You’ll Never Walk Alone…

Travel fantasy:  be guided  gently, step by step, through the heart of a city, town or village, along intriguing paths, in special places all over the world.  Follow well-crafted itineraries, hang out with top local guides, sleep in premium, locally-owned accommodations, and scarf down fine food and wine… the best and most reflective of the local scene.

How?

Cited as stellar in all the top travel magazines  (how about “World’s Best”  list of Travel + Leisure), multi-award winning Country Walkers is offering  a seductive discount to enthusiastic walkers who might be traveling solo:  they’re knocking off the nasty old single supplement fees on 14 of their most popular Guided Walking Adventures. The offer is two free single supplements per trip– a total of 54 rich experiences- very well-priced, throughout 2014.

Adventurous walking will place you in the midst of like-minded souls – the perfect format for those travelling solo.

Click on 14 for 2014 Solo Savings to reveal a vast array of wonderful walking adventures.

Turn your high beams onto the most exotic trip: Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia. This welcoming terrain is combined with a mega-dose of the heady Khmer, French Colonial and Chinese cultural mix.  Walk into local towns, villages and partially obliterated temples, passing silent monks in saffron robes.  3-5 miles a day.

 
For the macho among us, check out Europe’s apex alpine, one of Country Walker’s most challenging: The Mont Blanc Circuit requires 6-7 trekking hours a day through France, Italy and Switzerland on paths that will lead close to heaven on earth.

 

 

And for deep rooted traditional charm, the hills and dales of Dingle Bay in Ireland delivers a walk along the wildly dramatic North Atlantic beaches bordered by dense forests. Explore early Christian and UNESCO World Heritage sites, castles, half-ruined abbeys and forts… Easy and amazing at 3-6 miles a day.

 

Whitewater Rafting in Bosnia

“Bosnia Three Rivers” is one wild and wet way to experience a relatively an as-yet untrodden country. Part of Yugoslavia until it gained independence in 1992, Bosnia is a fresh, new and exciting country to explore.

Solo travel adventurists, get out your paddles and jump in with O.A.R.S., one of the world’s premier whitewater rafting outfitters and sign up for one of their two 9-day trips being offered in August, 2012. Bosnia is spectacularly situated in a rich culturally convergent mix on the Balkan Peninsula, with Croatia to the north, Serbia to the east and Montenegro to the southeast.  Quite a neighborhood.

Over the course of 3 rafting days, the glorious white waters will be those of the Tara, the Vrbas and the pristine Neretva Rivers, and if you’ve never heard of them – all the more exciting. Tour Sarajevo (often called the Jerusalem of Eastern Europe), a cosmopolitan European city with a unique Eastern twist and get some awesome hiking under your boots.

National Geographic Traveler Magazine applauds this O.A.R.S.’ trip as one of their “50 Tours of a Lifetime” — most authentic, most innovative, most immersive, best-guided, and most sustainable tours of 2012. California-based O.A.R.S. has set the standard in first-class rafting, sea kayaking and multi-sport vacations, with destinations and unparalleled experiences on over 35 rivers and coastlines of the world since 1969.

The two August departures are August 12 and 21 and well-priced at $2990 per person (double occ.)   Click on: www.oars.com or call 1-800-346-6277.

Whisk around the World

Small classes, great chefs, and almost everywhere around the world — Europe, the Caribbean, Asia, South America, India, and the U.S. – cooking schools make for delicious cultural immersions.  Sign up for a cooking school and make friends, explore local markets, discover delicious and unique local produce: wines, cheeses, and antiques (of course). Explore tiny towns and neighborhoods… and even learn a culinary trick or two. The Shaw Guide to Cooking Schools is a dizzyingly encyclopedic treasure trove of precise and valuable information on who, what, where, and when, plus career ideas.

The excellent, extraordinary website is easy to navigate.  To research and select the right recreational cooking school as a vacation-destination, please click http://cookforfun.shawguides.com/

Polar Players

Quick, before global warming has the waters of the high Arctic bubbling, well-established 28-year old Peregrine Adventures offers 10-day trips to the island of Spitsbergen (Norway), way north (690 nautical miles) of the Arctic Circle aboard their former sonar research vessel, The Voyager.  Their ever-adaptable Zodiacs then thread through Svalbard, a pristine, awesome archipelago so that their highly skilled professional guides can get as close as they dare to polar bear, walrus, and those cute bearded seals.  As you might imagine, departures are in summer only. www.peregrineadventures.com/