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Chaa Creek, Belize

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2011, Chaa Creek led the eco-friendly movement in Central America, promoting conservation and low-impact sustainable development long before green was the magic word. They also employ local artists to create the furniture in each bungalow and buy produce from local farms to ensure fresh food on the table. The 365-acre nature preserve sits on a hillside of tall mahogany and cedar trees overlooking the Macal River. The property offers two dozen deluxe bungalows, including a treetop suite with whirlpool, new spa, and a restaurant that thrives on local fare. Yet, Chaa Creek’s real forte is guiding folks deep into the jungle. Set up trips to go horseback riding through the Mountain Pine Ridge, paddle the Macal River to see the resident colony of toucans, swim under waterfalls, and visit the Mayan ruins at Caracol.  Bungalows start at $270 a night, including breakfast. 

 

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Saving the Sharks of Palau

Palau is one of those locales, like Fiji and the Red Sea, discussed only in clandestine conversations between avid scuba divers. To reach it, you have to travel five hours from the West Coast to Hawaii, another seven hours to Guam and yet another 90 minutes to this cluster of 200 sparsely populated islands, which Jacques Cousteau called the best scuba diving site in the world. From your home base on the capital isle of Koror, head to the Big Drop-Off, considered the best wall dive on Earth. It starts in knee-deep water and then abruptly plummets almost 1,500 feet into an abyss. Nearly as mind-boggling is Blue Corner, a large coral cavity where three ocean currents meet. Hunker down and watch schools of tuna, white-tip sharks and 3-foot-tall giant clams (where’s the melted butter when you need it?). Those white-tip sharks are protected, along with hammerheads, leopard sharks, and more than 130 other species fighting extinction in the Pacific Ocean now that Palau has created the world’s first shark sanctuary. The country has banned shark fishing on more than 237,000 square miles of ocean, so divers can expect more up close views of those pearly whites. 
 
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Headed Back to Nova Scotia

Next week, I’ll be blogging live from Nova Scotia. So please check in and also follow my Tweets @ActiveTravels. This will be my third trip in the past five years, but my first since I was middle-school student that I’ll be taking the ferry from Portland, Maine. I was excited to learn that the ferry started up again last summer, making it much easier for New Englanders and other northeasterners to make their way to the province. Nova Star Cruises now leaves Portland each evening at 8 pm EST and arrives in Yarmouth at 7 am AST the next morning. The ship departs two hours later and arrives back in Portland at 5 pm local time. I’ll be driving the southern loop on this trip, staring in Yarmouth and heading north to the picturesque seaside town of Lunenburg, the farming and growing wine region of Wolfville, then down to Digby to try those scallops. I’m also going to take full advantage of the favorable exchange rate with Canada, now $1.22 Canadian to the US Dollar. Look forward to describing the highlights of the trip next week! 
 
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Trustees Sites Not To Be Missed, Tully Lake Campground

This coming Saturday, May 21st, the Trustees of Reservations will kick off their 125th anniversary celebration with a “Home Sweet Home” Historic Open House Day. The Great House on the Crane Estate in Ipswich, the Old Manse in Concord, and seven other historic homes will be open to the public for free. To get the festivities rolling, all this week I’m going to divulge 5 unheralded Trustees sites that might not be on your radar. The non-profit conservation organization maintains over 100 sites in Massachusetts including their crown jewel, Crane Beach. Others, like Tully Lake Campground in Royalston, should be on your list. 

 
Come to this tranquil Tully Lake where there is little or no motorized boat traffic and tents-only campsites and you’ll understand why campers return year after year. Many bring their own kayaks to paddle to the sandy isles and within sinuous Tully River. The Trustees offers kayak rentals and stand-up paddleboarding lessons on Sundays in season. Hiking trails lead to stunning Doane’s Falls, where Lawrence Brook tumbles over a series of ledges before it reaches Tully Lake. Rangers lead paddlers to see beavers and teach kids how to fish. You may want to bring your mountain bike, since there’s a 7-mile loop around nearby Long Pond. 
 
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Costa Rica, Ziplining Above the Rainforest Canopy Outside of Quepos

Each year around my birthday, I try to do something a little crazy. Just my way of celebrating another year of survival and reconfirming that yes, I’m very much alive. Often this adventure has something to do with confronting my fear of heights. Last year, I went rock climbing for the first time in the Canadian Rockies. This year, on my fourth trip to Costa Rica, having more than ample opportunity to zipline above the rainforest canopy, I finally agreed to go. Having the chance to cruise with my family was the extra push I needed. We drove through the palm oil plantations high up in the hills above Quepos on the central Costa Rican coast. The company we chose, MidWorld, were extremely professional, especially when attaching our harnesses and carabineers. Then we drove a little bit higher and it was time to bite the bullet. I was worried that my stomach would drop, like on a rollercoaster ride, a dreaded feeling I’d rather not have. Instead, it was just a smooth quick cruise on a cable just above the canopy of green. There were a total of ten platforms and two rappels down from the trees. Walking from one platform to the next, we spotted a toucan and a green and yellow poison dart frog. By the third or fourth zipline, I started to become so comfortable with the sport that I turned upside down. Then I tried to right myself, but my core needs a bit more Pilates before I can pull off that move. So I spent the entire zipline upside down, watching the blur of forest whiz by. I think I earned my chocolate raspberry birthday cake tonight. 

 
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Stay at the Old Tavern in Grafton, Vermont for $222 for Two Nights, Including Breakfast

If you want to stay in a quintessential Vermont town, close to cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and downhill skiing, you might want to take advantage of the Old Tavern in Grafton’s latest deal. Pay just $222 for two nights at the inn (through March), including a full country breakfast and an afternoon cider and Grafton Cheese social. Down the road, The Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center features 15 km of groomed Nordic skiing, wine and cheese snowshoe tours, tubing down a 600-foot high hill, and, new this year, horse-drawn sleigh rides. Never been to Grafton? Amble along Main Street past the Country Store, where I once spotted a sign posted outside asking if anyone’s seen a missing horse, and you swear you just stepped into a Currier and Ives painting. To the right is the red brick town hall, circa 1816, now home to the post office. Further up the road, past the white clapboard houses spewing smoke from their chimneys is the requisite white steeple. Across the street is the Old Tavern, opened in 1801, and once the stagecoach stop on the ride from Boston to Montreal. Ulysses S. Grant spent a night here while campaigning for his presidency and Rudyard Kipling liked the locale so much he honeymooned at the hotel in 1892. For more information on Grafton, see the story I wrote for Preservation Magazine. 

 
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Join Renowned Travel Writer Fran Golden on an Alaskan Cruise this June

Fran Golden, former travel editor of the Boston Herald and author of Frommer’s EasyGuide to Alaskan Cruises and Ports of Call (2018), will be hosting a select group of passengers on an Alaskan cruise June 15-22, 2019. So far 20 people have signed up to join her, but there are still berths available if you’re interested. You’ll board Holland America’s newly refurbished Eurodam (see the latest review in Travel & Leisure) in Seattle. Then make your way up the Pacific coast with stops in Juneau, Glacier Bay, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria, before arriving back in Seattle. Fran will select her favorite shore excursions along the route and provide anecdotes from her other memorable cruises. For more information, please contact ActiveTravels. 

 

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