May is the Month to Visit Ottawa
If you never had the chance to visit Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, then you’ve missed out on seeing North America’s only version of the Changing of the Guard ceremony, the morning ritual where dozens of red-coated soldiers with bearskin hats parade down city streets to the lawn of Parliament Hill. The best month to visit the city is in May during the Canadian Tulip Festival. From May 4-21, over three million tulips bloom in Ottawa. Visitors can sample food and entertainment from around the world at the International Pavilion, located near Commissioners Park, where 300,000 tulips bloom alone. Later in the month, Dutch tulips give way to a Dutch painter named Vincent Van Gogh. From May 25 to September 3, the National Gallery of Canada will present Van Gogh: Up Close, which explores the artist’s representation of nature. Visitors can marvel at 45 of Van Gogh’s paintings, including The Iris. Afterwards, reenergize with a BeaverTail. This wholewheat pastry, cooked in canola oil, and topped with a variety of savory toppings like chocolate, jam, pie filling, or cinnamon, is available year-round in Ottawa’s ByWard Market neighborhood.
Come winter, Montreux serves as a base for skiers who want the cosmopolitan feel of a city after spending a day on the slopes. It’s only an hour train ride to the exclusive resort town of Gstaad, 90 minutes to Zermatt and the Matterhorn. If you want to stay closer to town, you can simply hop on a train to Aigle and then take the mountain train up to 
As an outdoor writer based in New England, I’ve spent a good deal of time following in Henry David Thoreau’s footsteps, from climbing Monadnock and Katahdin to walking the shoreline of the upper Cape to swimming in Walden Pond. In 1864, the great naturalist and philosopher published his book “The Maine Woods” that chronicles his exploration of the remote Maine waterways. In October 2009, I had the good fortune to paddle down the West Branch of the Penobscot River following his route. Our guide was Kevin Slater, a legendary Maine paddler who learned these rivers and the skill to carve his own canoes and paddles from his mentor who he simply called, “the Old Timer.” We spent four glorious days on the water, with few other paddlers, spotting moose, bear, loons, and osprey. In the backdrop was mighty Katahdin, the end point of the Appalachian Trail. The 
Phil Black was a competitive fly-fisherman, flying all across the globe to compete in fishing contests. Then he took one taste of the Deschutes, hooking the unique rainbow trout called the “redsides” and the gluttony of steelheads, and he never left central Oregon. Now Black spends his day guiding adrenalin junkies down the Deschutes whitewater with