Explore the coast of British Columbia with Maple Leaf Adventures

by Kraig Becker on

For more than twenty years Maple Leaf Adventures has been providing unique and affordable opportunities for travelers to visit the stunning coastlines of British Columbia and southern Alaska, with a host of tours designed to offer amazing wildlife experiences while immersing travelers in the native cultures that are still prevalent in the region today.

A quick glance at Maple Leaf’s list of tours and you’ll begin to understand why they were named one of National Geographic Adventure‘s best adventure travel companies. Their trips range in length from five to eleven nights, with small groups of travelers boarding the Maple Leaf, a 92-foot long, 104 year old, wooden schooner that has been refurbished with modern amenities and outfitted to make these expedition cruises as comfortable as possible for passengers. The entire experience is enhanced further by the presence of top naturalists and historians who specialize in the B.C. and Alaskan coasts and serve as guides for the these adventures.

Eco-tourism may have become a hot topic in the travel industry over the past few years, but for Maple Leaf Adventures, it has been part of the companies philosophy since it was founded back in 1986. All of the tours have been meticulously planned to have as small of an impact on the environment as possible, and the company has championed conservation efforts along the B.C. coastline for years. In addition, Maple Leaf was instrumental in opening travel options to the Great Bear Rainforest and parts of Vancouver Island.

Personally, the thought of taking an adventure cruise along the Alaskan or B.C. coasts sounds like an amazing experience. The fact that the cruise takes place on a wooden longship that provides a sense of history, only enhances the appeal. With so many interesting options to choose from, it is difficult to recommend just one, but it’s also hard to top their voyage to the Gulf Islands, in Autumn no less. Those lucky enough to make that journey are treated to spectacular scenery, the great migration of birds heading south for winter, spawning salmon, and giant orcas, with the stunning backdrop of all the fall colors. Sounds perfect to me!

Spin a hula-hoop, get an upgrade

by Alison Brick on

Forget about singing for your supper. How about hula-hooping for your hotel upgrade?

If you can spin a hoop for 20 seconds, that’s enough to earn you a room upgrade at Kimpton Hotels. Not civilized enough? Okay, how about Rock, Paper, Scissors?

The get-in-touch-with-your-inner-kid approach is part of Kimpton’s Summer Playground promotion. Some freebies at wine hour are tailored to the kid in us: ice cream, or virtual Wii golf, baseball, or tennis. Others are more adult favorites: wine, sangria, and appetizers.

They’ve also put together a Summer Playground package: accommodations, $25 food/beverage credit, and complimentary in-room movie/popcorn. Rates start at $199/night, depending on the location and availability. Book on the phone and mention Summer Playground, or online and use the promo code PLGD.

The promotion is available at Kimpton Hotels’ 47 US and Canada properties through September 7th.

Sipping tea with a goal: a free night’s B&B stay

by Alison Brick on

Remember when you’d cut out UPC codes from your favorite cereal boxes and mail them in for gadgets and gizmos?

Stash Tea is reviving that tradition, and the prizes have improved in the last few decades–you get a free night at a B&B.

What you need to do: cut out UPC codes from three boxes of Stash Tea and mail them in with a form plus $3.95 (check or money order). (Or else, spend $10 or more on Stash’s online store, plus $3.95.) You’ll get Stash’s Guide to Bed & Breakfast Inns, which includes a certificate for a free night at one of the 600 B&Bs in the US and Canada listed.

Unfortunately, a minimum two-night stay is required, and some B&Bs limit you to weekday or low-season stays. Fortunately, the offer is valid through June 2011.

Life Nomadic: Visiting Cirque du Soleil’s Roots

by Tynan on

One great perk of being a nomad is that you get to see great shows all around the world that you otherwise may not have access to. I’ve seen Les Miserables in London, Paul Potts in Japan, and a number of shows on Broadway in New York.

Trips through Vegas, which seem to happen at least once a year, always mean seeing a Cirque du Soleil show. As you may have guessed from my previous write-up on KA, I’ve become a huge fan.

Although Cirque has now become a quintessential staple of Las Vegas, the troupe was originally founded in Montreal. So when I heard that a new show, Ovo, was opening in the famous Grand Chapiteau on the waterfront of Old Montreal, I knew I had to go. Luckily I was scheduled to visit my girlfriend, also a Cirque fan, in nearby Toronto, so we made plans to head to Montreal.

After a spectacular cup of tea at nearby Ming Tao Xuan, which nearly warrants its own post, we walked through Montreal’s pleasant weather to the tents.
For about fifteen minutes we stared at the enourmous egg (Ovo means Egg in Portuguese) on stage and pondered what they might do with it. Before we could come up with any solid theories, the show began.

I won’t give any specifics of the show to ruin the surprise, but I will say this: Ovo is the first touring show I’ve seen that rivals the permanent installations in Las Vegas. Declaring a favorite show is too gut wrenching to consider, but Ovo is definitely a contender.

My favorite element of Cirque performances are the acrobatics. Some shows have more, others have less. Ovo was packed to the brim, especially during the second half of the show. Some sequences were hard for me to watch– the maneuvers were so impossibly complicated and required such exact precision that I was actually nervous for the performers.

One performer actually missed his mark and fell. I was happy to see this, though, because it’s a signal that the directors are really pushing what is possible instead of relying on easier moves that they know can be completed easily. The performer tried again, made it, and the crowd went wild for him. You can imagine how nervous I was for him the second time around.

Another very strong element in Ovo was the music. In most Cirque du Soleil shows I’ve seen, and I certainly haven’t seen them all, the music is fantastic, but plays a background role. In Ovo, though, the musicians were clearly visible and several of them actually came on stage and became part of the story. This made me pay more attention to, and thus enjoy more, the music than I may have otherwise.

Like Mystere, Ovo had a constant element of humor. I found the main character (the suitor) annoying at first, but by the end he had totally won me over. His counterpart, on the other hand, was lovable from the first second we saw her. The costumes were incredible, but they’re so consistently incredible across all of the Cirque du Soleil shows that I don’t have much to say about them.

Overall, Ovo really blew me away. It was one of the very best Cirque shows I’ve seen, and seeing it in Montreal was the icing on the cake. It won’t be in Montreal much longer, but you can check out the schedule (and a short video clip) here.

18 unique travel experiences for the well traveled

by Kraig Becker on

So you think you’ve been everywhere and done everything? Is their something missing when you travel these days? Is the sense of adventure gone? Never fear, because the Times Online has compiled an interesting list of 18 unique travel experiences that are designed to give us a special experience on our getaways.

The suggestions on the list run the gamut from adventurous to decadent to down right surreal. For instance, if you’re headed to southern Africa, then you might want to stay with the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, where you’ll have the opportunity to go on an initiation hunt and spend the night in their village. If that seems like you might be roughing it a bit too much, than perhaps you’d prefer to spend the night on a private island and go sailing off the coast of Croatia. How about taking an exclusive tour of Nefertari’s Tomb in Egypt, where you’ll be one of just 20 visitors in the soon to be closed monument. Or, how about the workout of a lifetime when you’ll be training with the the toughest rugby team on the planet, New Zealand’s All Blacks, , for one very intense week.

Each of the travel experiences comes with a good description of what you can expect on your unique adventure. A link is included to the travel company that is offering the trip, along with expected prices, in this case listed in pounds. But be warned, these one-of-a-kind experiences don’t come cheap, but how do you put a price tag on this kind of excitement?