Boldly Go Solo
How to set out solo, but not travel alone: Trips, tips and ideas for the active traveler.
Category: –Biking, Hiking
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Backroads, an active travel company, has come out with an idea whose time has come…but whose price is high: Short getaways. As in, three- and four-day trips. Biking in the San Juan Islands. Hiking and biking in Bryce and Zion national parks. Biking part of the Natchez Trace, a route from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville,…
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The title of a story in yesterday’s Calgary (Canada) Herald was, "Solo Travel Not So Lonely After All." The writer describes three separate trips: cooking in Sicily; hiking in Ireland and going to a spa on Vancouver Island. ALL of them appealed to me. Now I just need the time off work and the money…
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How to spot a solo traveler? "You can always tell us apart by overuse of the self timer on our digital cameras or from the outstretched arm." This line by a fellow solo traveler made me laugh. I have to admit to having a self portrait from the outstretched arm technique. I also have to…
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I’m standing high on a mountain in California on a hot summer day, my hiking boots planted at the top edge of a large patch of snow. One of the last remaining from the winter. I take in the scenery. The snow-kissed Sierra Nevada Mountains. The stoic evergreen trees. A verdant mountain meadow below. Then,…
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My friend Elaine was hesitant to admit that she was glad I didn’t join her on her recent trip out West. But no insult taken. I understood that it meant she’d had a fabulous time. She went out to Utah a few weeks ago without knowing a soul. All packed and ready for a biking…
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<–Turtle sighting! I did not go solo on a 15-mile hike on Martha’s Vineyard on Saturday. Six of us set out on the annual cross-island walk. That turned into a whopping baker’s dozen during a mid-morning break. That’s because my friend Joan, whose house we were staying at for the weekend, knows about a zillion…
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It’s easy to get Sacha Lodge, located in the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador. All you have to do is take a small plane from Quito, the capital, to a little airport in Coca. Then, you hop a boat for a two-hour trip down the Napo River, a tributary of the Amazon. Then you hike for…
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I may be sooo 20th century, but sometimes I prefer to pick up a magazine instead of heading for the Internet for trip ideas. I’m looking, as we speak, at a section I ripped out of my National Geographic Adventure from November 2007. It’s called Best Outfitters on Earth. When you don’t exactly know where…
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I used to think Mr. Right might show up on one of the biking trips I was booking. Or at the Club Med. Or on the river where I was rafting. I’ve heard many stories of people meeting on active vacations and falling in love. Sure, love could strike somewhere between biking a butte and…
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Reading about tonight’s total eclipse of the moon reminded me of an assignment I had several years ago. It was during the Leonid Meteor Shower of 2001. I was in Niagara Falls doing a story for The Washington Post. At some ungodly hour, I dragged my sorry self out of a hotel bed. I wanted…
Boldly Go Solo 