Intrepid Travel Offers Epic Journey In Footsteps Of Ernest Shackleton

by Kraig Becker on

The term “once in a lifetime adventure” is tossed around a bit too lightly in the travel industry these days and seldom is it used accurately. But when Intrepid Travel uses the term to describe their latest offering, it just might be an understatement. Their recently announced Shackleton Epic truly is a journey like no other, following in the footsteps of one of the greatest explorers of the 20th century to some of most remote places on the planet.

Back in 1914, as the world stood poised on the edge of war, Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 set out aboard the HMS Endurance for Antarctica. They planned to attempt the first traverse of the continent on foot but before they could even take their first step, the ship became trapped in the pack ice off the Antarctic coast. It remained there for eight long, cold months before the ship’s hull cracked under the pressure, sending the Endurance to the bottom of the ocean.

After another two months adrift on ice flows, Shackleton and his crew managed to use the remaining lifeboats to reach the desolate and inhospitable Elephant Island. It was their first steps on solid ground in 497 days, but they were far from safe. Desperate and running out of supplies, the explorer decided to attempt an open water crossing of more than 800 miles to reach South Georgia Island. It took him, and a few hand picked men, 15 days to complete the harrowing crossing, but upon arriving on South Georgia, Shackleton and his men had to spend the following 36 hours crossing 32 miles of mountainous territory just to reach help. After nearly 16 months, the crew of the Endurance was rescued in May of 1916 without the loss of a single life. Shackleton and the tale of his crew is considered by many to be the greatest story of survival in human history.Intrepid Travel’s Shackleton Epic will trace the route of the crew of the Endurance without all of the suffering. The 56-day expedition gets underway on January 3, 2013, from Punta Arenas, Chile. Aboard the TS Pelican, the crew will sail across the Southern Ocean making stops at Deception Island, King George Island and of course both Elephant and South Georgia Islands as well. Those taking part on the journey will recreate Shackleton’s desperate ocean crossing, aboard a replica boat no less, and they’ll have the opportunity to trek the explorer’s route across South Georgia as well. The entire journey will then wrap up with a return sail to South America that finishes in Rio de Janeiro sometime in late February.

This truly is adventure travel that squarely puts the emphasis on the adventure. It will be an experience unlike any other and certainly not for the faint of heart. It is also not for the empty of wallet. There are just ten berths available aboard the Pelican and they cost $30,000 each. That makes this an exclusive adventure to say the least. But for the deep-pocketed adventurer, this will be one of the greatest travel experiences he or she could ever hope to take part in – truly the very definition of a once in a lifetime adventure.

Google Invites Us On A Field Trip With New App

by Kraig Becker on

Earlier this week, tech giant Google released an interesting new Android app called Field Trip that cleverly combines Internet search and GPS services to deliver location specific information to users. The app, which runs in the background on compatible devices, uses alerts to suggest things to see and do in the immediate vicinity around the person using it. Those suggestions can include such things as places to eat or drink, where to catch a show or event, special deals and a whole lot more.

Field Trip taps into databases maintained by companies such as Thrillist, Zagat, Curbed and Yesterland to help make suggestions that may be of interest to the user. Those suggestions can come as frequently or as seldom as you’d like and appear on the screen in the form of a card that presents relevant information about the location or event.

The potential for this app while wandering around our home cities is great of course, as it is always fun to discover new locations and hidden gems that aren’t far from home. But Field Trip sounds like it could be a fantastic option for travelers who enjoy strolling around a new destination while organically discovering unique venues and other points of interest. While the early version of this app is a bit rough around the edges, it does hold a lot of potential for becoming a virtual tour guide in the future.

Field Trip is absolutely free and available now on Google Play store. An iPhone version is in the works and should be available soon.


Paris Water Walk: Footloose On The Canals Saint Martin And Ourcq

by David Downie on

You don’t have to be Moses to walk on water in Paris. Even a footloose freethinker can happily skip over the flowing Canal Saint Martin and its sources, the farther-flung Canal de l’Ourcq and Bassin de la Villette.

These unsung watercourses built or expanded by Napoleons I and III enter Paris on its northeastern edge at La Villette, site of the city’s former slaughterhouses. They curve torpidly across the edgy 19th, 10th, 11th and 4th arrondissements – in that order – until they reach the Seine at the Arsenal Marina.

I was tempted to write “spill” or “rush” but the fact is the canals flow slowly, through many locks. They’re the antithesis of in a hurry. At the right time of day the mood along their tree-lined banks matches the go-slow pace of the water.

Missed seeing the canals up to now? That’s easy. From behind Place de la République, all the way to the Place de la Bastille and the Arsenal Marina, the Canal Saint Martin runs underground. That’s one reason it’s easy to walk on its waters: the esplanade on top is a linear garden. The park and flanking roadways change name many times. Parts are asphalted and used twice weekly for open-air markets.

The market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir held Thursdays and Sundays happens to be Paris’ best. It’s one reason why, when I walk the canals end to end, I start here early on Sunday. In fact, since the new Seine-side walkways have opened on the Right Bank, I pick up the pedestrian path on the river, amble past the Arsenal, then wend my way through the market heading northeast.

For me, the serious excitement starts at the first mossy lock in a pocket-sized park under giant trees. That’s where the Quai de Jemmapes and Quai de Valmy begin. You spot your first humpback bridge 100 yards along. From here to the edge of town it’s an almost uninterrupted series of locks, placid, greenish water, sycamores five stories high – and cafes, nightclubs, restaurants and bobos galore.

%Gallery-166974%

Whereas the Marais was gentrified 30 years ago, the Canal Saint Martin got going around the year 2000. It’s still the land of Wannabe-Bobos – the ones who haven’t quite made it into the star-architect, starlet and multiple-starred chef empyreans.

But judging by the cigarette butts littering the embankments, the SUVs and Smart cars on the sidewalks, and the prices at the cute cafes serving silly food, the prospects are excellent. This will soon be another Place des Vosges. It’s even noisier, with fewer foreign tourists.

Since the object of my walks is to find authenticity in an increasingly gentrified Paris, my enjoyment skyrockets once I get to Place Stalingrad. This section of waterway changes name, becoming the Canal de l’Ourcq. The unpronounceable part is a river. It’s what actually feeds the canals and the wide Bassin de la Villette, another marina.

At Stalingrad and Bassin de la Villette the new park is big with tame hipsters and wilder varieties of Parisian alike, the kind covered with tattoos and equipped with portable professional sound systems. They compete with the barge-cafes, embankment-side clubs, and the multiplex movie complexes facing each other on the Quai de la Seine and Quai de la Loire.

These quays and their unpaved embankments are now the prime destination of Paris’ new generation of bobo-boules players. They’re also the city’s main binge-drinking and partying venue, a lively scene once darkness falls. That’s why I get up here in the morning, when the party crowd is sleeping off the latest all-nighter. Or I saunter over in the late afternoon, at dusk, when the locals and yuppies mix on the quays. There are sling chairs, bike lanes, and walking paths – and if you like rowing or fishing you’re equally well served. Rest up! You’ve got another mile or more to go.

Beyond the locks and pivoting bridge with bizarre decorations, the best part of the walk begins: Quai de la Marne and Quai de l’Oise. Here the aerosol artists have beautified many a wall, the low-income high-rises lend an enchanting could-be-anywhere feel, and the kaleidoscope of characters you encounter seems increasingly full of character.

Geezers come out to La Villette to wet a line: this is the best fishing in town, it’s claimed. The most prized spot is where the Quai de la Gironde and Quai de la Charente meet the quays of Marne and Oise fronting what used to be the meatpacking plant and slaughterhouse district. Anglers pull up plump pike and perch, and maybe even the proverbial lost trout that’s survived a trans-suburban swim.

Urban sunbathers hike out here too. The canals are a reflecting pool, increasing the intensity of the Parisian sun and deepening the summer’s leftover Saint Tropez tan.

The backdrop: train trestles and the reconverted meatpacking plant – once Europe’s biggest. It now houses the Cité des Sciences museum and Geode movie theater. Plus there’s the crazy Parc de la Villette with its fire-engine red garden “follies” and tatterdemalion lawns. The old slaughterhouse, La Grande Halle, a mega-concert venue, lies behind, and so does the Cité de la Musique, Paris’s ear-challenging music conservatory.

On weekends, young couples and their kiddies, yuppies and rare birds – the real working-class Parisians – turn La Villette into an open-air, inner-city resort.

After a cross-town gallop it’s a great place to hear contemporary sound pieces – and fuel up on coffee or something vinous. The hike back to the Seine on the opposite bank of the canal replays the scenery. It also stretches out your water walk by a couple more hours – if you go at the appropriate, deliciously slow pace.

Author and private walking-tour guide David Downie’s latest book is the critically acclaimed “Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light,” soon to be an audiobook. His next memoir, published in April 2013, is “Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James.” His websites are www.davidddownie.com, www.parisparistours.com, http://wanderingfrance.com/blog/paris and http://wanderingliguria.com, dedicated to the
Italian Riviera.

Great ‘Cultural’ Spa Experiences From Around The World

by Laurel Miller on

Even if you’re not a spa junkie, it’s hard to deny the appeal of a great massage or other self-indulgent treatment. I’m actually a massage school graduate, and although I ultimately decided not to pursue that career path, I’ve parlayed my experience into doing the odd spa writing assignment. Not surprisingly, I’m a tough judge when it comes to practitioners, facilities and treatments. I also don’t have any interest in generic treatments. What I love is a spa and menu that captures the essence of a place, through both ingredients and technique.

Many spas around the world now try to incorporate some localized or cultural element into their spa programs. It’s not just a smart marketing tool, but a way to educate clients and hotel guests, employ local people skilled in indigenous therapeutic practices, or sell branded spa products made from ingredients grown on site, or cultivated or foraged by local tribes or farmers.

Sometimes, it’s not a hotel or high-end day spa that’s memorable, but a traditional bathhouse used by locals (such as a Moroccan hammam) that’s special. The low cost of such places is an added bonus: think Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, and parts of the Middle East.

Over the years, I’ve visited a number of spas and bathhouses that have made a big impression on my aching body or abused skin, as well as my innate traveler’s curiosity. After the jump, my favorite spa experiences from around the world.

Six Senses Ninh Van Bay: Vietnam
Located on an isolated peninsula accessible only by boat, Six Senses (near the beach resort of Nha Trang) is a seriously sexy property. Private villas nestle in the hillsides and perch above the water, but the spa and restaurants are the big draw here, as many of their ingredients are sourced from the property’s extensive organic gardens.

The “Locally Inspired” section of the spa menu features treatments like the Vietnamese Well-being Journey: three-and-a-half hours of pure hedonism. A scrub with com xanh (Vietnamese green rice) is followed by a bath in “herbs and oils from the indigenous Hmong and Dao hill tribes of the Sa Pa Valley,” and a traditional massage using bamboo, suction cups and warm poultices filled with native herbs.

On my visit, I opted for a refreshing “Vietnamese Fruit Body Smoother” made with ingredients just harvested from the garden: papaya, pineapple and aloe vera. Other body treatments include applications of Vietnamese green coffee concentrate and a green tea scrub.

Foot reflexology: Hong Kong
Foot reflexologists and massage parlors are ubiquitous throughout Asia, and in my experience, it’s hard to find a bad one. That said, one of the best massages I’ve ever had was an hour-long foot reflexology session in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong. It cost me all of ten dollars, and interestingly enough, it also proved eerily accurate about a long-term GI problem I’d been having that had defied Western diagnosis.

My bliss was momentarily interrupted when my therapist pressed a particular spot on the ball of my foot, causing me to nearly leap out of my skin. He informed me that my gallbladder was inflamed, information I processed but soon forgot. I’d already been tested for gallstones with negative results – twice. A year later, I had an emergency cholecsytectomy to remove my severely diseased gallbladder. A trip to Hong Kong for a foot massage would ultimately have been cheaper and far more enjoyable than three years of worthless diagnostics.

Verana: Yelapa, Jalisco, Mexico
One of my favorite places on earth is Verana, an intimate, eight-guesthouse hilltop retreat located in Yelapa, a fishing village one hour from Puerto Vallarta by water taxi. Husband and wife team Heinz Legler and Veronique Lievre designed the hotel and spa and built it entirely by hand, using local, natural materials.

Although the spa doesn’t focus on traditional Mayan or Aztec technique, Verana grows or forages all of the raw ingredients for its treatments (the gardens also supply the property’s outstanding restaurant), including banana, coconut, lemon, pineapple, papaya and herbs. Try an outdoor massage, followed by a dip in the watsu tub, or an edible-sounding body scrub made with cane sugar and coffee or hibiscus-papaya.

Morocco: hammams
A staple of Moroccan life (as well as other parts of North Africa and the Middle East), hammam refers to segregated public bathhouses that are a weekly ritual for many. A “soap” made from crushed whole olives and natural clay is applied all over the body with an exfoliating mitt. Buckets of hot water are then used to rinse.

Although many hotels in the big cities offer luxury hammam treatments tailored for Western guests, if you want the real deal, go for a public bathhouse. While in Morocco, I got to experience three types of hammam: the hotel variety, a rural DIY hammam at the spectacular Kasbah du Toubkal in the Atlas Mountains, and one at a public bathhouse.

In most public hammams, you’ll strip down in a massive, steam-filled, tiled room. Request an attendant (rather than DIY), who will then scrub the life out of you, flipping you around like a rag-doll. Massages are often offered as part of the service or for an additional fee.

Yes, it’s intimidating and unnerving to be the only naked Westerner in a giant room of naked Muslim men or women, all of who are staring at you and giggling. Once you get over being the odd man (or woman, in my case) out, it’s fascinating to have such an, uh, intimate glimpse into an everyday activity very few travelers experience. The payoff is the softest, cleanest, most glowing skin imaginable.

At hammans that accept Westerners, the vibe is friendly and welcoming, and it’s a way to mingle with locals and participate in an ancient, sacred ritual without causing offense. Do enquire, via sign language or in French, if you should remove all of your clothing, or leave your skivvies on. I failed to do this at the public bathhouse, and increased the staring situation a thousand-fold, because at that particular hammam (unlike the Kasbah), the women kept their underwear on. Oops.

Three highly recommended, traditional, wood-fired Marrakech hammams are Bain Marjorelle (large, modern multi-roomed), Hammam Polo (small, basic, one room), and Hammam el Basha (large, older, multi-roomed). Expect to pay approximately $10 for an attendant (including tip, sometimes massage). Independent travelers can easily find a hamman if they look for people of their own gender carrying buckets, towels and rolled-up mats near a mosque. To ensure you visit a Western-friendly hammam, it’s best to ask hotel or riad staff or taxi drivers for recommendations, and enquire about male/female hours.

Daintree EcoLodge & Spa: Daintree, Queensland, Australia
The Daintree Rainforest, located near Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland, is over 135 million years old. It’s home to some of the rarest and most primitive flora on earth, much of it traditionally used by the local Aboriginal people for medicinal purposes.

The Daintree Wellness Spa at the low-key, family-owned and-operated EcoLodge has received international accolades for both its work with the local Kuku Yajani people, and its luxe treatments. The spa relies on ochre (a skin purifier) harvested from beneath the property’s waterfall, as well as indigenous “bush” ingredients from the Daintree such as rosella, avocado, native mint, wild ginger, bush honey, quandong, tea tree and spring water. The spa also produces its own line of products, Daintree Essentials (available online).

All treatments integrate traditional Kuku Yalanji modalities and spiritual beliefs, and have received approval from the local elders. I opted for the Ngujajura (Dreamtime) package, which includes a full body and foot massage, Walu BalBal facial and rain therapy treatment (a specialty at Daintree, consisting of an oil and sea salt exfoliation, ochre mud wrap and spring water shower administered tableside … trust me, it’s revelatory). An added bonus: the lodge offers Aboriginal cultural classes that include jungle walks, medicinal plants and bush foods (try eating green ants, a surprisingly tasty source of vitamin C).

Alto Atacama Desert Lodge & Spa: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
This absolutely enchanting adobe property on the outskirts of the village of San Pedro is a slice of heaven, even if you skip its Puri Spa. But that would be a mistake, because then you wouldn’t be able to succumb to treatments and ingredients adapted from what’s been traditionally used by the local Atacameño people for thousands of years.

Atacama is the driest desert on earth, so on my visit, I chose the “Royal Quinoa Face Mask,” made with locally sourced quinoa (for its exfoliating and regenerative properties) mixed with local honey and yogurt. I left the treatment room looking considerably less desiccated.

The real splurge is the Sabay Massage, which uses pindas, or cloth pouches, filled with rice (used here as an exfoliant), rica rica (an herbal digestive aid also used in aromatherapy) and chañar berries (medicinally used as an expectorant and to stimulate circulation, as well as a food source) collected from around the property, which has extensive native gardens designed by a reknown Chilean ethno-botanist. You’ll emerge silky-skinned and tension-free. Dulces Sueños.

[Photo credits: Massage, Flickr user thomaswanhoff; Six Senses, Laurel Miller; Verana, Flickr user dmealiffe]

Explore Cuba’s Rich History And Culture With GeoEx

by Kraig Becker on

Adventure travel company Geographic Expeditions (GeoEx) has announced that it has been awarded a license to begin offering historical and cultural exchange tours to Cuba, giving Americans a rare opportunity to visit a country that has essentially been off limits for decades. The first scheduled tour will take place November 3-10 of this year and travelers who book by October 1 will receive a $500 discount.

The GeoEx itinerary, entitled “Connecting with Cuba’s Living History,” puts the focus squarely on that country’s rich culture. Visitors to the island nation will get the chance to meet with local artists, musicians, dancers and historians while exploring the UNESCO Heritage Sites of Trinidad and Cienfugos. They’ll also roam the streets of Havana, a city that has remained nearly frozen in time for the past 50 years, while learning about Cuba’s ambitious social programs during a visit to a state-sponsored maternity clinic.

One of the culinary highlights of the trip will be regular stops at paladars, which are private restaurants commonly run out of local homes. These unique eateries not only offer a savory sampling of Cuban food but are a prime example of how entrepreneurship is alive and well in the country. Owned and operated by an emerging group of restaurateurs, the paladars offer a glimpse into the culture while simultaneously serving up an excellent meal.

GeoEx, who was named the best adventure travel company in the world by “Outside” magazine, has charged their top Cuba experts with putting together an unforgettable experience for travelers. Judging from the itinerary it seems they have more than succeeded at that task. If you’ve ever dreamed of visiting Cuba for yourself, this is a great opportunity to do so and at a discount no less. Find out more by clicking here.