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A New Website that Provides Travelers with Peace of Mind

My brother once had his passport stolen in Turkey and was forced to spend the next month in the country before he was handed a new passport and could leave. He ended up having the time of his life and making lifelong friends, but that’s beside the point. A lost or stolen passport can cause a lot of stress. Just ask my wife who lost her passport on a train behind communist lines in the old East Germany. She was booted off the train and, unlike my brother, did not make any lifelong friends. Now entering the travel world is accessMYID.com, a new website that stores all pertinent travel information like a copy of that passport, travel visas, health insurance cards, and necessary prescriptions. Much like my beloved Carbonite backs up my hard drive, this website will store all travel info for a yearly fee that’s as low as twenty bucks a year. That seems like a low price to pay to offset a potential heart attack.

 

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Top 5 Wildlife Viewing Experiences, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

We’re blessed with 57 National Parks in America. Some, like Yellowstone, attract more than 3 million visitors annually. Others like Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota are far less crowded, leaving the canyons of the Badlands to the wildlife and the lucky few who wander in. The North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt receives only 50,000 to 60,000 visits a year. Heading south from Watford City, I enter the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and soon I’m the only car driving along the Little Missouri River on the 14-mile scenic drive. Within moment I spot a herd of at least 20 bison and pull over. In Yellowstone, this sight would attract a caravan of cars, undoubtedly stopping short so drivers can get that National Geographic shot. Here, I get out my car, linger, laugh, all by my lonesome. And, yes, feel guilty about divulging this underused National Park. See the story I wrote on the park for The Boston Globe.
 

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Soaking in the Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is Iceland’s version of climbing the Eiffel Tower or taking the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building, a site primarily reserved for tourists. Icelanders will simply go to their local pool to lounge in the hot tub at a fraction of the price. That’s not to say I would blow off the Blue Lagoon. Several of the writers I went with to check out the place made a second stop at this geothermal spa before their outgoing flight, since the lagoon is located near the airport. Step into the warm, milky waters, engulfed in a cloud of hazy steam, and your travel weary body instantly feels relieved. You can grab a drink at the bar or apply a white mask of silica mud to your face, known to exfoliate and energize your skin. I initially blew off the silicon mud portion, until some Icelandic babe wandered over to me and asked if I wanted to try. “Sure, why not?” I said as she applied the creamy concoction to my face. After the silicon mud dried and I washed it off in the water, she gave me the royal treatment by then applying an algae mask, an anti-aging cream. Now you understand why my friends wanted to return to the Blue Lagoon. 

 
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Haugan Cruise to Galapagos Islands Receives Rave Reviews

Work out of your house and you often get pleasant surprises, like the time two women from Ecuador knocked on my door to discuss Haugan Cruises. We usually meet reps from travel companies at the local Starbucks, planned weeks in advance. But these two ladies caught me off guard so, of course, I let them in to do their spiel. I walked away impressed with both their presentation and the exquisite catamarans they owned to take clients on 4-day to 15-day trips around the Galapagos Islands. The yachts hold a maximum of 16 people in 9 cabins, with a crew of 11 that includes a Captain and naturalist. A year later, we give Haugan a try with two clients headed to the Galapagos. Both recently returned with rave reviews about the experience. “We strongly recommend Haugan! The Ocean Spray was wonderful. Our trip director and guide, Jose, was outstanding. The crew were all extremely helpful. Our chef was four star! We had three full meals a day, each one better than the next. Our state room was spacious with a private outside sitting area. Also large bathroom. All accommodations were very comfortable.”

The second client just returned this week. Here’s what she wrote: “The attention and service from Haugan tours was top notch. Galapagos was beyond words! I can’t tell you enough how much we appreciate all you did to set this up for us. Thank you, thank you!!!” 
 
Moral of story: feel free to knock on my door any time. 
 
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Marsh, Billings, Rockefeller—Quite the Trio

“Every middle-aged man who revisits his birthplace after a few years of absence looks upon another landscape than that which formed the theater of his youthful toils and pleasures,” said George Perkins Marsh in 1847 in a speech at the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont. Growing up in Woodstock, Vermont, Marsh had seen three-quarters of Vermont’s forest cover destroyed for potash, lumber, crops, and pasture.  17 years later, Marsh would delve further into these egregious practices in his epic book on the American environment, Man and Nature. Reflecting on what he had seen, Marsh wrote about a concept of sound husbandry where men could mend nature.

A generation younger, Frederick Billings was deeply touched by Marsh’s writings and, in 1869, purchased Marsh’s childhood home in order to make the estate a model of progressive farming and forestry. Beginning in the 1870s, Billings designed a forest with numerous tree plantations and constructed a 20-mile network of carriage roads to showcase his work. On the lowlands, Billings developed a state-of-the-art dairy. In 1982, Billings granddaughter, Mary French Rockefeller and her husband, the conservationist Laurance Rockefeller, established the farmland as the Billings Farm & Museum. In June 1998, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion and the surrounding forest became the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller is the first unit of the National Park System to focus on the theme of conservation history and stewardship, the main concern of Marsh and Billings. With their emphasis on the careful cooperation of man and nature, they had the utmost desire to pass land on, undiminished, even enhanced, to the next generation and generations to come. The Park Service will continue a program of forest management on the site, offering workshops on how to use the forest most efficiently.

Tour the exhibits in the Carriage Barn, then hit the carriage path trails like my family did this past weekend through Billings’ dream 550-acre forest. 11 of Billings’ original plantings remain including groves of Norwegian spruce and Scottish Pine from the 1880s, mixed in with the an indigenous Vermont forest of white pine, red pine, and maples. The longest carriage path trail circles around The Pogue, a shimmering body of water backed by the foliage of Mt. Tom.
 

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Yosemite, Worth the Wait

“Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society.” 
John Muir
 
Guest Post and Photo by Amy Perry Basseches 
 
I’d never been to Yosemite National Park, the first wild land in the nation protected for all-time, 150 years ago, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act. Because it was May, we could not enter from the oft-recommended east side at Lee Vining/Mono Basin/Tioga Pass. Instead, nourished by fresh cherries roadside along the way from Sequoia National Park, we entered Yosemite at the Wawona entrance and had lunch at the Big Trees Lodge. We looked around the interesting Pioneer Yosemite History Center and drove through the park on Glacier Point Road to the end for great views of the famous Half Dome and Nevada Falls. My western yearnings were met, without a doubt. Although sad that the hike we intended to do at Taft Point was closed due to snow coverage, it was quite a day.
 
We ended at Mariposa, CA and loved that funky small town: drinks at The Alley, dinner at Savory, and a comfortable enough room at The Yosemite Inn. The next day we were in Yosemite Valley at Bridalveil Falls under a glorious rainbow, grabbed brunch in the old Majestic Yosemite Lodge, and happily hiked to Mirror Lake and Lower Yosemite Falls. We could have easily stayed another two days at Yosemite but we had plans to meet friends and family in Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. 
 
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A Great Time to Raft the Deerfield River in Massachusetts

Thanks to a far too wet spring, New Englanders are blessed with more water in our backyard than we’ve had in years. Many of the whitewater rivers, like the Deerfield that Zoar Outdoor runs, gain their momentum from dam releases at power plants. The more water these plants have in their reservoirs from snow and rain, the more water you have to surge over rapids in a raft or kayak. Raft Zoar Outdoor’s most popular trip, the Zoar Gap. Minimum age is 7 and rates range from $60-$104 depending on age. Their highly regarded white-water kayaking school is also one of the best places to learn the sport in the northeast.

 

2 Comments

  1. So in essence this is a photo of a document?

    But is there no guarantee you will get access to a PC or the like to show the document, or that the customs authority will honor a picture?

    Personally, I would use Carbonite or Mozy (the one I use) to store these, as you can retrieve them via the Web, plus nobody will know you have these docs in there.

    mp/m

  2. Good point, Mike. I don’t think it matters where your important documents are stored online, as long as you can access them when need be!

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