Hiking
Whitewater rafting trips are one good option for baby boomer adventurers. Photo from Whitewater Connection
Over the past several years, I’ve had the following exciting, sometimes scary, often challenging, but ultimately exhilarating adventures:
- Summiting a peak in British Columbia, then rappelling down the side of a cliff onto a glacier.
- Whitewater rafting in Nepal on class IV and V rivers.
- Riding a camel in the Sahara and Sinai deserts.
- Hiking for a week over the hills and dales of County Kerry in southwest Ireland.
- Feeling the rush of whales diving directly under my Zodiac and surfacing less than 20 yards away in Glacier Bay, Alaska.
- Biking 45 miles from the top of Maui’s Mount Haleakala to the shores of the Pacific, the world’s longest downhill bike ride.
- Swimming with piranhas in the Amazon.
- Mushing a dogsled team in Finland.
And I’ve done them all after the… Continue reading
Austria’s Lake Country near Salzburg. Photo from VBT.
The much-beloved film The Sound of Music, which was released in 1965 and won the Oscar for Best Picture that year, did most of its location shooting in and around the city of Salzburg, Austria.
It’s hard to imagine many baby boomers who don’t know the (somewhat fictionalized) story of how the musically inclined von Trapps — composed of would-be-nun-turned-nanny Maria (Julie Andrews), Baron von Trapp (Christopher Plummer), and a parcel of cute kids who could belt out catchy tunes like “Do-Re-Mi” — became a family and fled the Nazis in Austria for safe haven elsewhere.
After hiking over the mountains (in the movie, at least), they eventually made their way to the United States and became known as the Trapp Family Singers.
The gorgeous Austrian scenery, the infectious music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Julie Andrews twirling on a mountaintop in the… Continue reading
Monticello, Thomas Jefferson”s home, is just outside Charlottesville and can be reached by a hiking trail. Photo by Clark Norton
Last fall after a visit to Charlottesville, Virginia, I wrote about Ten Things I Didn’t Know about this lovely Virginia city where my daughter now lives.
And now, after a recent second visit, I’ve compiled a list of Five More Things I Didn’t Know About “C’Ville.” So I guess I’m learning. (Stay tuned next year for “One or Two More Things I Didn’t Know About Charlottesville?”)
You could call this the “sports and outdoor activities” edition of the things I didn’t know. It was warmer in October than it was last year in late November, so I got outside more, including to a University of Virginia night football game, a win over Pitt that came complete with exploding scoreboard every time UVA scored, enough cheerleaders and band members to… Continue reading
The pool at Calistoga Spa Hot Springs in California’s Napa Valley. Photo from Calistoga Spa Hot Springs.
As we get older (yeah, I know, who wants to be reminded of that?), we need to focus more on our health: eating better, staying active, perhaps taking brisk morning walks or gardening.
I also ride an exercycle, handy for winter days in New York when I can’t ride my bike outdoors.
But travel can also play a big role. Wellness retreats, for instance, allow you to get away from your usual daily activities and focus on renewing your health.
Wellness retreats offer a wide variety of services to rejuvenate your mind and body. Most options are relatively inexpensive and provide an all-new way of relieving mental and physical stress.
From centers in the U.S. and abroad, you can find the ideal retreat to suit your needs — and… Continue reading
On the hike up the Mannlichen. Photo from Swiss Tourism
Though it lacks the glitz and glamour of St. Moritz, Gstaad, or Zermatt, the Jungfrau region may be the most truly “Swiss” of any alpine resort area in Switzerland.
All the prototypical Swiss images are here: the towering snow-capped peaks, the glacier-cut valleys, the flower-blanketed meadows, the rushing rivers and thundering waterfalls, the neatly trimmed A-frame chalets, the colorful little cogwheel trains chugging up the hillsides.
If you encountered Heidi on your morning walk, you wouldn’t blink twice.
And while towns like Wengen, Mürren, and Grindelwald may not be household names in the U.S., the Swiss know them well. The Jungfrau was one of the first alpine resort areas in Europe, and the Swiss have flocked here for outdoorsy vacations for more than a century.
While no area of Switzerland is exactly a budget haven, the Jungfrau region – situated… Continue reading
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