is the most exciting place in the world." [Map]
Huli Wigmen crossing in the forests of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea. (Wade Davis via Getty Images)
Aerial view of the Bensbach River floodplains. (Col Roberts via Getty Images)
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Acclaimed Afghan-American memoirist Tamim Ansary moved from Kabul to the United States as a 16-year-old to attend high school. "Every year they would do a trip in spring, a camping trip someplace," he recalled. "One year they went to Canyonlands, which is in Red Rock Country in Utah. I remember then, I said, 'I'm coming back here before I die.' A couple of years ago, we did go back. I'm too old to make the hike anymore. I couldn't hike into all the places that I remember. But the Red Rock Country of Utah is just overwhelming. Don't let your life go by without having been there." [Map]
Mesa Arch sunrise landscape in Canyonlands National Park. (Dave Soldano Images via Getty Images)
(Alan Majchrowicz via Getty Images)
Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota
Tamim Ansary also raved about the Boundary Waters wilderness area. "If you look at the map of the United States and Canada, you'll find it along the border there. It's thousands of lakes. They only let three parties put in at any portage point in a day, and they don't let you come closer than a quarter mile. They have to carry your canoe and all your stuff down; then you get into whatever lake you've come to, and that connects to another lake, and that connects to another lake. And there's nobody there! We were there for a while and we saw one other party. We camped in a little island that had a campground and everything, but only one and there was nothing else there. I just loved that." [Map]
Birch Lake, Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area, Minnesota. (Christian Heeb via 500px)
Rishikesh, India
Britta Hölzel is a rare combination, a Ph.D. neuroscientist and a yoga and meditation practitioner. Her research at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere has focused on how meditation changes the brain.
"I've traveled to India again and again," she said. "A special place is a town in the north of India that's called Rishikesh. They call it the yoga capital of the world, a lot of yoga ashrams are there. It's right where the Ganges comes out from the Himalayas and goes into the open flatlands. While there, I had a moment of deep realization that this is how I want to spend my life. This is what I want to dedicate my life to, both the research and this kind of practice, because I think it just makes such a profound difference to one's life to have an orientation towards living a good and spiritual life and a meaningful life. To me, that makes the entire difference." [Map]
Suspension bridge to Swarg Niwas Temple, Rishikesh. (Exotica.im/UIG via Getty Images)
The Ganges River near Rishikesh. (Ivan604 via Getty Images)
High Sierra Trail, California
To win last year's World's Toughest Mudder contest, endurance athlete Ryan Atkins raced for 24 hours straight, covering 95 miles in the Nevada desert, all while wearing a wetsuit.
Endurance competitions have sent Atkins to some incredible locations. "One of my coolest traveling experiences was running the High Sierra Trail in California," he said. "That was awesome, probably the greatest trail I've ever experienced. It starts at Sequoia National Park and finishes on top of Mount Whitney in California, and it's just a totally gorgeous trail. That one stands out." [Map]
High Sierra Trail approaching Mt. Humphreys (Gettystock)
Killarney Provincial Park, Canada
We also asked Ryan Atkins about the most beautiful place he's ever visited. "Honestly, it’s probably a park not too far from where I live," he says. "Killarney Provincial Park, about five or six hours north of Toronto. It's beautiful Canadian forest, with crystal-clear lakes and white quartzite rock all over. There's hiking and canoeing. It's just a gorgeous place." [Map]
Island in Georgian Bay along the Chikanishing Trail, Killarney Provincial Park
Hanalei, Hawaii
"I would say the most beautiful place I've seen is Hanalei, which is on the northern side of the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands," says Tim Kochis, the itinerant former CEO and chairman of Aspiriant, a large independent wealth management firm.
"It is just beautiful, particularly in the sunshine, and then after a rain because there are these series of waterfalls that are falling from the north shore mountains into the ocean. If you see this from any distance, you wonder, how could any place on the planet be more beautiful than this?" [Map]
Stand-up paddle board in Hanalei Bay; Kauai, Hawaii.
A morning shot of Hanalei Valley. (Scott Ingram Photography via Flickr)
Tuscany and Positano, Italy
Lalita Tademy has written multiple bestselling historical epics. Asked about her favorite travel journey, she said, "My husband and I went to Italy for a month. For two weeks of that, we were stationary in Tuscany. We rented a farm house. I wrote every morning, very early. Then in the afternoons, we'd go and visit hill towns and just walk around. We had no real plan. We would just walk. We would stumble into markets that were vibrant and wonderful, or restaurants that we hadn't done any reading but they turned out to be just absolutely delightful." [Map]
Positano, she said, was the most beautiful place she's ever seen. "Absolutely blew me away. Up on the cliffs, perched up above everything, watching the ocean, the boats. It was just stunning. I spent so much time on the balcony, just staring. It was inspiring, and the colors were beautiful, everything in bloom. Gorgeous." [Map]
Sunrise over farm of olive groves and vineyards in Tuscany. (Gettystock)
Positano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast. (Gettystock)
Mongolia
Senior U.S. policy aide Jamie Metzl has traveled to virtually every corner of Asia. His favorite destination? "Oh, that's an easy one," he said. "I absolutely love Mongolia, it is such a magical place. The Gobi Desert is actually where most of the dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History come from."
He continued: "As opposed to China, Mongolia is this huge country with a very small number of people. Everyone has their little tent -- the Turkic word is yurt, but in Mongolia it's call a ger, and you're miles away from everybody else. So there's this expansive frontier culture, a culture of welcoming and of self-reliance and of not wanting to be part of some system that's going to oppress you. And the people, at least my Mongolian friends -- I certainly don't vouch for every Mongolian -- but they're just such a creative, fun-loving, big-hearted people. They're not the only people in the world that way, but it's certainly in a way that's touched me." [Map]
A row of Mongolian gers. (Gettystock)
Sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. (David Santiago Garcia via Getty Images)
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A Taste of Proper Fun: Bermuda
So, of course, it is a treat to discover Bermuda, if just for a weekend, the place that practically invented proper fun, and which now embodies it.
The demure 21-square-mile British dependency 650 miles off the North Carolina coast is less known than the more cheeky isles in the Caribbean, as it has always attracted a more sophisticated crowd, the cognoscenti tired of long, septentrional winters, a cast that likes to keep its haunts semi-secret. It is known more as the northern point in the Bermuda Triangle than for its earthly satisfactions.
The original Pan Am Clippers used to call here. I ease over on a Delta flight from Atlanta, and as we approach, from my window the islands of Bermuda look like cracks in the ocean; the sea a Crème Brûlée after the first blow of the spoon.
I take a short cab ride to the Rosewood Tucker's Point Hotel and Spa, a sprawling 200-plus acre cliff-side resort on Castle Harbor, where I find my free-spirited, properly-travelled friend Lisa Niver in the middle of a round of golf. She is here for the week with friends; I have but the weekend, and her beam telegraphs that she has the better deal.
When she sinks the ball into a hole, a waiter appears with a glass of champagne to celebrate. That's proper fun.
We next tuck in for afternoon tea, served promptly at 4 p.m., cucumber sandwiches, petits fours, and fresh baked apricot and fig scones served with kumquat jam and Devonshire clotted cream, all on a crisp white table cloth with silver service and fine china. Some fun traditions don't change. It was here in Bermuda that 52 years ago Lisa's parents took their honeymoon, and sipped tea in nuptial celebration.
But high-tea is just the prelude. We next head over to Tucker's Bar, where Lisa's parents once cheered, all dark-wood paneled looking more like The Explorers Club than a blue water drinkery. Here I try a dark 'n' stormy, rum mixed with Bermuda stone ginger beer, the signature drink of Bermuda. But Lisa cries foul, and holds up her rum swizzle, saying this is the national drink of Bermuda, and it packs a good punch to boot. But then the barkeep leans in and says, "No, no, no....the real drink here is the Yellow Bird," and he pushes a glass filled with what looks like a Screwdriver, but instead of vodka , there are two types of rum. But then he winks and informs there are 60,000+ rum swizzle recipes, one for each resident of Bermuda, so actually, Lisa is right...the rum swizzle reigns.
It would be easy to sit and savor for hours, but it's now dinner time. Adjacent to the bar is The Point Restaurant, wrapped in an 80-foot-long mural that looks hauntingly familiar. It turns out it is a work of art that for 45 years adorned the lobby of the Pan Am Sky Club in the Pan Am Building in New York City. Pan Am was a partner in the early days of Sobek, the adventure travel company I founded in the 70s, and I used to visit the Sky Club when passing through New York.
I walk around the room falling into memories. The mural depicts various ports-of-call of the early Pan Am Clippers, and I recognize most... Rio de Janeiro, Constantinople, Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, the Port of London, and Lahaina, Maui are easily identified by their inimitable surroundings. But New York Harbor, Canton Harbor, the Gloucester Seaport in Massachusetts, and Beirut Harbor stump me. The real puzzler, however, is Bermuda's Hamilton Harbor, which it turns out was added to the canvas a couple years ago, commissioned by the current owner, Ed Trippe, yes, the son of the man who commissioned the original piece, the legendary Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American World Airways.
Of course, I have to order the famous Bermuda fish chowder, a spicy seafood-and-vegetable stew spiced with a dash of Gosling's Black Seal rum and Outerbridge's Original Sherry Pepper sauce. Fish, to taste right, must swim three times -- in water, in butter and in black rum, and it is swimming Olympic laps here. This is the national dish, and it is delectably textured and spicy. Yes, it is a well-seasoned soup, but more so, as it ignites Sherry Pepper Sauce's leap into immortality.
After a couple of heavenly spoonfuls I am reminded that there are so many ways to cheat on food, and there are so many places that do.
But not here. Bermuda is a promise of authenticity and proper taste. Here is a fountain of food that is home-cooked and insanely savory.
Hoppin' John, Hash, Peas and Plenty, Mussel pie, sweet potato pudding, Paw Paw Casserole, Guinea Chick, Banana Meatloaf, Wahoo salad, tantalizing fare, wet with contour and risk. In my short visit I try them all, and smack lips with every bite.
This island may have more churches per square mile than any other country on earth, but a good Bermudan meal makes me feel more charitable toward the world than any sermon. After this meal I think I'll sell my house and give all the money to Oxfam.
And for dessert? Bermuda honey is the mead-iator between heaven and earth.
So, at the end of the day, I would say that the food of Bermuda is so deliriously yummy that palates are not merely shattered but planets spin out of orbit, constellations unravel in starbursts, and the very fabric of space-time is shredded by the sheer euphoric energy of exquisite taste.
Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I would say the food of Bermuda...it is properly good.
I wash down the last of the meal with the proper English tropic drink, a Bombay Sapphire G&T, and then tell Lisa, who plans to head out in search of the famous Gombey dancers of Bermuda, that I have to call it a day.
A golf cart glides me to my villa, under a set of brilliant stars that bend to create bears and dippers. The room has a bathroom the size of Somerset, and a bed like a cloud. So, I awake late the next morning alive and unworn ready for what is to be a full day.
Lisa and friends are split between the Fairmont Southampton and the Elbow Beach Resort, both spectacular properties on the Southwestern part of the island. Under a glade of blue sky I sink into the backseat of the taxi, and regard in admiration the orderly English hedges and hand-stacked stone walls that line the road. If it weren't for the wild tropical foliage that weaves through the cracks and crawls along the tops of the walls, this could be the Scottish countryside.
Thirty minutes later I meet up with Lisa and sit for breakfast, whereupon she shares some of her proper adventures so far.
There is something romantic and quaint about a place that doesn't allow visitors to rent cars. Instead, folks scoot. In tandem with Bermudian Rachel Snowden, a former television weather woman, Lisa has been zipping around the island on a rented scooter. One glorious day she started at the Royal Navy Dockyard in the morning and ended in St. George's by the evening, a full traverse of the main island.
St. George's was the first permanent English settlement on the island, and is steeped in history tied to the colonization of America and its eventual independence. At the time of the American War of Independence, the town of St. George saw its gun powder stocks mysteriously disappearing. Local Bermudians were stealing the gun powder, bringing it over the hill to Tobacco Bay, where boats transported it to an American ship just offshore.
On her scoots Lisa has been scoping out the jewelry, the various forts, cafes, and restaurants, and sampling the island culture. She shows me the heart earrings and bracelet she bought from Alexandra Mosher, famous for her Pink Sand jewelry. She shows off her Windows phone pics of cliff jumping, spelunking at Smuggler's Cave, and her hula-hooping at Elbow Beach, where she also sampled the Rum Swizzle Specialty Spa Treatment. And, of course, she went to revel with the Gombey dancers, the men who perform the flamboyant masquerade dance that is a unique blend of African, Caribbean and British cultures.
Lisa wants to show me the nearby Warwick Long Bay beach, a magnificent half mile stretch of pink sands. Bermuda, she honeys, is so romantic even the beaches blush. It is here that couples come to discuss Ugandan affairs.
Against a backdrop of low grasses and grape and juniper trees sprawls a powdery stretch of sand festooned with little coves and black rocks (revealing Bermuda's volcanic origins). The original seafarers here called this "Devil's Island," partially because of the imposing black rocks, but also the screeching and snorting they heard coming from the interior (birds and wild pigs respectively). But when, 400 years ago, an English sailing vessel was shipwrecked on this mid-Atlantic archipelago, and discovered it to be a piece of paradise, the island nation of Bermuda was born.
Lisa dances around the sand for a spell, and then offers to show me the harbor side capital, Hamilton. The houses are sherbet-colored, with unique stepped limestone roofs that collect all-important rainwater, as in Bermuda there are no lakes, rivers or streams.
We pass shops selling Shetland sweaters and linen doilies, and businessmen milling about in smart casual jackets, neckties, shorts, and knee socks. Yes, the cliché is true....people really do wear Bermuda shorts here, and proudly.
Here we meet Ronald K. Maughan, director of operations for The English Sport Shop, which has been outfitting islanders since 1918. Ronald says the shorts were invented when British forces in India during WWI were suffering from the heat in their long pants. "It was too hot, so they cut their trousers into shorts." They were baggy and without any defining style, but they were cool, and the improvised clothing followed British forces to Bermuda, where it was decided that, given the temperatures, shorts were a smart item for one's wardrobe.
But it's the socks that make the outfit, says Maughan. Knee socks must reach just below the knee, no more than an inch, and must be folded over. Socks should match the jackets, contrasting with the shorts. It's all very proper, and of course, this is the attire for proper fun.
Next door is The Pickled Onion bar, one of many establishments graced with the word onion. Why the fascination with the tear-inducing vegetable? It turns out Bermuda was for many years a major supplier of onions, and these days the locals are sometimes called onions.
It's lunch time, so we head down the road to one of the best kept local secrets in Bermuda, The Black Horse Tavern, tucked in a remote corner of St. David's island. Many of the locals maintain this is the most authentic restaurant for original local cuisine in Bermuda.
The place has a dusty rose exterior with green shutters and a glass covered balcony in the rear that looks over Smith's Sound. I order the wahoo fish sandwich on raisin bread (why don't they offer this in the States?) with sweet homemade coleslaw and ginger beer. Like many so many things here, the food is just not subject to immutable destiny, but alive to wild grace.
Ashley Harris, a local guide, joins our table and offers to show us about. With bellies full we wind to the top of St. David's lighthouse, and then down to Tom Moore's Jungle, also called The Walsingham Nature Reserve, 12 acres of preserved, privately owned land. Tom Moore, of course, is the island-friendly shorthand for Thomas Moore, the 18th century Irish poet who, for a short time, called Bermuda home. He wrote some of his most celebrated works here while resting under Bermuda's most famous tree, the calabash. Ashley recites some of his poetry, and we nod in reverence, and then take a proper trek through the jungle, snaking around vines and through
Our final stop for the day is at The Southlands Estate, which hosts the largest grove of rubber trees in Bermuda. The original Tarzan movies were filmed on a lake in Culver City, not far down the road from my house. The producers should have come here. Ashley demonstrates by grabbing a thin vine and swinging out over a small cliff. Soon she has the rest of us gyring about like baboons, thumping chests and letting out throaty Johnny Weissmullers at the apex of a swing.
Now, it's off to the airport to head home. On the final stretch of roadway we pass The Swizzle Inn, where Lisa spent an evening as an anthropologist, studying proper fun with the locals. It's a place spilling with fun, from the signage throughout (If you're drinking to forget, please pay in advance), to their signature rum drinks, to their motto, "Swizzle Inn and Stagger Out."
And that's how I leave Bermuda...properly blissed, and ready to return for more.
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A Taste of Proper Fun: Bermuda
So, of course, it is a treat to discover Bermuda, if just for a weekend, the place that practically invented proper fun, and which now embodies it.
The demure 21-square-mile British dependency 650 miles off the North Carolina coast is less known than the more cheeky isles in the Caribbean, as it has always attracted a more sophisticated crowd, the cognoscenti tired of long, septentrional winters, a cast that likes to keep its haunts semi-secret. It is known more as the northern point in the Bermuda Triangle than for its earthly satisfactions.
The original Pan Am Clippers used to call here. I ease over on a Delta flight from Atlanta, and as we approach, from my window the islands of Bermuda look like cracks in the ocean; the sea a Crème Brûlée after the first blow of the spoon.
I take a short cab ride to the Rosewood Tucker's Point Hotel and Spa, a sprawling 200-plus acre cliff-side resort on Castle Harbor, where I find my free-spirited, properly-travelled friend Lisa Niver in the middle of a round of golf. She is here for the week with friends; I have but the weekend, and her beam telegraphs that she has the better deal.
When she sinks the ball into a hole, a waiter appears with a glass of champagne to celebrate. That's proper fun.
We next tuck in for afternoon tea, served promptly at 4 p.m., cucumber sandwiches, petits fours, and fresh baked apricot and fig scones served with kumquat jam and Devonshire clotted cream, all on a crisp white table cloth with silver service and fine china. Some fun traditions don't change. It was here in Bermuda that 52 years ago Lisa's parents took their honeymoon, and sipped tea in nuptial celebration.
But high-tea is just the prelude. We next head over to Tucker's Bar, where Lisa's parents once cheered, all dark-wood paneled looking more like The Explorers Club than a blue water drinkery. Here I try a dark 'n' stormy, rum mixed with Bermuda stone ginger beer, the signature drink of Bermuda. But Lisa cries foul, and holds up her rum swizzle, saying this is the national drink of Bermuda, and it packs a good punch to boot. But then the barkeep leans in and says, "No, no, no....the real drink here is the Yellow Bird," and he pushes a glass filled with what looks like a Screwdriver, but instead of vodka , there are two types of rum. But then he winks and informs there are 60,000+ rum swizzle recipes, one for each resident of Bermuda, so actually, Lisa is right...the rum swizzle reigns.
It would be easy to sit and savor for hours, but it's now dinner time. Adjacent to the bar is The Point Restaurant, wrapped in an 80-foot-long mural that looks hauntingly familiar. It turns out it is a work of art that for 45 years adorned the lobby of the Pan Am Sky Club in the Pan Am Building in New York City. Pan Am was a partner in the early days of Sobek, the adventure travel company I founded in the 70s, and I used to visit the Sky Club when passing through New York.
I walk around the room falling into memories. The mural depicts various ports-of-call of the early Pan Am Clippers, and I recognize most... Rio de Janeiro, Constantinople, Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, the Port of London, and Lahaina, Maui are easily identified by their inimitable surroundings. But New York Harbor, Canton Harbor, the Gloucester Seaport in Massachusetts, and Beirut Harbor stump me. The real puzzler, however, is Bermuda's Hamilton Harbor, which it turns out was added to the canvas a couple years ago, commissioned by the current owner, Ed Trippe, yes, the son of the man who commissioned the original piece, the legendary Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American World Airways.
Of course, I have to order the famous Bermuda fish chowder, a spicy seafood-and-vegetable stew spiced with a dash of Gosling's Black Seal rum and Outerbridge's Original Sherry Pepper sauce. Fish, to taste right, must swim three times -- in water, in butter and in black rum, and it is swimming Olympic laps here. This is the national dish, and it is delectably textured and spicy. Yes, it is a well-seasoned soup, but more so, as it ignites Sherry Pepper Sauce's leap into immortality.
After a couple of heavenly spoonfuls I am reminded that there are so many ways to cheat on food, and there are so many places that do.
But not here. Bermuda is a promise of authenticity and proper taste. Here is a fountain of food that is home-cooked and insanely savory.
Hoppin' John, Hash, Peas and Plenty, Mussel pie, sweet potato pudding, Paw Paw Casserole, Guinea Chick, Banana Meatloaf, Wahoo salad, tantalizing fare, wet with contour and risk. In my short visit I try them all, and smack lips with every bite.
This island may have more churches per square mile than any other country on earth, but a good Bermudan meal makes me feel more charitable toward the world than any sermon. After this meal I think I'll sell my house and give all the money to Oxfam.
And for dessert? Bermuda honey is the mead-iator between heaven and earth.
So, at the end of the day, I would say that the food of Bermuda is so deliriously yummy that palates are not merely shattered but planets spin out of orbit, constellations unravel in starbursts, and the very fabric of space-time is shredded by the sheer euphoric energy of exquisite taste.
Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I would say the food of Bermuda...it is properly good.
I wash down the last of the meal with the proper English tropic drink, a Bombay Sapphire G&T, and then tell Lisa, who plans to head out in search of the famous Gombey dancers of Bermuda, that I have to call it a day.
A golf cart glides me to my villa, under a set of brilliant stars that bend to create bears and dippers. The room has a bathroom the size of Somerset, and a bed like a cloud. So, I awake late the next morning alive and unworn ready for what is to be a full day.
Lisa and friends are split between the Fairmont Southampton and the Elbow Beach Resort, both spectacular properties on the Southwestern part of the island. Under a glade of blue sky I sink into the backseat of the taxi, and regard in admiration the orderly English hedges and hand-stacked stone walls that line the road. If it weren't for the wild tropical foliage that weaves through the cracks and crawls along the tops of the walls, this could be the Scottish countryside.
Thirty minutes later I meet up with Lisa and sit for breakfast, whereupon she shares some of her proper adventures so far.
There is something romantic and quaint about a place that doesn't allow visitors to rent cars. Instead, folks scoot. In tandem with Bermudian Rachel Snowden, a former television weather woman, Lisa has been zipping around the island on a rented scooter. One glorious day she started at the Royal Navy Dockyard in the morning and ended in St. George's by the evening, a full traverse of the main island.
St. George's was the first permanent English settlement on the island, and is steeped in history tied to the colonization of America and its eventual independence. At the time of the American War of Independence, the town of St. George saw its gun powder stocks mysteriously disappearing. Local Bermudians were stealing the gun powder, bringing it over the hill to Tobacco Bay, where boats transported it to an American ship just offshore.
On her scoots Lisa has been scoping out the jewelry, the various forts, cafes, and restaurants, and sampling the island culture. She shows me the heart earrings and bracelet she bought from Alexandra Mosher, famous for her Pink Sand jewelry. She shows off her Windows phone pics of cliff jumping, spelunking at Smuggler's Cave, and her hula-hooping at Elbow Beach, where she also sampled the Rum Swizzle Specialty Spa Treatment. And, of course, she went to revel with the Gombey dancers, the men who perform the flamboyant masquerade dance that is a unique blend of African, Caribbean and British cultures.
Lisa wants to show me the nearby Warwick Long Bay beach, a magnificent half mile stretch of pink sands. Bermuda, she honeys, is so romantic even the beaches blush. It is here that couples come to discuss Ugandan affairs.
Against a backdrop of low grasses and grape and juniper trees sprawls a powdery stretch of sand festooned with little coves and black rocks (revealing Bermuda's volcanic origins). The original seafarers here called this "Devil's Island," partially because of the imposing black rocks, but also the screeching and snorting they heard coming from the interior (birds and wild pigs respectively). But when, 400 years ago, an English sailing vessel was shipwrecked on this mid-Atlantic archipelago, and discovered it to be a piece of paradise, the island nation of Bermuda was born.
Lisa dances around the sand for a spell, and then offers to show me the harbor side capital, Hamilton. The houses are sherbet-colored, with unique stepped limestone roofs that collect all-important rainwater, as in Bermuda there are no lakes, rivers or streams.
We pass shops selling Shetland sweaters and linen doilies, and businessmen milling about in smart casual jackets, neckties, shorts, and knee socks. Yes, the cliché is true....people really do wear Bermuda shorts here, and proudly.
Here we meet Ronald K. Maughan, director of operations for The English Sport Shop, which has been outfitting islanders since 1918. Ronald says the shorts were invented when British forces in India during WWI were suffering from the heat in their long pants. "It was too hot, so they cut their trousers into shorts." They were baggy and without any defining style, but they were cool, and the improvised clothing followed British forces to Bermuda, where it was decided that, given the temperatures, shorts were a smart item for one's wardrobe.
But it's the socks that make the outfit, says Maughan. Knee socks must reach just below the knee, no more than an inch, and must be folded over. Socks should match the jackets, contrasting with the shorts. It's all very proper, and of course, this is the attire for proper fun.
Next door is The Pickled Onion bar, one of many establishments graced with the word onion. Why the fascination with the tear-inducing vegetable? It turns out Bermuda was for many years a major supplier of onions, and these days the locals are sometimes called onions.
It's lunch time, so we head down the road to one of the best kept local secrets in Bermuda, The Black Horse Tavern, tucked in a remote corner of St. David's island. Many of the locals maintain this is the most authentic restaurant for original local cuisine in Bermuda.
The place has a dusty rose exterior with green shutters and a glass covered balcony in the rear that looks over Smith's Sound. I order the wahoo fish sandwich on raisin bread (why don't they offer this in the States?) with sweet homemade coleslaw and ginger beer. Like many so many things here, the food is just not subject to immutable destiny, but alive to wild grace.
Ashley Harris, a local guide, joins our table and offers to show us about. With bellies full we wind to the top of St. David's lighthouse, and then down to Tom Moore's Jungle, also called The Walsingham Nature Reserve, 12 acres of preserved, privately owned land. Tom Moore, of course, is the island-friendly shorthand for Thomas Moore, the 18th century Irish poet who, for a short time, called Bermuda home. He wrote some of his most celebrated works here while resting under Bermuda's most famous tree, the calabash. Ashley recites some of his poetry, and we nod in reverence, and then take a proper trek through the jungle, snaking around vines and through
Our final stop for the day is at The Southlands Estate, which hosts the largest grove of rubber trees in Bermuda. The original Tarzan movies were filmed on a lake in Culver City, not far down the road from my house. The producers should have come here. Ashley demonstrates by grabbing a thin vine and swinging out over a small cliff. Soon she has the rest of us gyring about like baboons, thumping chests and letting out throaty Johnny Weissmullers at the apex of a swing.
Now, it's off to the airport to head home. On the final stretch of roadway we pass The Swizzle Inn, where Lisa spent an evening as an anthropologist, studying proper fun with the locals. It's a place spilling with fun, from the signage throughout (If you're drinking to forget, please pay in advance), to their signature rum drinks, to their motto, "Swizzle Inn and Stagger Out."
And that's how I leave Bermuda...properly blissed, and ready to return for more.
from Travel - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1AbeIbA
Hotels Can Track Those Towels That You Steal
There's something utterly delicious about hotel beds... and towels... and robes. They're so decadently fluffy and epically cozy, we'd totally steal them if we could.
And much of the time, we do. Towels are among the most-stolen items in hotels, The Telegraph reports. We could've guessed that.
But we never would've guessed that hotels can tell when you've stolen a towel (or robe or duvet cover for that matter). It's all thanks to a tiny, M&M-sized tracking device that thousands of hotels have embedded in their linens -- a device that lets them know where their towels, robes and bedsheets are at all times.
The main service they use is Linen Technology Tracking, which provides the chips to some 2,000 hotels around the country, according to its executive VP William Serbin. The company's initial goal was to let hotels track which linens had made it from the hotel to the cleaners and back again, but the chips have also proven handy for keeping tabs on stolen goods that guests think have slipped out unnoticed.
"One hotel uses the chips to monitor the elevator banks," Serbin told The Huffington Post. "Any time one of their towels passes through the elevator bay, Housekeeping gets an alert."
While he says the hotel in question doesn't charge guests for lifting towels or robes (he can't say which hotels have his trackers installed, but we've found the name of at least one that does), hotels that use Linen Tracking do know precisely how many linens have been stolen each month. The average hotel loses 10 to 20 percent of its linens per month -- mostly to wear and tear, Serbin says. Two percent of linens that go missing are stolen, he estimates.
His company’s chips send signals to antennae at the hotel's entrance or exit, letting owners know if a linen has left the property -- they do not tell hoteliers the exact coordinates of a missing towel or robe.
... And for that, hotel thieves everywhere are thankful.
from Travel - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1yRCKSC
And much of the time, we do. Towels are among the most-stolen items in hotels, The Telegraph reports. We could've guessed that.
But we never would've guessed that hotels can tell when you've stolen a towel (or robe or duvet cover for that matter). It's all thanks to a tiny, M&M-sized tracking device that thousands of hotels have embedded in their linens -- a device that lets them know where their towels, robes and bedsheets are at all times.
The main service they use is Linen Technology Tracking, which provides the chips to some 2,000 hotels around the country, according to its executive VP William Serbin. The company's initial goal was to let hotels track which linens had made it from the hotel to the cleaners and back again, but the chips have also proven handy for keeping tabs on stolen goods that guests think have slipped out unnoticed.
"One hotel uses the chips to monitor the elevator banks," Serbin told The Huffington Post. "Any time one of their towels passes through the elevator bay, Housekeeping gets an alert."
While he says the hotel in question doesn't charge guests for lifting towels or robes (he can't say which hotels have his trackers installed, but we've found the name of at least one that does), hotels that use Linen Tracking do know precisely how many linens have been stolen each month. The average hotel loses 10 to 20 percent of its linens per month -- mostly to wear and tear, Serbin says. Two percent of linens that go missing are stolen, he estimates.
His company’s chips send signals to antennae at the hotel's entrance or exit, letting owners know if a linen has left the property -- they do not tell hoteliers the exact coordinates of a missing towel or robe.
... And for that, hotel thieves everywhere are thankful.
from Travel - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1yRCKSC
7 Explorers Name The Most Beautiful Place They've Ever Seen
Looking for travel inspiration? We've been asking fascinating people -- Pulitzer Prize-winners, world champion athletes, entrepreneurs, artists, and more -- to share the greatest travel journeys of their lives.
New Guinea
Scientist and author Jared Diamond, who won the Pulitzer Prize for "Guns, Germs, and Steel," is emphatic: "The most beautiful, exciting place in the world is New Guinea, with no close seconds. This is not my opinion, this is objective fact."
Here's his case: "Within this island, you get the whole world, from the equator to the North Pole, squeezed in. It's on the equator, but its mountains are 16,500 feet high, so there are glaciers. That means that as you go up a New Guinea mountain, you're going from tropical rainforest, into oak forest, into beach forest, into sub-alpine forest, into tundra, and then finally up to the glaciers, all within a few miles. In fact, it is the only place in the world where you can stand on a coral reef and look up at a glacier. Also, there are hundreds of different tribes with hundreds of different languages, so from a human point of view, it is the most exciting place in the world." [Map]
Huli Wigmen crossing in the forests of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea. (Wade Davis via Getty Images)
Aerial view of the Bensbach River floodplains. (Col Roberts via Getty Images)
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Acclaimed Afghan-American memoirist Tamim Ansary moved from Kabul to the United States as a 16-year-old to attend high school. "Every year they would do a trip in spring, a camping trip someplace," he recalled. "One year they went to Canyonlands, which is in Red Rock Country in Utah. I remember then, I said, 'I'm coming back here before I die.' A couple of years ago, we did go back. I'm too old to make the hike anymore. I couldn't hike into all the places that I remember. But the Red Rock Country of Utah is just overwhelming. Don't let your life go by without having been there." [Map]
Mesa Arch sunrise landscape in Canyonlands National Park. (Dave Soldano Images via Getty Images)
(Alan Majchrowicz via Getty Images)
Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota
Tamim Ansary also raved about the Boundary Waters wilderness area. "If you look at the map of the United States and Canada, you'll find it along the border there. It's thousands of lakes. They only let three parties put in at any portage point in a day, and they don't let you come closer than a quarter mile. They have to carry your canoe and all your stuff down; then you get into whatever lake you've come to, and that connects to another lake, and that connects to another lake. And there's nobody there! We were there for a while and we saw one other party. We camped in a little island that had a campground and everything, but only one and there was nothing else there. I just loved that." [Map]
Birch Lake, Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area, Minnesota. (Christian Heeb via 500px)
Rishikesh, India
Britta Hölzel is a rare combination, a Ph.D. neuroscientist and a yoga and meditation practitioner. Her research at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere has focused on how meditation changes the brain.
"I've traveled to India again and again," she said. "A special place is a town in the north of India that's called Rishikesh. They call it the yoga capital of the world, a lot of yoga ashrams are there. It's right where the Ganges comes out from the Himalayas and goes into the open flatlands. While there, I had a moment of deep realization that this is how I want to spend my life. This is what I want to dedicate my life to, both the research and this kind of practice, because I think it just makes such a profound difference to one's life to have an orientation towards living a good and spiritual life and a meaningful life. To me, that makes the entire difference." [Map]
Suspension bridge to Swarg Niwas Temple, Rishikesh. (Exotica.im/UIG via Getty Images)
The Ganges River near Rishikesh. (Ivan604 via Getty Images)
High Sierra Trail, California
To win last year's World's Toughest Mudder contest, endurance athlete Ryan Atkins raced for 24 hours straight, covering 95 miles in the Nevada desert, all while wearing a wetsuit.
Endurance competitions have sent Atkins to some incredible locations. "One of my coolest traveling experiences was running the High Sierra Trail in California," he said. "That was awesome, probably the greatest trail I've ever experienced. It starts at Sequoia National Park and finishes on top of Mount Whitney in California, and it's just a totally gorgeous trail. That one stands out." [Map]
High Sierra Trail approaching Mt. Humphreys (Gettystock)
Killarney Provincial Park, Canada
We also asked Ryan Atkins about the most beautiful place he's ever visited. "Honestly, it’s probably a park not too far from where I live," he says. "Killarney Provincial Park, about five or six hours north of Toronto. It's beautiful Canadian forest, with crystal-clear lakes and white quartzite rock all over. There's hiking and canoeing. It's just a gorgeous place." [Map]
Island in Georgian Bay along the Chikanishing Trail, Killarney Provincial Park
Hanalei, Hawaii
"I would say the most beautiful place I've seen is Hanalei, which is on the northern side of the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands," says Tim Kochis, the itinerant former CEO and chairman of Aspiriant, a large independent wealth management firm.
"It is just beautiful, particularly in the sunshine, and then after a rain because there are these series of waterfalls that are falling from the north shore mountains into the ocean. If you see this from any distance, you wonder, how could any place on the planet be more beautiful than this?" [Map]
Stand-up paddle board in Hanalei Bay; Kauai, Hawaii.
A morning shot of Hanalei Valley. (Scott Ingram Photography via Flickr)
Tuscany and Positano, Italy
Lalita Tademy has written multiple bestselling historical epics. Asked about her favorite travel journey, she said, "My husband and I went to Italy for a month. For two weeks of that, we were stationary in Tuscany. We rented a farm house. I wrote every morning, very early. Then in the afternoons, we'd go and visit hill towns and just walk around. We had no real plan. We would just walk. We would stumble into markets that were vibrant and wonderful, or restaurants that we hadn't done any reading but they turned out to be just absolutely delightful." [Map]
Positano, she said, was the most beautiful place she's ever seen. "Absolutely blew me away. Up on the cliffs, perched up above everything, watching the ocean, the boats. It was just stunning. I spent so much time on the balcony, just staring. It was inspiring, and the colors were beautiful, everything in bloom. Gorgeous." [Map]
Sunrise over farm of olive groves and vineyards in Tuscany. (Gettystock)
Positano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast. (Gettystock)
Mongolia
Senior U.S. policy aide Jamie Metzl has traveled to virtually every corner of Asia. His favorite destination? "Oh, that's an easy one," he said. "I absolutely love Mongolia, it is such a magical place. The Gobi Desert is actually where most of the dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History come from."
He continued: "As opposed to China, Mongolia is this huge country with a very small number of people. Everyone has their little tent -- the Turkic word is yurt, but in Mongolia it's call a ger, and you're miles away from everybody else. So there's this expansive frontier culture, a culture of welcoming and of self-reliance and of not wanting to be part of some system that's going to oppress you. And the people, at least my Mongolian friends -- I certainly don't vouch for every Mongolian -- but they're just such a creative, fun-loving, big-hearted people. They're not the only people in the world that way, but it's certainly in a way that's touched me." [Map]
A row of Mongolian gers. (Gettystock)
Sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. (David Santiago Garcia via Getty Images)
+++
Transcription services by Tigerfish; now offering transcripts in two-hours guaranteed. Interview text has been edited and condensed.
Sophia is a project to collect life lessons from fascinating people. Learn more or sign up to receive lessons for living directly via Facebook or our email newsletter.
from Travel - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1BHHiiL
New Guinea
Scientist and author Jared Diamond, who won the Pulitzer Prize for "Guns, Germs, and Steel," is emphatic: "The most beautiful, exciting place in the world is New Guinea, with no close seconds. This is not my opinion, this is objective fact."
Here's his case: "Within this island, you get the whole world, from the equator to the North Pole, squeezed in. It's on the equator, but its mountains are 16,500 feet high, so there are glaciers. That means that as you go up a New Guinea mountain, you're going from tropical rainforest, into oak forest, into beach forest, into sub-alpine forest, into tundra, and then finally up to the glaciers, all within a few miles. In fact, it is the only place in the world where you can stand on a coral reef and look up at a glacier. Also, there are hundreds of different tribes with hundreds of different languages, so from a human point of view, it is the most exciting place in the world." [Map]
Huli Wigmen crossing in the forests of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea. (Wade Davis via Getty Images)
Aerial view of the Bensbach River floodplains. (Col Roberts via Getty Images)
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Acclaimed Afghan-American memoirist Tamim Ansary moved from Kabul to the United States as a 16-year-old to attend high school. "Every year they would do a trip in spring, a camping trip someplace," he recalled. "One year they went to Canyonlands, which is in Red Rock Country in Utah. I remember then, I said, 'I'm coming back here before I die.' A couple of years ago, we did go back. I'm too old to make the hike anymore. I couldn't hike into all the places that I remember. But the Red Rock Country of Utah is just overwhelming. Don't let your life go by without having been there." [Map]
Mesa Arch sunrise landscape in Canyonlands National Park. (Dave Soldano Images via Getty Images)
(Alan Majchrowicz via Getty Images)
Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota
Tamim Ansary also raved about the Boundary Waters wilderness area. "If you look at the map of the United States and Canada, you'll find it along the border there. It's thousands of lakes. They only let three parties put in at any portage point in a day, and they don't let you come closer than a quarter mile. They have to carry your canoe and all your stuff down; then you get into whatever lake you've come to, and that connects to another lake, and that connects to another lake. And there's nobody there! We were there for a while and we saw one other party. We camped in a little island that had a campground and everything, but only one and there was nothing else there. I just loved that." [Map]
Birch Lake, Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area, Minnesota. (Christian Heeb via 500px)
Rishikesh, India
Britta Hölzel is a rare combination, a Ph.D. neuroscientist and a yoga and meditation practitioner. Her research at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere has focused on how meditation changes the brain.
"I've traveled to India again and again," she said. "A special place is a town in the north of India that's called Rishikesh. They call it the yoga capital of the world, a lot of yoga ashrams are there. It's right where the Ganges comes out from the Himalayas and goes into the open flatlands. While there, I had a moment of deep realization that this is how I want to spend my life. This is what I want to dedicate my life to, both the research and this kind of practice, because I think it just makes such a profound difference to one's life to have an orientation towards living a good and spiritual life and a meaningful life. To me, that makes the entire difference." [Map]
Suspension bridge to Swarg Niwas Temple, Rishikesh. (Exotica.im/UIG via Getty Images)
The Ganges River near Rishikesh. (Ivan604 via Getty Images)
High Sierra Trail, California
To win last year's World's Toughest Mudder contest, endurance athlete Ryan Atkins raced for 24 hours straight, covering 95 miles in the Nevada desert, all while wearing a wetsuit.
Endurance competitions have sent Atkins to some incredible locations. "One of my coolest traveling experiences was running the High Sierra Trail in California," he said. "That was awesome, probably the greatest trail I've ever experienced. It starts at Sequoia National Park and finishes on top of Mount Whitney in California, and it's just a totally gorgeous trail. That one stands out." [Map]
High Sierra Trail approaching Mt. Humphreys (Gettystock)
Killarney Provincial Park, Canada
We also asked Ryan Atkins about the most beautiful place he's ever visited. "Honestly, it’s probably a park not too far from where I live," he says. "Killarney Provincial Park, about five or six hours north of Toronto. It's beautiful Canadian forest, with crystal-clear lakes and white quartzite rock all over. There's hiking and canoeing. It's just a gorgeous place." [Map]
Island in Georgian Bay along the Chikanishing Trail, Killarney Provincial Park
Hanalei, Hawaii
"I would say the most beautiful place I've seen is Hanalei, which is on the northern side of the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands," says Tim Kochis, the itinerant former CEO and chairman of Aspiriant, a large independent wealth management firm.
"It is just beautiful, particularly in the sunshine, and then after a rain because there are these series of waterfalls that are falling from the north shore mountains into the ocean. If you see this from any distance, you wonder, how could any place on the planet be more beautiful than this?" [Map]
Stand-up paddle board in Hanalei Bay; Kauai, Hawaii.
A morning shot of Hanalei Valley. (Scott Ingram Photography via Flickr)
Tuscany and Positano, Italy
Lalita Tademy has written multiple bestselling historical epics. Asked about her favorite travel journey, she said, "My husband and I went to Italy for a month. For two weeks of that, we were stationary in Tuscany. We rented a farm house. I wrote every morning, very early. Then in the afternoons, we'd go and visit hill towns and just walk around. We had no real plan. We would just walk. We would stumble into markets that were vibrant and wonderful, or restaurants that we hadn't done any reading but they turned out to be just absolutely delightful." [Map]
Positano, she said, was the most beautiful place she's ever seen. "Absolutely blew me away. Up on the cliffs, perched up above everything, watching the ocean, the boats. It was just stunning. I spent so much time on the balcony, just staring. It was inspiring, and the colors were beautiful, everything in bloom. Gorgeous." [Map]
Sunrise over farm of olive groves and vineyards in Tuscany. (Gettystock)
Positano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast. (Gettystock)
Mongolia
Senior U.S. policy aide Jamie Metzl has traveled to virtually every corner of Asia. His favorite destination? "Oh, that's an easy one," he said. "I absolutely love Mongolia, it is such a magical place. The Gobi Desert is actually where most of the dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History come from."
He continued: "As opposed to China, Mongolia is this huge country with a very small number of people. Everyone has their little tent -- the Turkic word is yurt, but in Mongolia it's call a ger, and you're miles away from everybody else. So there's this expansive frontier culture, a culture of welcoming and of self-reliance and of not wanting to be part of some system that's going to oppress you. And the people, at least my Mongolian friends -- I certainly don't vouch for every Mongolian -- but they're just such a creative, fun-loving, big-hearted people. They're not the only people in the world that way, but it's certainly in a way that's touched me." [Map]
A row of Mongolian gers. (Gettystock)
Sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. (David Santiago Garcia via Getty Images)
Transcription services by Tigerfish; now offering transcripts in two-hours guaranteed. Interview text has been edited and condensed.
Sophia is a project to collect life lessons from fascinating people. Learn more or sign up to receive lessons for living directly via Facebook or our email newsletter.
from Travel - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1BHHiiL
Celebrity Traveller: ITV's Ben Shephard on New Zealand backpacking and banana plantations
TV presenter BEN SHEPHARD, 38, lives in London with his wife Annie and their sons, Jack, nine, and eight-year-old Sam
from Daily Express :: Travel Feed http://ift.tt/1yR3W3N
Go hiking! Great places for a walk on wild side in North America
INSPIRED by Reese Witherspoon's new hit movie, NICK BOULOS picks some of the best hikes in North America
from Daily Express :: Travel Feed http://ift.tt/1yR3TVM
Friday, January 30, 2015
For visitors to the Houston area, 5 great free things to do, from museums to the beach
Summer is nearly year-round in Southeast Texas so it should be no surprise that the free stuff to see and do in the sprawling metropolitan area of America's fourth-biggest city focuses on the outdoors.
from Vancouver Sun - Travel http://ift.tt/1wLfQeJ
from Vancouver Sun - Travel http://ift.tt/1wLfQeJ
Bletchley Park basks in glory moment as Imitation Game makes its story known
As a tourist site, Bletchley Park has been something of a well-kept secret. That’s because it was a government secret as well. But the once-classified home of Britain’s Second World War code-breakers is finally coming out of the shadows.
from Vancouver Sun - Travel http://ift.tt/1CK35Ie
from Vancouver Sun - Travel http://ift.tt/1CK35Ie
Even more rivers to enjoy, cruise
In the last four years river cruising in Europe has gone on an expansion spree that has delivered ships mainly for the traditional major rivers in Europe (Germany, Austria). They have also expanded with gusto to the rivers of France and the Douro in Portugal.
from Vancouver Sun - Travel http://ift.tt/1CK35I2
from Vancouver Sun - Travel http://ift.tt/1CK35I2
Iceland’s cool new look: Place of raw beauty is reinventing itself into a fashion island
MAISHA FROST learns how to knit trendy traditional jumpers as she warms to the island’s raw beauty
from Daily Express :: Travel Feed http://ift.tt/1tHsOPO
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