Fit For Trips Gets You Ready For Adventure

by Kraig Becker on

Some people like to go on vacation to relax, sit on a beach and enjoy fine foods and sip fruity drinks. Others take a break from their regular life to go on an adventure. They climb mountains, they trek through the Himalaya, and they cycle through the south of France. Adventure travelers need to be in great shape before they leave on their vacations, and that’s where Fit For Trips comes in.

Fit For Trips offers 4, 8, and 12 week programs designed to get you ready for your adventure vacation. Each of them is easily adaptable to the activities that you will be participating in while traveling, and can be custom made to match your itinerary, and best of all, they can help someone who is just starting to get in shape or is already working out regularly.
There are programs designed for biking, both on and off road, trekking, paddling, walking, and multisports. Rates vary depending on the length of the program and the levels of customization. Typically a four week program starts at $169 while a twelve week program tops out around $339. For your money, you get video clips of exercise routines specific to your activities, reference charts and photos demonstrating your exercises, unlimited access to the Fit For Trips forums, and unlimited e-mail consultation from the FFT trainers. You’ll also have online tracking of your progress and the whole thing comes with a money back guarantee.

The idea is that you’ll enjoy your adventure travel more if you are in better condition and won’t suffer physically while taking part in all those activities. As a happy traveler your get more from your vacation and have more of an opportunity to soak up the culture and the adventure. To check out sample work out routines, click here, and to take a tour of what Fit For Trips has to offer, click here. Then start preparing for your next trip with the right routine as soon as possible.

Bowermaster’s Antarctica — Grand Dider Channel, Antarctic Peninsula

by Jon Bowermaster on

I first came to Antarctica twenty years ago, as part of an international team intent on dog sledding across the continent. Since then, I’ve been back more than a dozen times; last season for nearly three months, much of that time traveling the length of the six hundred mile long Peninsula by sailboat and kayak, the rocky finger jutting into the Southern Ocean from the continent. Unlike many of the most veteran of Antarctic aficionados, I’ve had the good fortune to get to know both the stark, forbidding interior of the continent, as well as parts of its glacier-lined coastline.

What I’ve learned is that every summer season – roughly December through February – is vastly different here. And every day is vastly different too. What is not changing is that during the past fifty years, most noticeably during the past decade, air temperatures along the Peninsula have warmed more than anywhere on the planet. The impacts of warmer temperatures are evidenced everywhere, from loss of ice cover to changing wildlife habits. The ability to take a close-up look at that evolution is a great chance for me.

This morning I spent the morning among the Yalour Islands, near the northern end of the Grand Didier Channel, zipping by Zodiac around icebergs of a variety of shapes and sizes. Initially the skies were bright and blue, the first such we’ve seen in a few days. Actually, the last blue skies were accompanied by hurricane winds, which blew every cloud in the sky out of the way. But as is typical for Antarctica, things changed rapidly today as a fast-moving snow squall blotted the sun and turned the idyllic scene quickly more ominous, a whiteout, impossible to see the shoreline.

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We passed through these islands eleven months ago by kayak and the difference today is dramatic. Because we were going to travel along the Peninsula by kayak last January, for many months I had started each morning checking out www.polarview.aq and its satellite images of Antarctica’s ice.

Each year more than seven millions square miles of sea ice freezes around the continent, growing the continent to twice the size of the U.S. And each year that pack ice breaks up and melts in different patterns and stages dependent on how warm the temperatures are, how big are the winds. Thanks to a colder-than-usual winter last year the continent was ringed by frozen sea ice until late in January, even the Peninsula, which is generally the first Antarctic region to lose its ice.

By comparison, this season the Peninsula is amazingly clear of pack ice, less than anyone can remember seeing.

Perhaps most telling: Yesterday at Cuverville Island, on a rocky, north-facing slope we spied something very new to Antarctica: Grass. About twenty feet off the sea, two small patches of just-greening herb sprouted, fed by summer sun and warming air temperatures, clear evidence the Peninsula is warming.

Click HERE for more dispatches from Antarctica!

Destinations on the edge: Baghdad

by Tom Johansmeyer on

There used to be one way to go to Iraq. You’d go to your local recruiting office, take an oath and sign a contract. Then, you’d subject yourself to a minimum of 16 weeks’ training under the most unpleasant of circumstances. Wearing your snappy new threads (and a Kevlar helmet), you’d be put on a plane. Today, things are a bit different. You don’t have to be a soldier or civilian contractor to go to Baghdad. All you need to do is buy a plane ticket.

If you’re looking to put the winter chill behind you, Iraq is certainly an option. Civilian flights now touch down every day at Baghdad International Airport. But, as you’d expect from airlines operating in a war zone, information’s not easy to come by. Royal Jordanian Airlines operates flights to Iraq. On its website’s route map, several Iraqi cities are listed, including Baghdad, Irbil (also spelled “Erbil” and sometimes “Arbil”) and Basra. When you try to book a flight to these destinations from the website, though, you’ll see that they aren’t available. To book a flight, give them a call to get more information. You can also roll the dice with Iraqi Airways, but I’d stick to known brands.

Play it safe by taking an Austrian Airlines flight to Irbil. Jumping off from JFK (New York) or DCA (Washington, D.C.) makes the most sense, and the latter is a bit less expensive. A round trip for late January will set you back around $2,000 for the cheapest fare available, so keep in mind that this insanity is a form of luxury travel.

Hey, adventure’s the new luxury. Drop the cash on a thrill.

If you really want to live life on the edge, you can be driven into the city by a “bodyguard.” This service provider is pretty much a guy with a car an AK-47 sitting across his lap. He’ll bring you into the country, but you’ll probably be nervous the whole way. Or, maybe the notion of a stranger in a war-torn country with a rifle across his thighs makes you feel comfortable. I don’t judge.

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According to several reports from the ground, the Baghdad airport itself is relatively safe. There are plenty guards all over the terminals, and they do take their jobs seriously. Photography is not permitted, a fact that the folks with the guns will make sure you understand (though not in a harassing manner). Once you’re on the outside, the rules change. Iraq is a war zone; there’s no other way to describe it. People shoot at each other. Hostages have been taken. So, you need to be smart when you make this trek. Follow the rules when you see people with weapons.

But, you don’t care. So, it’s time to find a hotel.

The normal means of booking a room do not apply to Baghdad. Scour the traditional travel sites, and you will be disappointed with each click of your mouse. So, dig a little. On RealTravel, you can get a bit of variety. Twelve hotels are listed, with rates varying from the Hotel Ishtar’s painless $67 a night to the Palestine International Hotel’s $150 room rate.

Don’t expect luxury. Howard Cornell, a contractor who served in Iraq, remembers stays at both Hotel Baghdad and the al Rasheed. He recounts in an interview with TraderDaily.com that the al Rasheed was a bit beat up on the outside but wasn’t so bad one you crossed the threshold. Hotel Baghdad? Well, it’s only good for “reporters for civilians with a pistol under the pillow.” In town, you’ll be able to get around on foot or via taxi. The cab drivers are comfortable enough with the tourist economy to quote rates in U.S. dollars.

If you’ve become immune to the safer thrills of skydiving and cave diving, war tourism is the next logical step. There are plenty of danger zones around the world; you have choices. Unfortunately, Afghanistan gets cold. Iraq will get you the adrenaline rush you crave, and you probably won’t need to pack a sweater.

Be careful when you tour Baghdad. Stay aware of your surroundings at all times, and you’ll have a fulfilling experience. This is a unique opportunity, and few will make this sort of move. When your co-workers brag of their luxurious or unusual travel exploits, having been to Baghdad will equip you to end their tales … quickly.

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[Thanks, Brian Sayler, for the galleries and photo of Sadam’s palace above]

Bowermaster’s Antarctica — Greetings from Antarctica!

by Jon Bowermaster on

Hello … from … Antarctica! More specifically, it’s Peninsula, which juts like a 600-mile-long finger from the seventh continent, stretching towards the southern tip of the Americas. Surrounded on either side by frozen sea ice and open ocean, this is the most dynamic, the most changing region of Antarctica and a place I have been coming to for nearly twenty years. My first experience? With dog sleds, in 1989, the last of the great sledding expeditions to explore the continent. More recently, last year I brought a small team and sea kayaks and we traveled from the tip of the Peninsula to 120 miles south of the Antarctic Circle.

What keeps me coming back are a variety of things, but particularly that the place is changing so fast. While Antarctica seems remote, an icy, impenetrable fortress – and admittedly, much of the continent, especially its high, dry, cold interior lives up to that reputation – the Peninsula is where many of the impacts of global climate change are most evidenced. Average temperatures here have climbed more than anywhere else on the planet during the past fifty years.

Ironically, the Peninsula is simultaneously witnessing another boom: Tourism! It’s hard to fathom until you’re down here and see, on occasion, several big tourists boats in one day, but Antarctica has become one of the hottest tourist destinations on the planet. Each year sets new records for visitors; last season, more than 46,000. The upside is that such visits create new ambassadors for one of the few places on the planet successfully governed by international treaty.
The downside is something we witnessed just last month, when a tourist boat, the “M/V Ushuaia,” ran aground about fifty miles from where I write. While all the passengers and crew were safely transported by Chilean Naval ship to nearby King George Island, then flown back to South America, the ship was still on the rocks for days. With a hole in it, which has leaked fuel oil into what are otherwise pristine waters. The concern was that even if the ship is pulled off the rocks, given the damage, it may not have been able to navigate or even be towed back to Argentina. Luckily, the ship made it back safely.

I also come for the sheer beauty of the place. Nowhere on the planet can match Antarctica for grandeur. It’s like Alaska piled on top of another Alaska piled on top of another Alaska and then dropped at the edge of the Himalaya. This morning I hiked 1,500 feet up a hill on Cuverville Island. Out of the wind, it was warm, just about the freezing mark. Gusting winds dropped the temps to 17, 18 degrees. The higher I got, the more the expanse grew. In the bay below a dozen icebergs bigger than small apartment buildings – blue and white, shining under a bright blue sky – were stuck in the shallows. Across a narrow channel, tongues of ancient glaciers fall to the sea. Along the way I passed a half-dozen colonies of Gentoo penguins nesting; they will have chicks to take care of within a matter of days. It was a brilliantly clear day and as far as I could see – a dozen miles — everything was deep blue and bright white, marred by the occasional exposed rocky cliff.

I like to think of Antarctica as the beating heart of Planet Earth and this morning, despite any and all concerns, it seemed to be very, very healthy.

I’m here for two months and will be reporting in every week or so, so please stay tuned.

Click HERE for more dispatches from Antarctica!

Ecotourism comes to Cambodia

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Mountain bikers can reclaim wilderness that once belonged to illegal loggers and poachers. Hidden in the foothills of Cambodia‘s Cardamom Mountains, the village of Chi Pat is now home to a mountain biking experience that is unparalleled in trail and impact.

This new program is the result of cooperation among Wildlife Alliance (formerly known as Wild Aid), Asia Adventures (a Cambodia-based adventure travel company) and the villagers of Chi Pat. Off-road cycling tourists are expected to bring a sustainable source of income to the villagers while exposing guests to some of the world’s last remaining virgin wilderness.

Chi Pat is two hours from Phnom Penh by boat and is portal to old logging routes, undulating trails and streams and shallow rivers. Ride through bamboo thicket, rain forest and hills while gazing upon waterfalls, bat caves and waterfalls. A lucky few will see rare wildlife, such as elephants.

Simply by mountain biking in Chi Pat, you can help the villagers reclaim their home from years of abuse by illicit tree-choppers and hunters. Merely enjoying yourself has never been so powerful.

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[Photos thanks to Asia Adventures]