Choosing a Summer Adventure: Seven Tips
Explore your options: The world of adventure travel touring has grown to embrace a globe-girdling range of options, from remote mountain trekking to backyard biking, island cruising to heli-hiking. Take some time to fire your imagination by exploring different companies’ catalogs and web sites – it’s a big world out there!
Know your goals: Now that you know the options, ask yourself what exactly you want to get out of this vacation. Do you want to stretch yourself through immersion in a totally foreign place? Or do you want to just unwind and bind on a close-to-home getaway? Do you want a physically challenging trip? Or do you want to kick back and leave the driving to someone else?
Pinpoint your parameters: After you’ve defined your goals, factor in your budget and your window of travel time. Be sure to include the time and expense it will take to get from your home to your trip’s departure point and back.
Tailor your trip: Now you can begin to narrow your focus. What part of the world do you want to explore? What kind of experience and level of exertion are you interested in? If your dream vacation is a gentle outdoor adventure in Europe, consider a biking or hiking trip to Italy or France. If you want an extreme expedition into pristine wilderness, how about Patagonia, Mongolia or Tibet? You can sail through the Galapagos or raft through the Grand Canyon, kayak in Colorado or camp in Costa Rica, bond with bison in Yellowstone or meditate with monks in Bhutan. Maximize your chances for satisfaction by choosing the place and itinerary that’s most likely to meet your needs and dreams.
Begin before you go: Once you’ve settled on your destination, get there before you go by reading some good books. A guidebook will introduce you to the people, culture, history, traditions and attractions of the place you’re visiting; novels and non-fiction will fill out the local character and color. Many tour companies will send you recommended reading lists; surf the Internet for further suggestions. Bottom line: The more you know before you go, the better you’ll appreciate the places you see and people you meet on the road.
Pack light and right: A week before your departure, practice packing. Seriously. This will give you (1) the chance to discover all the things you need and haven’t prepared – and the opportunity to get them sans last-minute panic attack; and 2) the time to refine your packing list. If your tour company provides you with a packing list, follow its guidelines. But if you’re packing on your own, follow Don’s Rule of Halves: Spread all the clothes you think you’ll need on your bed -- and then put half of them away. Trust me, you’ll survive without them. And here’s the real deal: If you can cram everything you need into a carry-on bag, you’ll double your pleasure: on departure when you skip past the baggage check-in line, and on arrival when you breeze by your fellow passengers waiting for their bags.
Don’t leave home without them: Whatever else you pack, be sure to bring your patience and your sense of humor. Adventure travel’s second law of tourdynamics states that even on the most meticulously organized trips, something will go wrong. Planes will be delayed; buses will break down; museums will close mysteriously; fellow travelers will oversleep. When these happen, you can choose to fuss and fume -- or you can enjoy the unexpected. Enjoy. Strike up a conversation with your departure gate neighbor. Break out your bus-bound bread and cheese and share them while you admire the poppies and thatched-roof farmhouses in that far-off field. Walk right by that uncooperative museum and snag a sidewalk seat at the corner café; the street theater that ensues will prove at least as illuminating as the artifacts inside. And as for your tardy tour-mate, study your surroundings more closely -- you may be rewarded with a precious portrait of that timeworn temple you never would have seen if you hadn't had to wait.
Of course there’s no way to guarantee you’ll choose an adventure that’s perfect for you. But following these seven simple steps will give you traction on the road to summer satisfaction.
