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Mongolia’s Golden Eagle Festival

Each fall, a fascinating event takes flight in the rugged wilds of northwestern Mongolia. It’s the Golden Eagle Festival, a celebration of the heritage and traditions of the native Kazakhs who use Golden Eagles to hunt small prey, not for sport but for survival. For the 13th anniversary Golden Eagle Festival, Nomadic Expeditions, the pioneer of authentic Mongolian adventure travel and one of the most respected outfitters in the business, are offering a unique a nine-day journey through the Altai Mountains. Highlights include visiting local families in their traditional gers, eagle racing with up to 60 Kazakh hunters, and equestrian competitions where you have the chance for a Golden Eagle to perch on your arm. The Golden Eagle Festival will be held October 2-October 10, 2012. 

 

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May Newsletter Now Available at ActiveTravels.com

I just spotted a bright yellow goldfinch outside my office window. Yes, springtime has finally arrived in New England along with budding magnolia and weeping willow trees and the blooms of tulips, hyacinth, and forsythia. Time to go play. Summer is officially around the corner. Our May newsletter covers mostly domestic travel despite the fact that so many of our members are traveling to Europe right now. We don’t want you to forget the beauty of the National Parks, the fun of camping with your family (especially if the tour operator is doing all the heavy lifting), and the enticing events on Nantucket in May and June. Amsterdam is our sole European subject in this issue as we cover some of our favorite properties. Enjoy the weekend! 

 
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ActiveTravels March Newsletter Now Available

Tuscany is a destination often found on people’s bucket lists. Dreams of the unspoiled, authentic Italy where medieval hill towns, vineyards, olive oil and truffles abound. We’ve paired up with a wonderful Italian tour operator who can offer accommodations in farm houses, villas, apartments, or B&Bs in the region with activities that range from taking cooking classes to guided bike rides on the rolling hills past vineyards, Medieval homesteads, and Etruscan tombs. Also in this month’s newsletter, we disclose our 5 favorite off-the-beaten-path National Parks, lodging clients have enjoyed in Jackson Hole, why you should download the app, Yonder, and a gem of a renovated inn that we came across on a recent trip to Stowe. Enjoy!

 
I’m off to Tanzania tonight for an epic trip with Epic Private Journeys to check out Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater. We’ll also be visiting more remote parts of the country like the Grumeti Reserves, home to two lavish lodges, a tented camp, and a mobile camp under the design and management of South Africa’s pioneering Singita tourism group. Another private wildlife reserve, Mwiba, is where you’ll find the latest upscale lodging in the country, the Mwiba Lodge, which opened last June and is already gaining acclaim for its 8 canvas-sided suites. I’ll be checking it all out and sending photos on my Twitter account @ActiveTravels. When I’ll return on March 23rd, you’ll be hearing all about it on this page. So stay tuned and stay active! 
 
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The Trustees of Reservations Week, Northeast Massachusetts Gems

As editor and publisher of the Atlantic Monthly, Ellery Sedgwick worked with some of the finest writers of his time, including Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost. Yet, it’s his marriages to not one, but two accomplished gardeners and horticulturists that has had far more of a lasting impression. In 1916, Sedgwick moved with his first wife, Mabel, to a 114-acre hillside property in the North Shore. He built a Federal-style brick house and even had the verandah shipped from a former hotel in Charleston. The house sits atop a drumlin staring out at forest, but it’s the incredible gardens at Long Hill in Beverly that will capture your attention. 
 
I was fortunate yesterday to tour the majestic grounds with current horticulturist Dan Bouchard. He tells me that any season you visit Long Hill, there will be something in bloom. Right now, however, there’s an explosion of spring color from the beautiful blue forget-me-nots to exotic Chinese redbud to the soft yellow and very rare Molly the Witch peonies. The assemblage of trees is also exceptional, from the tall dawn redwood planted by Sedgwick’s second wife, Marjorie, to the signature copper beech in front of the house nearing a century old to the eastern red cedars that are native to this land. The needles on the Japanese umbrella pine feel like plastic, the thick bark on the weeping hemlock out of a fairy tale. You half expect a gnome to open a hidden door. That’s how special this place is. 
 
From Long Hill, I headed to Gloucester just beyond Stage Fort Pork to Ravenswood Park. This 600-acre refuge, filled with hemlocks and birches, is popular with local dog walkers and mountain bikers. Similar to Acadia National Park’s carriage paths, Ravenswood has ten miles of crushed gravel that’s ideal for first time mountain bikers. Even on a warm spring day, strolling past the many glacial boulders, I spotted few other people. If you need to escape the Cape Ann crowds this summer, try Ravenswood.
 
Then I was off to Andover to visit Ward Reservation and climb Holt Hill. The 1-mile round-trip trail brings you through forest and alongside meadows, where you look down and see a labyrinth of old stone walls. Keep on climbing the grassy trail until you reach the short summit overlooking the expanse of Merrimack Valley. Yes, those buildings on the horizon make up the Boston skyline with the Prudential Building standing all the way to your right. 
 
A quick stop to see the tulips at the nearby Stevens-Coolidge Place and then I was driving to the central part of the state to camp overnight at Tully Lake Campground. The Trustees has their own version of March Madness. It’s the time of year when the campsites at Tully Lake Campground are available for reservations. Within an hour, the prime waterfront camping sites on Tully Lake—numbers 7, 16, 20-A, and 31—are pretty much sold out on summer weekends. Come to this tranquil 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 islands and within narrow Tully River. The Trustees rent their own kayaks and also offer stand-up paddleboarding lessons on Sunday in season, mid-May to late October. Hiking trails lead to Doane’s Falls, where Lawrence Brook tumbles over a series of ledges before it reaches Tully Lake. Ranger Sara leads paddlers to see beavers and Ranger Keith teaches kids how to fish. Also bring your mountain bike, since there’s a 7-mile loop around Long Pond. Tully Lake Campground is one property that people in the know would like to keep a coveted secret. 
 
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Climb Mount Monadnock

Climbing the broad-shouldered peak Henry David Thoreau called a “sublime mass,” Mt. Monadnock, is a rite of passage for many New England children. Just over the border of Massachusetts in southern New Hampshire, Monadnock is less than a two-hour drive from Boston. Its accessibility and locale, smack dab in the center of New England, has made it one of the two most popular mountain ascents in the world going toe-to-toe with Japan’s Mount Fuji. 

 
Early May, when the black flies have yet to arrive, is the ideal time to bag this 3,165-foot peak. Head up the White Dot trail, one of the steepest ascents, but also one that rewards with you with incredible vistas in a very short time. Above treeline, the forest recedes to form open ledges covered with low-lying shrubs like mountain cranberry bushes. This gives you ample opportunity to rest and peer down at the soft blanket of treetops, small towns with their requisite white steeples, a smattering of lakes and ponds, and farms that fan out to anonymous ridges. Soon you’ll reach the summit, where Thoreau watched in dismay as his fellow mid-19th century trampers inscribed their names in rock. You can still spot names like “T.S. Spaulding, 1853” clearly etched in the stone. 
 
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Single Malt Whisky Tasting At Cape Breton’s Glenora Distillery

It’s wonderful to be back in Cape Breton, especially on a hot cloudless sunny day. After crossing Canso Causeway and following Route 19 on Ceilidh Trail, we picnicked on the rocks of the Celtic Shores Coastal Trail, a hard-packed gravel trail which snakes along the western shores of Cape Breton from Port Hastings all the way north 92 kilometers to Inverness. In Glenville, we stopped at the Glenora Distillery to sample the single malt whisky (can’t call it Scotch since we’re not in Scotland). We stepped into the bar and listened to the live Celtic music from local fiddlers and singers while sampling a flight of five whisky choices. The Glen Breton 10 year-old whisky was smooth, but we loved the 19 year-old cask strength whisky finished in a barrel used for ice wine to add a hint of sweetness at the end. Then we took a tour around the distillery to see how they produced 150 barrels of whisky this past year. Built in 1990, Glenora is the first distillery in North America to attempt to make single malt scotch. The water stems from the shimmering McClellan’s Brook which runs through the bucolic property, while the malted barley comes from Saskatchewan and the fast-acting yeast from South Africa. The finished product is aged in oak barrels from the Buffalo Trace bourbon distillery in Kentucky.  The result is award-winning single malt whisky, worthy of a stop. 

 
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Making Memories on the Big Island

The modern-day conundrum is the balance of work of family. This is especially true for a travel advisor who must create extraordinary vacations for her clientele and then duplicate that success for her family (or face the wrath of her children). As a travel writer married to a Boston-based travel agent, I am the beneficiary of my wife’s career—most importantly the way she customizes each trip to our every whim, uses global contacts to not only secure the finest rooms available for our budget thanks to complimentary upgrades but creates unforgettable moments like a dinner on a private Hawaiian beach under the stars. All I do is sit back, relax, carry the luggage, and savor her skills. Thankfully, you don’t have to be married to a travel advisor to get the same level of attention. For our annual family trip last summer, I was asked by Virtuoso Traveler magazine to observe Lisa at work and consider the attributes of using a travel agent. This is what I found.

 

 

 

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