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New Zealand In Depth To Debut New Conservation-Focused Trip

New Zealanders are serious about protecting their country and its native birds from introduced predators, with a goal to be predator-free by 2050. New Zealand In Depth, a team of trusted local travel experts, is doing their part. November 2017 through April 2018, they will debut a 25-day itinerary with many of the trip’s proceeds contributing to the purchase and placement of new traps and creation of local initiatives. View New Zealand’s rarest birds and experience the country’s conservation efforts while enjoying “natural” luxury accommodations in B&Bs, hotels and lodges; some meals; rental car use; and domestic flight from Dunedin to Auckland. Cost starts at $8,800 per person and highlights include a full-day guided trip with Elm Wildlife on the Otago Peninsula to see albatross and yellow-eyed penguins, and a night walk on Stewart Island in search of the brown kiwi. 

I’m off to the Adirondacks to see my high school buddies. Back on Monday. Enjoy the weekend and keep active! 

 

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Ski the Alps

I had lunch yesterday with 12 ski resorts from the Swiss, French, Italian, German, and Austrian Alps. Travel to the Alps from America was up a whopping 50 percent this past summer and 30 percent last winter. Americans, especially from the East Coast, are finally realizing that you don’t have to be a Rockefeller to ski the region. On average, lift tickets are $50-$60 per day, far less than Stowe or Vail. Yes, you can splurge on some grand hotel at St. Moritz, but there are also many affordable pensions around town. And not all the ski areas are as challenging as Chamonix. Remember, you’re not skiing down the Matterhorn. You’re looking up at the Matterhorn as you ski the base area in Zermatt, a far less threatening proposition with a vast amount of intermediate and novice terrain. The trails are long, relaxed, and thankfully in the past decade, groomed with snowmaking capabilities. Best of all, you’re in Europe, dining on exceptional food and savoring the culture. One day you can be in Kitzbühel, downing large mugs of beer, the next day enjoying a glass of Bordeaux and exceptional French food in Megève. Cortina, in the Italian Dolomites, is only a two-hour drive from Venice, so you can combine Carnevale in February with several nights of skiing. Overseas flights are also much more reasonable in the winter months. So grab those skies and fondue forks and hit the Alps this winter.
 

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Adventures in the Everglades

The best way to tackle the immensity of the 1,506,539-acre Everglades National Park is to take it in chunks.  At Shark Valley Visitor Center at the northern tip of the Everglades, rent bikes from the rangers and get ready for one of the most exhilarating 15-mile loops of your life. More than likely, it will take you an hour to bike that first mile. That’s because you’ll want to stop every 20 yards to get another photograph of an alligator sleeping in the tall grass, large turtles sunbathing on rocks, and the extraordinary amount of birdlife that call the canal next to the bike trail home. Anhingas dry their wings on the branches of the gumbo limbo tree, wood storks, white whooping cranes, and the long-legged great blue heron stand tall in the shallow water, while pink roseate spoonbills fly over the royal palms. Or canoe a stretch of the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway from Everglades City to Flamingo as you paddle though mangrove swamps and creeks to the deserted white beaches of anonymous cays. If the canoe starts to rock, slap your paddle firmly against the water. This usually scares off alligators and those doe-eyed West Indian manatees. 
 

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WayGo is the Way to Go When Visiting China

I’ll never forget that hellish taxi ride my brother and I took from the Bangkok airport to our hotel. After an exhausting flight, we drove aimlessly around town because the taxi driver couldn’t understand where we were staying that night. We pointed to our trusty guidebook but quickly realized that the driver had no idea what we were reading because the Thai have a completely different alphabet. It wasn’t until my brother neighed like a horse and pointed to the gold on a watch that the driver figured out where we were spending the night, “The Golden Horse.” I’m not a linguist, so translating other alphabets is, well, Greek to me. That’s why I was delighted to hear about the WayGo App that travelers are already using on their trips to China. Simply point your iPhone at any Chinese menu or street sign and it translates. No internet connection is necessary. Other languages are on the way, including Thai, hopefully. 
 
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New York City Unveils $3.3 Billion Plan to Improve Waterfront

On a bike trip around Manhattan last summer, I was delighted to witness the improvements New York was making along its shoreline. Like many American cities, New York has reconnected with its waterfront setting over the past decade, converting dilapidated docks and toxic marsh along the rivers into manicured parkland. Biking near 170th Street under the steel arch High Bridge, we spotted recent additions to the Harlem River shoreline, most noticeably a new boathouse at Swindler Cove Park and an adjoining children’s garden. Now Mayor Bloomberg has announced a $3.3 billion plan for new parks and environmental improvements to its 578 miles of shoreline to help boost recreation and real estate. I look forward to experiencing the new parks and shoreline walks in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island.
 

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Top 5 Dream Days in 2016, Savoring the Art Scene in Cape Town

Frankly, every day we spent in Cape Town in September was a dream, from strolling the magnificent gardens of Kirstenbosch to sampling the wines of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek to biking the Cape of Good Hope. But it’s hard to top the first day in Cape Town, waking up to a gluttonous feast at the classic Mount Nelson Hotel and then being escorted to the top art studios in town by local bead merchant, Stephen Long. The Gallery Shop, on bustling Church Street (48), is a gem of a small store selling colorfully beaded jewelry, sculpture, wall hangings, pillowcases, and more. Owner Lorin Strieman used to run the gift shop at the National Gallery and she has a great eye for contemporary South African craft. It’s hard not to purchase all the whimsical beaded animals at Monkeybiz. It was wonderful to walk upstairs and see the artists sitting together and laughing while creating art. Just as alluring was the work at Streetwires, where sculpture of all sizes is created by wire and bead. Bags in hand from all the goods we purchased, we visited the colorful houses and mosques found in the Bo-Kaap neighborhood still home to a large Cape Malay population. That evening, we were back in the center of town for First Thursday Art Walk, a great opportunity to see all the art galleries on Church Street with a glass of Stellenbosch pinotage in hand. That’s what I call a Dream Day! 
 
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Urban Renewal Awards, Spectacle Island, Boston Harbor

One of 34 Boston Harbor Islands that dot the waterfront and are part of a National Historic Park, Spectacle Island had its heyday in the 1840s as a large gambling resort and brothel. As of late, the island was merely a dumping ground for garbage. Then someone had the brilliant idea to create a dike to contain the trash and use the dirt from The Big Dig to reshape the island, providing topsoil for planting trees and other shrubbery.  Today, the heaping mound of soil has created the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine. Leaving its smelly past behind, the 105-acre park has a trail system weaving through the interior, beaches to comb for sea glass, and public access by ferry. Local naturalist and Walden author Henry David Thoreau didn’t have Spectacle Island in mind when he spoke of preserving America’s “wild spaces,” but it’s refreshing to see good ole Yankee ingenuity at work.
 

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