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Hiking Though Lush Fern Canyon

When it comes to natural beauty, California is blessed with an abundance of riches. So much in fact that many of its state park like Pfeiffer Burns in Big Sur, Crystal Cove in Laguna Beach, and Prairie Creek Redwoods in Orick easily rival the scenery of numerous national parks in America. To reach Prairie Creek Redwoods, you take a spectacular coastal route, Highway 101, north of Trinidad (a small beach community definitely worth a visit) to Orick and then take a twisting dirt road, Davison Road, through groves of mega-sized redwoods to reach the remote sands. Those in the know booked the campsite on Gold Bluffs Beach while others should drive to the end of the dirt road to the Fern Canyon parking lot. As the name implies, Fern Canyon is a gulch with steep walls covered in glistening ferns, rivulets of water dripping down like a soft sprinkler system. On the short walk over to the canyon, trunks of spruce and red alder are covered in moss, giving you a hint that you’re in for a treat. Enveloped in this sanctuary of green, you walk as far as you like, crossing a stream on logs numerous times, before simply returning. But don’t just jump back into your car. Head over to the beach, where we spotted a buck elk with huge antlers gnawing at the sea grasses. Yes, Prairie Creek Redwoods is home to a large elk herd. A nice bonus!
 
A big thanks to Humboldt County for a great week of traveling! I’ll be back on Monday with one more blog from my trip, the surprisingly good Humboldt County wine. 
 

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Maine Windjammer Week, Special Events

Returning from Acadia National Park one summer with the family, we wisely timed our return drive to coincide with the annual Camden Windjammer Festival the last weekend in August. More than 20 tall ships arrive in the picturesque harbor to take part in the festivities. We enjoyed an all-you-can-eat lobster feast on the deck of a schooner and then watched a talent show as crews sing sea shanties. A firework show tops off the night.
 
This summer, there will be six gatherings of the schooner fleet. It’s a festive time to be aboard one of the schooners:
 
June 9 Schooner Gam 
To kick off the summer season, the entire windjammer fleet ties up together in Penobscot Bay to enjoy live music and take walking tours of each vessel. 
 
The grand sail parade enters picturesque Boothbay Harbor, where you’ll enjoy
concerts, crafts, and fireworks. 
 
July 4 Great Schooner Race
North America’s largest annual gathering of tall ships race from Islesboro to Rockland. After the award ceremony, enjoy live music. 
 
July 11 Maine Windjammer Parade
This time the grand parade of sails heads past the mile-long Rockland Breakwater, providing spectators with stunning, close-up views.
 
Aug 39-31 Camden Windjammer Festival
Festivities include a parade of sail, maritime heritage fair, fireworks, chowder challenge, schooner crew talent show, family scavenger hunt, outdoor movies and more.
 
September 9 Wooden Boat Sail-in
The last gathering of the fleet takes place in Brooklin, Maine, the headquarters
of WoodenBoat Magazine and WoodenBoat School. Expect live music and boat school tours. 
 
I want to thank the Maine Windjammer Association for allowing me to rekindle fond memories of past sails this week. I’m excited to return this summer! 
 
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Connecticut’s Water’s Edge Resort & Spa Unveils 20 New Villas

Smack dab between New York and Boston on the Connecticut coast, the Water’s Edge Resort first made its debut in 1946. Over the years, the beachfront property has earned a reputation for excellent service and top-notch entertainment, attracting such performers as Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen. Entertainment is still at the forefront of this Long Island Sound getaway, but now you can add spacious comfort to the resume. Twenty two-bedroom villas, ranging in size from 1,100 to 1,300 square feet, have just made their debut. Each of the villas features a fully equipped kitchen with Viking appliances, two full baths, elevator access, gas fireplaces, flat panel LCD televisions, spacious balconies, and private beach access, ideally suited for families or two couples. To celebrate the new villas, Water’s Edge Resort & Spa is offering two deals. Snag a villa between now and May 19, 2013 for two nights and you’ll receive a third night free. In the next offer, guests who reserve a villa for a weeklong summer vacation by March 15, 2013 get 10% off the weekly rental price. 

 
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Lausanne’s Bounty of Museums

For a city of only 140,000, Lausanne is blessed with 22 museums. Actually 23 museums if you count the archaeologist I met yesterday who opened a one-room museum devoted to the history of shoes, including her recreation of a Neolithic shoe. Home to the International Olympic Committee or IOC, Lausanne’s best known museum is the Olympic Museum, now double in size after a two-year renovation. The three-floor display first looks at the pageantry of the Olympic Games, displaying every torch used since 1896 and showcasing the elaborate structures cities created to constantly up the ante, like the Bird’s Nest Stadium built for the Beijing games. The second floor was my favorite, showing memorabilia from the games, like Jesse Owens running shoes from the ‘36 Games in Berlin, Michael Phelps swimsuit, Sergey Bubka’s pole vault, goalie Jim Craig’s jersey from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” game, Roger Federer’s racquet, Usain Bolt’s jersey, and Michael Johnson’s gold sneakers. The last floor, you can try your hand at shooting a gun in the biathlon, see the medals awarded at every Olympics (the Vancouver Winter Games medal were very stylish), and stand on the podium from the Sydney Games. 
 
There are two other museums in town that should not be missed. Collection de L’Art Brut is an art museum that rose to prominence from artist Jean Dubuffet’s wildly imaginative collection of art from outside the mainstream. Searching for purity in art, he collected naïve works, primitive works, and simply works by the insane or incarcerated. Many of the bios start the same way—said artist was abandoned by his father, raised in poverty by his mother, and ended up in a mental institution. The works are fascinating, like the whimsical paintings of the Lausanne-born artist, Aloïse, who imagined she was having an affair with an emperor. She would use rose petals, toothpaste, and crushed leaves to create her pairs of lovers. Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve would create masks entirely from shells. Other works are so detail oriented like the paintings of Augustin Lesage that it wasn’t much a stretch to think of the artist as mad. 
 
We were fortunate to be in Lausanne during their annual Night of Museums, when all the museums in town stay open until 1 am and folks crowd the streets strolling from museum to museum. We took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Fondation de l’Hermitage, a 19th-century estate on a hillside above town (not far from Coco Chanel’s and David Bowie’s former home) that specializes in 19th-century art. We toured the museum’s collection of European art, including works by Degas and Caillebotte, then entered a special exhibition on 19th-century American art, like the Hudson River School painters and the Luminists. Outside, the American theme continued as a DJ played old-school hip-hop like Grandmaster Flash and people danced. The museum was packed both inside and I was delighted to see numerous families checking out art until the wee hours of the morning. I would love my hometown of Boston to host a similar type of event! 
 
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Lapland’s Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, A Winter Wonderland

It’s not everyday that I get to sit down at my local coffee shop and meet a Laplander of Sami descent. But there I was yesterday with my wife, travel agent Lisa Leavitt, and Ari Siivikko, Marketing Manager of Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort. I receive a slew of media requests to meet people from around the globe when they make their way to Boston, and I usually decline the majority of those requests. I just don’t have the time. But after checking out this unique resort online, I had to meet Ari. The property lies 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle in northern Finland. After an 80-minute flight from Helsinki, you’re picked up by snow shuttle or snowmobile and escorted to the resort. Here, you’ll find upscale log cabins with requisite sauna, snow igloos, and the main reason I took this meeting, glass igloos. See, Kakslautannen is one of the best places in the world to see the Northern Lights. And if you read my story in the Boston Globe on seeing the Northern Lights in northern Maine, you’ll realize that the winter of 2013/2104 is supposed to be a stellar year for solar activity. Within the glass igloo, you simply lie down, preferably with a glass of chilled Finnish vodka, and wait for the kaleidoscopic light show to happen. 

 
Daytime activities are just as enticing. Choose from a wide variety of winter offerings, from cross-country skiing on 150 miles of groomed trails, dogsledding, snowmobiling, horseback riding, ice fishing Sami-style, or taking a reindeer-led snow ride. Snowmobilers and dogsledders also have the opportunity to spend an overnight at a wilderness hut, way out in the forest. Ari mentioned that a typical stay is 3 to 5 nights, with many clientele spending a night or two in Helsinki and then taking a 3-hour train to St. Petersburg to see the Hermitage without the summer cruise crowds. 
 
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Follow Cruise Expert Fran Golden On Her New Blog

Working professionally as a travel writer since 1990, I’m fortunate to know the best in the business. If I want to send a client on a European skiing trip with the family, I’m calling Everett Potter for his keen insight. For a golf outing in Scotland, longtime scribe Larry Olmsted is your man. For cruise travel, I’ve always relied on the expertise of Fran Golden. In fact, I’ve quoted her for many of my cruise pieces. Golden has covered the cruise industry for more than 15 years and has personally sailed aboard more than 100 cruise ships. She’s the former travel editor of the Boston Herald and former travel news editor for AOL. Now she’s just been hired by Porthole Cruise Magazine to launch its new blog. If you want to know about the latest cruise ships and their enticing itineraries, it would be worth your while to visit this new blog on a regular basis. 

 
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Millennials are Driving the Comeback of Travel Agents

When my wife and I launched our travel agency, ActiveTravels, close family and friends scoffed at the idea—as if I just announced that I was becoming a blacksmith. After all, wasn’t it President Obama who suggested in a town hall meeting that travel agents were becoming obsolete? How could they possibly prosper against big-pocket online travel agencies (OTAs) like Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, and Orbitz? There was just no need for them anymore, or was there? Since we opened in May 2012, without benefit of advertising dollars or a marketing department, there has been a steady stream of traffic. 

 
This past week, it was reported that in 2014, 18 percent of American travelers used traditional travel agents compared to 12 percent in 2013. That’s a big jump. And surprisingly, much of that increase is coming from the Millennial generation, not Baby Boomers. Indeed, 28 percent of Millennials used a travel agent last year. The main reason Millennials are using travel agents is that they are more adventurous travelers. They want to go to off-the-beaten track destinations and they want trusted local guides to help them feel safe and secure once they get there. This is music to my ears, especially as we continue to grow a network of reputable contacts around the globe, from Indonesia to Ethiopia to India to Argentina. All you need is the desire to travel overseas and we’ll arrange the rest with local guides around the world. If you need more reasons to persuade you to hire a travel agent, check out my story for Boston University School of Hospitality. 
 

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