People are spending over $700 billion on travel to and within the U.S. every year. According to the U.S. Travel Association, nearly 60 million people visited the United States in 2010 to wander around, check out what we have going on and in general delight in a place with rich [...]
There’s a soft spot in my heart for green travel. Eco-tourism usually means ruggedness, simplicity, adventure, community, low-impact and most of the time, quite comfortable. This is an oversimplification, of course. Eco-tourism can shoot in many different directions. It can be in a remote jungle with tree houses for accommodation. [...]
Cuba isn’t just another island in the Caribbean with fine, white sand beaches. It’s one of the most electric and visceral of all Latin American nations. A history wrought by swashbucklers, revolutionaries, crooks and plenty of soul, it’s a place with mildewed streets where vintage American cars run on Russian [...]
Traveling can really screw up a fitness routine. There’s new cuisine to first sample, fall in love with, and then pack into your gut. Booze is a’ plenty. Rabid bastard dogs try and kill you on morning runs. And how the hell do you say “fitness center” in Chitumbuka, anyways? [...]
Some would consider it dangerous to trip out on an all-night hallucinogen primarily found deep in the Amazonian jungle that makes LSD and mushrooms look like a sip of alcohol. It goes beyond visions of jagged geometric color portraits to reach states of brain-swilling delirium deep in both the darkest [...]
On the beaten-to-death backpacker’s circuit in Laos, there is a small riverside town named Vangvieng. It straddles the crystal waters of the Nam Song River and is surrounded by stunning karst monoliths that are home to numerous deep – and widely ignored – caves accessible via short hikes into the [...]
Some people go to India for spiritual rejuvenation. They go there to meditate and do yoga and generally get all blissed out, viewing the country as a pure place to put the mind at ease and the soul at rest. This seems like an absurd idea to me. Unless you’re [...]
Few activities rival the enjoyment of one that combines the thrill of flight with the shock of a deep-water plunge. Cliff jumping is more than just the leap, it’s the expansion of the soul as you make like a terrified bird to careen through the air, and then jolt the [...]
Queenstown is full of ways to throw your money away. It’s a place to gamble, not only with your hard-earned cash, but also with your life. And while there’s always the likelihood of both financial and bodily ruin, the potential for personal glory in New Zealand’s premiere adrenaline junkie town [...]
It’s about six seconds of screaming gut-drop and mind-scrambling hell from the moment you move to dangle your legs outside the airplane to when you finally regain the feeling of your stomach in its appropriate place. But then, when you can coherently appreciate what you’re doing, it’s pure bliss. A [...]