August 2016 ActiveTravels Newsletter: Travels and Transitions
We have another fabulous newsletter to share with you this month. In our main feature, I break down travel to Australia, including sections on Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Port Douglas. In the Quick Escape section, I discuss Cape Breton, where I revisited in early July. We also present favorite romantic hotels across America and give you an update on the latest travel apps. Lastly, we’d like to introduce you to one of our favorite outfitters, DuVine Cycling, celebrating their 20th anniversary and located in our backyard of Boston. The highlight, however, is Lisa’s Editor’s Letter, where she discusses the role of travel in our ever-changing lives.
I’ll be out of the office next week, dropping off our daughter, Melanie, at Indiana University, and our son, Jake, at Cornell. I’ll be back on Wednesday, August 24th. In the meantime, keep active, and enjoy the summer!
In the 
A perfect introduction to the lush volcanic island of St. Lucia, especially if you’re staying at one of the resorts at the northern end of the island, is to simply take a hike at 
Many riders have biked the 6-mile loop around Central Park, but to really appreciate Manhattan, you have to bike with the skyscrapers at your side around the perimeter of the island on 
The whole eastern half of the US is getting walloped this winter with snow. Come spring, the melt-off will produce some of the best whitewater we’ve had in years. This week, I’m going to delve into my 5 favorite whitewater rafting locales in the East. You’d be wise to book one of these trips in May and June, when water levels will be highest, making these rivers especially fast. First up is the Penobscot River in Maine. The 14-mile stretch of the West Branch of the Penobscot River from Ripogenus Gorge to Baxter State Park is a turbulent waterway that drops over 70 feet per mile through a narrow, granite-walled canyon. Within moments of leaving the put-in, you’ll cruise over your first set of rapids, the Exterminator, with Baxter Mountain looming in the background. Next up is Troublemaker and then Cribworks, the most ferocious rapid of them all. Your day will swiftly become an exhilarating blur of running over these steep falls, screaming with your friends and family, as the raft bends, twists, and turns backwards with every succeeding drop. Go with a reputable outfitter like 
In 2012, Boston, a city that prides itself on its fresh seafood was rocked to its ocean-loving core when a two-part expose published by the Boston Globe revealed that a significant number of fish were mislabeled at area restaurants, grocery stores, and fish markets. Diners were served cheap Vietnamese catfish instead of the succulent and more expensive grouper, haddock instead of cod, tilapia in place of pricey red snapper. Indeed, 24 of the 26 red snapper samples tested were some other species of fish. The two reporters went on a fish collecting spree, sending samples of their findings to a laboratory in Canada for DNA testing. The outcome? A whopping 48 percent of the seafood was mislabeled. In his latest book, 
In 1990, I left my job as an insurance broker in Manhattan, booked an open-ended ticket to the South Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia, and wrote my first travel story, “Dining with the Descendants of Cannibals on a Fijian Island” for the Miami Herald. It would prove to be start of a career where I would write more than 1500 stories (over 300 articles for the Boston Globe alone) and visit over 90 countries. Then the recession hit. I lost more than half my editors in 2008-2009 as magazines folded and newspapers either eliminated or greatly reduced their travel sections. Wanting to utilize my travel expertise, I convinced Lisa to join me in a business venture and become an accredited travel agent.