AKTAU, Kazakhstan – The Toyota 4x4 bounced across a roadless, barren plain. Behind, a cloud of pale dust shimmered in the sun. Ahead, a formation of bleached rocks shot skyward.
“I am never sure of time or place on a Railroad,” Charles Dickens wrote in 1856 as rail travel was beginning to change our concept of distance. I recognized the feeling when I recently rode Amtrak’s new twice-daily Mardi Gras Service running along the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.
There’s a lot of luck involved in traveling to the Big Island of Hawaii to see a volcanic eruption. When Kilauea blew in early October, with lava spewing up to 1,300 feet in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, viewing it at night, from a campsite some 30 miles away, was the second-best thing about taking an off-the-grid approach to touring the Big Island.
Jaipur – India’s Pink City – is a place where history, culture and vibrant colors come alive in the most magical way. From the moment you arrive, the city, with its majestic forts and bustling bazaars, envelops you in its old-world charm. Walking through the streets, you witness artisans creating exquisite block-printed fabrics and handcrafted jewelry.
Logistics tend to bump up the price of visiting the Caribbean. But the dual-nation island of Dutch St. Maarten and French St. Martin offers an advantage: It’s a transportation hub for the Leeward Islands, served by most major American carriers and some European ones.
The red sandstone buttes and rugged expanses of Monument Valley, in the Navajo Nation, have long invited visitors from around the world to experience this landscape worthy of a classic Western film.
When friends visit Paris, they often ask me to accompany them on the perfect day trip. Most have already done the Chartres Cathedral, the Fontainebleau Château and Claude Monet’s house with its water lilies at Giverny.
Our first stop on a 10-day road trip through Slovenia was a weathered, wooden farmhouse whose owner, Aci Urbajs, called himself a farmer, a father, an artist, an anarchist and a winemaker.
It is a culinary adventure that started with a bang: Some 400 million years ago, a meteor more than 2 miles wide slammed into what is now the Charlevoix region of Quebec, Canada, creating an impact crater 34 miles wide.
The air is stuffy and hot as we slip through the door of this hut, a rush of chatter greeting us as we take our seats along a long wooden bench, not far from Silverstrand Beach, in Galway. We aren’t there long before a stranger leans over – “Where are you from?” he asks.
Standing in front of a trim Victorian house overlooking the Columbia River, a man suddenly lifted his shirt and began to shimmy. Onlookers egged him on.
The first thing I noticed upon arriving at a trailhead in Yushan National Park in Taiwan was a saxophonist jamming on the side of the road. Eyes closed, he was immersed in his music, surrounded by staggering mountains and verdant forest. He seemed to be expressing his joy at being in nature, which in Taiwan, I found, is never far away.
Sleeping in the treetops is a childhood fantasy of many travelers and adventure seekers. For some, it looks like the Adventureland Treehouse at Disneyland, an attraction inspired by the 1960 film “Swiss Family Robinson.” For others, the dream is the tree house at Pitchford Hall in rural Shropshire in England, which claims to be the world’s oldest, dating to 1692 (tours available).
