WIDE ANGLE: Caribou along Alaska's Hulahula River (courtesy, Arctic Wild)
Need an escape from bad news, cell-phone coverage, and endless to-do lists? How does "in the middle of nowhere" sound? No, we're not engaging in PR-spiced hyperbole here. If you're looking for escape, then you need to seriously consider this 11-day, 90-mile journey along the Hulahula River, which cuts a magnificent swath through Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Upend your workaday circadian rhythms by floating off into the land of the midnight sun, where you'll share all that solitude with a crew of fellow rafters and the occasional musk oxen, grizzly bear, herd of caribou, or Arctic fox.
With its headwaters high in the Arctic Range, the Class II-III Hulahula flows north past towering peaks and wide open tundra valleys toward the Arctic Ocean; it's an epic journey through some of the most pristine ecosystems and remote wilderness on earth. Arctic Wild, a wilderness guiding company based in Fairbanks, Alaska, does all the hard work for you like packing the gear in the rafts, guiding you safely down the river, and cooking delicious, mostly organic meals under big skies that never seem to fade. All you have to do is bring a few personal items and a great sense of adventure (oh, and maybe some bug repellent—but remember, a million mosquitoes can't be wrong...). Out here you're at the mercy of Mother Nature, not your boss or an upcoming deadline, so be ready for a quick change in weather, a cold splash of water, and some of North America's most magnificent scenery. -- Linda Long
From riotous to lazy, GORPTravel's 2008 Rafting Guide offers a state-by-state guide to the whitewater of the United States, including six wild rivers in Alaska.
1. The Inside Passage, Alaska
2. Morocco by Camel
3. Phuket, Thailand, by Elephant
4. The Masai Mara, Kenya
5. The Burren, Ireland
6. The Bhosporus, Turkey
7. Borneo's Rainforest
8. Great St. Bernard Pass, Switzerland
9. Bucks County, Pennsylvania
10. The Orient Express
11. Le Marche, Italy
12. The Huangshan Mountains, China
13. Lake Okeechobee, Florida
14. Eden Project, Cornwall, England
15. Nova Scotia, Canada
16. Stockholm and Its Islands, Sweden
17. Snowdonia, Wales
18. Transylvania, Romania
19. Reykjavik, Iceland
20. The Impossible Dream: Under the Sea
Have you visited any of these dream destinations? Don't agree with the selections on this list? Or do you have your own list of places you want to visit? Tell us in the comments section below!
ALL THAT JAZZ: The Montreal Jazz Festival runs June 26 to July 3. (Stephan Poulin/courtesy, Tourisme Montreal)
Looking for ways to get in your dose of culture, art, film, and music without being stuck in the innards of some half-full art-house cinema? Luckily for you, warm weather equals festival season, so join us as we hit the circuit and mix it up with the world's top artists, glitterati, and mud-splattered teenage moshers.
Film buffs are busy pressing their tuxes for the annual roster of summer celluloid fests. Over in Europe, things kick off in grand style at Cannes, which begins in mid-May; the Venice International Film Festival bookends the season of the surprising and not-so surprising at the end of August. More intimate, yet no less artistic, stateside gatherings include the Maui Film Festival, held in June, or the Telluride Film Festival, held over Labor Day weekend. (Diehard aficionados will probably want to pack a wardrobe of penguin suits to pick off the Toronto International Film Festival in September and Banff Mountain Film Festival in November—OK, Tevas will work for this one—before starting the whole film-obsessed road show again in January 2009 at Sundance.)
Culture Warriors: Riders in traditional Tibetan dress (courtesy, Tibetan Village Project)
When he learned of his father's death back home in Tibet in 2001, Tamdin Wangdu was living 8,000 miles away in the United States. Then a student at Colorado University in Denver, the news left Tamdin both distraught and frustrated. Suffering from acute stomach pain for over four days, his father, 57, had died without access to basic health care or being able to reach the nearest hospital, which was a taxing five-day ride from his rural village by horseback. Tamdin's grief, however, gave rise to the hopeful Tibetan Village Project, which seeks to improve the lives of rural Tibetans through better access to health care, education, and basic transportation infrastructure like bridges. The video below, a shortened version of a 2005 documentary by Chris Wallace, highlights the valuable work of this nonprofit.
The Colorado-based Tibetan Village Project also coordinates several voluntourism trips each year to Tibet through its Conscious Journeys program. Dedicated to promoting sustainable development while preserving the rich cultural heritage of Tibet, the two- to three-week trips combine sightseeing and cultural exploration with hands-on, service-oriented interactions with local communities.
If you're interested in learning more about the growing trend in volunteer travel, visit Away.com's comprehensive Guide to Volunteer Vacations.
Real Deal: Kenya's recent political turmoil spooked the tourists but took nothing away from its amazing wildlife. (Corbis)
Looking for great travel deals is a popular pastime. It seems everyone has a different strategy for reaching the holy grail of travel—a great experience at a reasonable price.
That used to be pretty easy. Value-conscious travelers just booked a trip during the off-season. But now that everyone is traveling during the off-season, the off-season has become the on-season.
The real insiders, meantime, have shifted from a seasonal strategy to a contrarian strategy.
In essence, a contrarian traveler looks for circumstances or events that have lowered demand for a particular travel service or destination. In a time of higher demand (and prices), it may be the only way to get a luxury trip at a low price. Here are four ways to go contrarian:
As the reported death toll from last weekend's devastating cyclone in Myanmar climbs to over 22,000, international aid is slowly beginning to trickle into the hard-hit Southeast Asian country. In an unusual act of openness, the country's ruling military junta has appealed for help from international aid organizations; groups including UNICEF, the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, and Save the Children are requesting donations to help with the relief effort. One of the worst natural disasters to hit the region since the 2004 Asian tsunami, Cyclone Nargis swept through the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta, which is home to half of the country's 48 million people and a major rice-growing region for the isolated country.
To learn more about travel to Myanmar, plus to weigh in on whether it's right or wrong to visit countries ruled by politically oppressive regimes, read Outside magazine's April article, "See Mo' Evil".
In Vietnam's former hill station of Dalat, one landmark hotel is indulging the city's colonial legacy from the plush, velvet interior of a car that's so evocatively colonial, you wonder whether you're sitting in a car or a time machine.
First, the hotel. It's the 1922-built Dalat Palace, a refurbished chateau that doesn't recall colonial France so much as palatial France. Following a multimillion-dollar facelift in the mid-1990s, the 43-room property is now operated by luxury international hotelier Sofitel. And for those travelers who think they know Dalat from the guidebooks and travel magazines, the Palace is charting new avenues for experiencing the old city—from the perspective of a renovated 1952 Citroen Traction sedan.
The Palace renovated the car in 2005 after it sat rusting on the hotel's grounds for years, "dying like a flower pot," according to the hotel's general manager, Antoine Sirot. The car itself looks more like 1932 than 1952, which is actually the last year that Citroen manufactured this style of car.
Solitude and singletrack in Colorado's San Juan Mountains (courtesy, San Juan Hut Systems)
Stuck with the vacation-planning blues? Faced with too many options and too little time? Fear not, friends, we've recruited the adventure-travel experts at GORPtravel.com to join our crack team of travel bloggers. Part of a regular series, this column will help you find that trip of a lifetime, whether that's a supported trek through the Swiss Alps, a multiday family rafting adventure, or a quick outdoor getaway for next weekend. -- The Away.com Editors
With gasoline prices not going south any time soon, why not take a self-guided trip using your own pedal power this summer? San Juan Hut Systems, one of GORPtravel.com's newest providers, is offering a pair of self-guided mountain-biking trips ($750 per person per week) that cut across the high alpine terrain of Colorado's San Juan Mountains and down into the famous slickrock canyons near Moab, Utah. Departing from either Durango or Telluride, riders will cover about 215 miles total, bedding down each night in remote mountain huts set amidst some the country's most beautiful national forests.
Lounging in Laos: The Southeast Asian country scores high on green points (Corbis)
In honor of Earth Day coming up April 22, this week we've rounded up the Web's best links on eco-friendly travel. After all, now that the weather outside isn't so frightful anymore, it's time to get outside and love the land you've got.
With 900 million international travelers in 2007 alone, no matter how socially conscious those travelers may be, the effects of tourism on the environment are inescapable. The United Nations has taken action and created the Green Passport initiative, designed to educate and encourage people to be more responsible world travelers, from making more eco-friendly choices to learning about the customs of different societies to be a more respectful visitor. The website even reminds us that "when appropriate, balloons, horses, donkeys, sailboats and dog sleds are also transport solutions." Touché, U.N.
But when those donkeys are out to pasture, one of the best ways to "green" your transport is to cut out the vehicles that gulp down fossil fuels, and to take to the streets on bike or on foot. As a nod to Earth Day, on April 22 W Hotels Worldwide, which has 21 properties in major cities across the U.S. and around the world, will be giving guests free bikes and helmets as an alternative to riding cars.
This playful little video retrospective is culled from my recent time exploring Japan's mountains (Hakuba Ski Resort and Hokkaido's Niseko Ski Resort) and cities (Tokyo and Kyoto). It includes footage of train rides into Tokyo's financial district, a clip of one of the country's conveyor-belt parking garages, and the temples and shrines of Kyoto. Japanese rockabilly tunes come courtesy of the The 5.6.7.8's' "Let's Go Boogaloo" (Teenage Mojo Workout). Enjoy. -- Nathan Borchelt
Need an escape from bad news, cell-phone coverage, and endless to-do lists? How does "in the middle of nowhere" sound? No, we're not engaging in PR-spiced hyperbole here. If you're looking for escape, then you need to seriously consider this 11-day, 90-mile journey along the Hulahula River, which cuts a magnificent swath through Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Upend your workaday circadian rhythms by floating off into the land of the midnight sun, where you'll share all that solitude with a crew of fellow rafters and the occasional musk oxen, grizzly bear, herd of caribou, or Arctic fox.
Away.com has partnered with LIFE Books to bring you an exclusive excerpt from the recently published 
Looking for great travel deals is a popular pastime. It seems everyone has a different strategy for reaching the holy grail of travel—a great experience at a reasonable price.
