Ten Off-Season Jobs

by Erik Olsen on

Stellar Magazine, one of my favorite online
adventure mags, has gone a fine
feature on off-season jobs. No, this is not about how to be a data entry clerk or an accountant with a small
tractor parts company. These are the kind of jobs you can get your teeth into. Jobs like tennis pro, exotic dancer
(just don’t get your teeth into one of the dancers…that’ll lead to a law suit) and river guide.

Yes, they
mention office worker..why, I don’t know, but we forgive them. But I like the idea here mucho. After all, you gotta make
some dough when you’re not skiing, and what better way to beef up your cash reserves than exotic dancing…? These jobs
pay well…unless you work around the Duke campus, of course. (OK, bad joke!)

Putting the 'F' Back in Adventure Travel

by Adrienne Wilson on

Even if you swore you never saw it
before, chances are you’ll be seeing it more these days. And you’re probably thinking words like ‘funk’ or
‘free-spirit,’ but what I’m talking about is FAMILY. You heard right, according to this Cleveland.com
piece agencies are seeing an increase in adventure packed family vaca’s and I’m not talking about riding the Kinga Ka at Six Flags, folks. Think more towards a
Heli-Hiking tour like those offered by Chilko Lake Resort located 150 miles out of Vancouver. The story touches on the
author’s family fun-filled times bushwacking down a mountain and intense hiking up rocky ridges with her two teenage
daughters. Quite impressive.

Of course putting the ‘F’ in adventure travel is going to require you put the
‘dough’ on the table and these types of trips are certainly not cheap. Parents scraping to take their children on a
pricey trip to see Mickey Mouse at Disney World may be
tempted to look away, but the truth is some far-more incredible destination may only be a few extra hundred dollars.
When you’re talking about the kind of experiences Ogintz mentions like
kayaking along whales in Alaska, it’s soo worth it.

To start planning your own adventure travel family
vacation check out some of the sites found in the story listed below:

Falling Waters Adventure Resort

by Erik Olsen on

Consider the yurt.

It is not the most common
form of housing in the United States. And last I checked REI doesn’t sell a Gortex yurt, but there is something to be
said for this for type of housing. First of all, it’s pretty interesting-looking. Second of all, it’s fun to say. After
that, well, I’m sure there’s more.

But the reason I bring up the whole yurt thing is that you can rent your
own yurt at Falling Waters
Adventure Resort in North Carolina. Located adjacent to the Nantahala Gorge, which we’ve blogged about for its outstanding whitewater
rafting, mountain biking, horseback riding, fishing, canoeing and kayaking, the resort here offers yurts galore for your
sleeping pleasure. The resort is located near the Appalachian Trail, Bartram Trail and several others in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. You can get your own tricked out yurt for about
$81, some have phenomenal views and all are close to some of the most epic outdoor action on the East Coast.

So there you go: have a yurt and a smile.

Big Sur by Boat

by Erik Olsen on

One of my favorite things about California’s coastline
is how much it changes from South to North. From barren, sandy beaches where the waves break perfectly (the South) to
rocky cliffs and redwoods kissing the surf (the North), the California Coast therefore offers different kinds of fun
depending on what you like to do.

National Geographic Adventure has got a nice little piece on
paddling Big Sur. This is surely one of the great California trips. I was in the Channel Islands paddling just a few
weeks ago, and one of the guides there mentioned Big Sur to me when I asked him about other great Cali locales, so it
was with a dose of pleasant surprise that I came across this story in Nat Geo.

The swells in the area
can be dangerous, and of course it is close to the notoriously Great White rich feeding grounds of Piedras Blancas, but
it’s ridiculously rare for sharks to attack kakayers…not that this makes the thought of paddling among them any
easier.

A couple of local outfitters are mentioned if this trip is of interest. Big Sur Kayak Adventures offers paddling trips, as does
Cambria-based Sea for Yourself Kayak Outfitters. Trips with
these guys will run you a bit less than $100…easily worth it.

Paddling with Sharks and Gators

by Erik Olsen on

Over at Divester they posted a pretty amazing
photo which might not be real, but is still rather creepy. The shot shows a very large shark trailing behind a
paddler, perhaps eyeing him for dinner.

Well, along these lines, but with much smaller sharks (about five
feet or so), there’s a story
over at CNN about paddling around sharks and gators in Florida. The writer heads to Cudjoe Key, about 20 miles Key
West, where he sets himself up for a paddle to Raccoon Key, and spies a hefty handful of nurse and blacktip
sharks. 

It’s a nice little piece that reveals some of the excellent paddling ops here stateside. In
other words, you don’t have to go to Africa or Australia to paddle around some of the "nasties" as they are
called down under.